By Lauren Weber, Rachel Roubein — Robert F. Kennedy Jr. defended his messaging on vaccines amid a growing measles outbreak, the firing of thousands of federal health workers, and major cuts to the health agencies he oversees as he faced lawmakers Wednesday on Capitol Hill.
The secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services appeared before a House Appropriations subcommittee and moved to the Senate health committee in the afternoon for a pair of hearings that are Kennedy’s first time testifying before Congress since being sworn in.
During one of the sharpest lines of questioning in the first hearing, Rep. Mark Pocan (D-Wisconsin) asked if Kennedy would vaccinate his own child against measles today. Kennedy paused before answering, “Probably.”
Kennedy went on to say, “I don’t think people should be taking medical advice from me,” and he did not directly answer whether he would vaccinate his own children against chicken pox and polio today.
“I think what we’re going to try to do,” he said, “is to lay out the pros and cons, the risks and benefits accurately, as we understand them.”
Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D- Connecticut) said at the end of the hearing: “You’re making medical decisions every day. You’re the secretary of HHS. You have tremendous power over health policy. Really horrified that you will not encourage families to vaccinate their children.”
As the nation is in the grip of the deadliest measles outbreak in decades, Democrats used the moment to hammer Kennedy on his response. He initially underplayed the severity of the outbreak and has promoted unproven treatments, while saying that vaccination is a personal choice. Kennedy has contended that he is simply seeking good data about vaccines and said during his confirmation hearing this year that he supports the measles vaccine.
In addition to questioning Kennedy on measles, lawmakers in the House hearing largely focused on the cuts to HHS under Kennedy’s leadership.
The Trump administration has moved to reshape the nation’s public health infrastructure through eliminating roughly 20,000 jobs, ousting top career officials, threatening billions of dollars in federally funded scientific research and proposing a major reorganization of the health department. Such actions have been deeply divisive, with Democrats and public health experts expressing strong concern that the changes will damage the nation’s public health infrastructure, and Kennedy and his allies countering that they are necessary to refocus the federal government on addressing chronic disease.
In his opening remarks before the House panel, Kennedy said he is focusing on fighting “debilitating disease, contaminated food, toxic environments, addiction, mental health, and illness [affecting] families across every race, class and political belief.”
“An exploding debt is a social determinant of health,” Kennedy said. “We must spend smarter.”
HHS has launched an unprecedented downsizing and restructuring of the workforce – reducing staff from 82,000 to 62,000, which the department has said will save $1.8 billion annually, as well as reducing HHS’s 28 divisions to 15.
Kennedy dodged some questions related to cuts to his department, saying he is “under a court order not to do any further planning on the reorganization” and has been advised by his attorneys not to talk about it.
Rep. Steny H. Hoyer (D-Maryland) pressed Kennedy on who made the decisions regarding massive cuts to HHS: billionaire Elon Musk, who has led the Department of Government Efficiency, or Kennedy himself.
“Elon Musk gave us help in figuring out where there was waste, fraud and abuse in the department, but it was up to me to make the decision,” Kennedy said. “And there are many instances where I pushed back and said, ‘We don’t want to; that would hurt us to eliminate that group.’”
Hoyer pressed further, asking if an analysis was undertaken on the consequences of the cuts that he can provide the committee. Kennedy argued that the cuts were made to get rid of duplications at HHS.
Later in the hearing in response to questions from Rep. Riley Moore (R-West Virginia), Kennedy said 328 employees who had been fired have been reinstated at the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH), one of the hardest-hit centers at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. About one-third of those reinstated were based in Morgantown, West Virginia.
A federal judge on Tuesday ordered the reinstatement of nearly 200 fired federal workers from NIOSH who screen coal miners for black lung, a deadly and incurable disease caused by inhaling toxic coal dust.
Some Republicans are defending the overhaul, arguing that the agencies spend large sums of money but that their efforts are not sufficiently effective.
“Despite this massive and growing investment, Americans’ health outcomes lag behind their peers,” said Rep. Robert B. Aderholt (R-Alabama), chairman of the House Appropriations subcommittee tasked with overseeing HHS funds.
The hearings are being billed as Kennedy’s opportunity to defend the Trump administration’s budget proposal released earlier this month, which called for a 26 percent reduction to the department’s budget of $127 billion for discretionary spending. But lawmakers capitalized on the moment to ask a wide range of questions, particularly demanding answers on the most controversial issues facing the nation’s sweeping health department.
House Democrats did not hold their fire, blasting the Secretary over cuts to the nation’s biomedical research, staffing and entire public health apparatus.
“Under your budget proposal, Americans would die needless and preventable deaths,” said DeLauro, the top Democrat on the Appropriations Committee. She argued that China is recruiting premier U.S. scientists away from the country due to the cuts.
In a separate lengthy exchange about the Indian Health Service, Kennedy said that “ultraprocessed food is a genocide on the American Indian, and we have to end it.”
He went on to rail more against the makeup of popular America foods: “For some of these ingredients, we just need to let the public know and probably do labeling so that people can make their own choice,” Kennedy said. “If you want to eat a Twinkie, if you want to drink a Coca-Cola, you should be able to do that. We’re a free country. But you ought to know that it may increase your cancer risk and that it may increase your risk for diabetes.”
Kennedy also repeatedly criticized the past actions and alleged failures of the agencies within HHS, with particularly condemnatory language directed at the National Institutes of Health.
“Over the years, it was captured by industry and by, I think, a kind of, ossification that happened at NIH, because of the longevity of some of the leadership there. And there was a tremendous amount of corruption,” Kennedy said.
Kennedy has made targeting fluoride one of his signature issues. On Tuesday, the Food and Drug Administration said it is seeking to remove prescription fluoride for children from the market, escalating the Trump administration’s campaign against the cavity-fighting mineral.
Rep. Mike Simpson (R-Idaho), who noted his years working as a dentist, pushed back against Kennedy’s efforts to ban fluoride. America would need a lot more dentists to confront an exploding number of cavities, he said.
Public health leaders were quick to attack Kennedy for saying it was not his job as the top health official to give advice on vaccination.
“His job description is the nation’s chief health strategist,” said American Public Health Association head Georges C. Benjamin. Kennedy is “constantly giving people advice,” Benjamin said, but it’s “bad advice,” referring to the health secretary’s promotion of treatments for measles that are not evidence-based.
Fred Boenig came to the House hearing to try to speak to Kennedy about his history of disparaging vaccination.
Boenig’s left arm has been paralyzed since he was a baby. He contracted polio when his mother took him to a river with his family before he could receive his final polio vaccination. The 66-year-old said that made him the last polio case in his New Jersey county.
Boenig caught Kennedy as he was exiting the hearing: “Innoculate your kids from polio, man,” Boenig said as Kennedy looked at him.
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Elana Gordon, Lena H. Sun and Joel Achenbach contributed to this report.
Measles vaccines were introduced in 1962. I was born in 1941, the 4th of 5 children. I remember when we all got measles and our poor Mom had to deal with 5 sick kids. But it was expected and there was no hysteria. Now that measles vaccines have been subjected to gof procedures, has it gotten more deadly?When will anyone stop listening to people with political agendas and start using common sense? Never again, I suppose.
Oh, I notice the 66 year old man had already gotten some of the polio shots. I’m 83. I did not get polio vaccinations even though it was quite the thing to do. I am sorry the man got the vaccinations as a baby and has suffered. I would not trust giving a baby HepB shots or polio shots or any of the 18 or 20 other shots that babies have to endure often with bad, and sometimes fatal, consequences.