The View finally returned from its lengthy summer hiatus on Monday (September 8) morning, and the first item on the full “Hot Topics” day agenda was Robert F. Kennedy Jr.‘s contentious congressional hearing over his anti-vaccine policies as the secretary of Health and Human Services.

All six returning panelists were incensed by RFK Jr.’s claims against vaccine safety, which were condemned by members of both parties during his testimony.

First, Whoopi Goldberg criticized Kennedy for claiming that more people died from the Covid-19 vaccine than the actual disease, though he had no statistics to back that up.

“He canceled 500 million in mRNA research. He falsely claimed that mRNA and Covid shots are the deadliest vaccines ever made,” she said. “He fired all 17 advisors on the CDC vaccine committee, and he’s hand-picked people [to replace them]. He just went and got people off the street… because none of them seem to know anything.”

Joy Behar also pointed out the hypocrisy that Kennedy himself vaccinated his own children.

Sara Haines attempted to rationalize RFK Jr.’s stance that vaccines shouldn’t be mandatory but argued why that is also problematic. “For example, [with] measles, you need 95%+ coverage, or herd immunity doesn’t work. Happens to be also the most deadly disease to the school-aged kids. It will be the fastest outbreak we see,” she predicted. “I don’t think people understand right now that this isn’t about choosing for yourself. This is protecting kids. The reason there were ever mandates is it used to be such a common part of childhood to die from these diseases.”

Behar then revealed that she personally experienced the effects of Kennedy’s policies when she was refused a Covid shot during her vacation until she could get a prescription.

Sunny Hostin also has a personal connection to the matter, pointing to the fact that her in-laws both died of Covid. “That’s a horrible loss for our family that we still feel today. We feel it. At Christmas. We feel at Thanksgiving. There are empty seats at my table. And so the notion that people can’t access vaccines, I know, will lead to death, I know it,” she said. “And this misinformation that he is providing is such a disservice — such a disservice to children, seniors, everyone.”

The conversation continued for the full 15-minute segment, and Ana Navarro had a particularly fiery response as it continued. “This to me is particularly alarming because I live in Florida, and we saw the surgeon general, the secretary of health in Florida, Dr. Ladapo, come out and not only echo what RFK said, but go a step further, they are now making vaccines in schools in Florida optional, and all of this noise that’s happening around vaccines has such an effect,” she explained. “I was with a friend who is a pediatric radiologist, and he was telling me that newborns are born with low vitamin K, they give them a shot. It is modus operandi. It is ho hum, so that they could because vitamin K allows you to do blood clotting. Parents are now choosing not to give their newborns vitamin K. So he is seeing children with brain bleeds because of the choice, and it’s also because of the skepticism.”

Alyssa Farah Griffin then pointed out that parents in Florida already had the choice not to vaccinate their children. “What’s interesting in Florida, they actually have a lot of sort of outs for people who want their choice. You can home school your kids so they’re not put into a public environment when they’re not vaccinated, where they could harm other kids. There’s religious exemptions,” she explained. “The idea of public health, though, is you do it for the greater good. You do it to protect vulnerable populations, the elderly, pregnant women, children. That used to be something we all just sort of agreed to.”

She also pointed out the irony of Donald Trump allowing RFK to condemn vaccines when it was one of his shining accomplishments in his first term. “Donald Trump, I will say this any day of the week, his single greatest accomplishment was Operation Warp Speed and helping get the Covid vaccine. And why he still runs away from that will never make sense.”

The View, weekdays, 11 a.m. ET, ABC