RFK Jr. testifies before House panel on HHS 2026 budget

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RFK Jr. testifies before House panel on HHS 2026 budget
YouTube video by Robert F. Kennedy Jr. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dSIuVCCzSNA). Transcript is the auto-caption track — verbatim ASR, not a certified transcript.

proposed budget offices that are responsible for overseeing many of these initiatives which were initiated by President Trump will be consolidated or repurposed. Now, I agree with Secretary Kennedy that HHS needs reform. Over the past several years, I've engaged stakeholders and work with colleagues to identify opportunities to modernize a wide array of HHS agencies and programs. The department needs to have an effective plan to fulfill statutory duties in tandem with efforts to increase transparency, accountability, to streamline programs, and to root out wasteful spending. Congress and the administration should work together to ensure reform, strike the right balance, and deliver for all Americans. Mr. Secretary, once more, no one can set the record straight better than you to explain how the department will maintain its critical duties and implement change important to Americans health. By providing this clarity, we and Congress will be able to advocate for shared priorities in future legislation, and you will gain the trust of the American people, putting their minds at ease. I I appreciate you being here. I look forward to hearing how the proposed HHS budget will advance President Trump's mission. And with that, I recognize Senator Sanders for his opening statement. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and Mr. Secretary. Thanks for being with us. Um, let me begin by quoting a sentence that came from your prepared remarks. You state, and I quote, "The United States remains the sickest developed nation, and we spend 4 and a.5 trillion annually on health care, two to three times more per capita than comparable nations. Clearly, something is structurally wrong with our approach." End of quote. You're right. The current health care system is broken. It is wildly expensive. It is dysfunctional. So what do we do, Mr. Secretary, to address it? Maybe for a start, we do what every other major country on earth does and recognize that healthc care is a human right guaranteed to every man, woman, and child. Maybe we understand that the function of a rational health care system is not to make hundreds of billions of dollars in profit for insurance companies and drug companies who often engage in stock buybacks pay their CEOs outrageous compensation packages. There was a guy from uh one of the major drug companies sitting exactly where you are sitting last year. a guy makes $50 million a year. Meanwhile, we don't have enough doctors. We don't have enough nurses. We don't have enough dentists. We don't have enough pharmacists. We don't have enough health care workers in general. You are right. The system is structurally broken. We spend far more. We have a shorter life expectancy than other countries. So this is an issue that I want to address with you. How in fact do we guarantee health care to all people and do it in an effective way? Let me say a word about prescription drugs. You and President Trump had a press conference earlier this week discussing an executive order that both of you claimed would make sure that the American people pay the lowest prices in the world for prescription drugs, not the highest. As you mentioned at your press conference, uh this is a concept that I personally strongly support. I think you are aware of that. But as President Trump and you should know, this executive order, like Trump's previous executive orders on the subject, will likely be thrown out by the courts, and we will be back to exactly where we are today, paying by far the highest prices in the world for prescription drugs. In my view, the way forward is through legislative action. So, if you and President Trump are serious about significantly lowering the outrageous price of prescription drugs in this country, as I hope you are, I would very much appreciate both of you working with me and other people on this committee and in the Senate on legislation that I will soon be introducing, which accomplishes exactly the same goal as you and the president talked about, making sure that We pay no more for prescription drugs than people in other major countries. So if we are serious about that, let's work together and let's make that happen. And in fact, if Republicans and Democrats come together on this, if we prioritize it, we can pass that legislation in a couple of weeks. Thirdly, Secretary Kennedy, all of us want to make the government more efficient and cost-effective and fewer deny that there is too much bureaucracy. But let me tell you also what we want and what the American people want. and that as we want the federal government to play a major role in continuing its efforts to combat such terrible diseases as cancer, Alzheimer's, diabetes, heart disease, and other terrible illnesses that claim the lives of millions of Americans. In that regard, I must tell you that I have heard from citizens, patients, and doctors in Vermont and all over this country who are deeply concerned that under the leadership of you and Mr. Musk. The Trump administration has terminated at least 13.5 billion dollars in healthc care funding, including more than 1,600 grants to conduct vital research into cancer prevention, Alzheimer's, diabetes, and cardiovascular disease, among many other medical research investments. In the first three months of this year, the National Institute of Health has been effectively cut by 2.7 billion, a 35% cut, reversing over a decade of investment in medical research. Under your leadership, cancer research has been slashed by 31%. Further, Secretary Kennedy, under your leadership, you have undermined the vital role vaccines play in preventing disease during the single largest measles outbreak in 25 years, which has led to over a thousand cases of measles, over 125 hospitalizations and three deaths. Let me say a word about US aid. Elon Musk, the richest man on earth, who has led the effort to cut health and nutrition programs for the poorest people on Earth, has absurdly suggested that no one, quote unquote, no one has died from the massive cuts to USID. Mr. Musk is 100% wrong. According to independent researchers, nearly 200,000 people have already died throughout the world as a result of the massive cuts in funding to prevent malaria, tuberculosis, HIV, malnutrition, and other serious diseases. Further, as a result of the elimination of US funding for a global vaccine program, it has been estimated that over a million children will die because of cuts that will save taxpayers very, very little money. So, let me just conclude by saying this. The United States of America is the wealthiest country on earth. We should have the best health care system in the world, not one of the worst. Given our purchasing power, we should be paying the lowest prices on earth for prescription drugs, not the highest. Instead of giving hundreds of billions of dollars in tax breaks to the richest people in this country, we should be proudly investing in coming up with cures for cancer, Alzheimer's disease, diabetes, and other terrible illnesses. That is what we should be doing. But I am afraid that in too many ways we are doing exactly the opposite. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, Senator Sanders. I'll now introduce the witness. We're joined today by the Honorable Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the 26th Secretary of the United States Department of Health and Human Services. And his role as Secretary, Mr. Kennedy, is responsible for overseeing the nation's civilian federal health agencies, which serve over 150 million Americans. We look forward to hearing from you today. Secretary Kennedy, again, thank you for And thank you, Senator Sanders. I just want to begin by saying I know how determined President Trump is uh for us to have the lowest drug prices uh in the world as between Europe and the United States. And I also know that he doesn't care how we get there. Uh that's where he wants Americans to be. and he said, I don't know how many times since, you know, I've been involved with him, but that we shouldn't be paying be be able to go to London and buy GLP for $88 that in this country cost us $1,300. And I know it's something that you've been talking about for many years, and I look forward to working with you on legislation or any way that we can to get there. Uh, thank you, Chairman Cassidy and and um and Senator Sanders. I'm honored to be before you today to present the Department of Health and Human Services fiscal year 2026 budget. Debilitating disease, contaminated food, toxic environments, addiction, and mental illness affect Americans across every race, class, and political belief. When my team and I took the helm at HHS, we set out with clear goals. First, we aimed to make America healthy again with a special focus on the chronic disease epidemic. Second, we committed to delivering more efficient, responsive, and effective service to over a 100 million Americans who rely on Medicare, Medicaid, and other programs. Third, we focus on achieving these goals while cutting costs for taxpayers. We intend to do more, a lot more with less. The budget I'm presenting today [Applause] The witness will suspend. The committee will come to order. Capital police are asked to remove the individuals from hearing. Members of the audience are reminded disruptions will Members of the audience are reminded disruptions will not be permitted while the committee conducts its business. Capital police are asked to remove the That was a made for C-SPAN moment. The secretary will resume a second, Mr. Secret. Mr. Secretary, let's let's get the the doors closed and the ruck is just totally clear. Okay. And we thank the Capitol Police for working with due diligence. Thank you very much. Mr. Secretary, please resume the budget. I appreciate the clock. The clock's been running. Um, whatever it would be. Okay. Please. All right. The budget I'm presenting today supports those goals and reflects two enduring American values, compassion and responsibility. I invite the committee to unite around these ideals with me. The United States remains the sickest developed nation in the world and we spend $4.5 trillion dollars annually on health care, two to three times more per capita than comparable nations. Clearly something is structurally and systemically wrong with this system. Furthermore, health care costs are steadily increasing at a rate of 2% greater than the economy. If we don't staunch this unsustainable hemorrhage, we will ransom our children to bankruptcy, servitude, and disastrous health consequences. Yes, an exploding debt is a social determinant of health. We won't solve this problem by throwing more money at it. We must spend smarter. We will shift funding away from bureaucracy and toward direct impact. Some things at HHS will not change. We will preserve legacy programs like Medicare, Medicaid, and Head Start as the foundation of the MA agenda. Vulnerable populations, seniors and veterans deserve consistent access to care to care and I will ensure that they receive it. Today, 83 million Americans, urban and rural, lack adequate access to primary care physicians. We will prioritize these families, especially Native American and Alaskan communities. We will protect IHS funding, streamline its operations, and give the tribes more autonomy in managing their resources. Let me be clear. We intend to make the Trump HHS not just the most effective, but also the most compassionate in US history. Our official budget statement outlines many priorities, but I want to highlight a few. First, we will consolidate programs to better tackle mental health and addiction. These issues now rival chronic disease and their impact. HHS will aggressively combat the opioid crisis, especially the spread of synthetic drugs like fentanyl. We will empower state, local, and tribal leaders to create effective solutions. Second, we will address nutrition, physical activity, and healthy lifestyles. The president's budget requests 94 billion in discretionary funds to support these priorities, including the administration for a healthy America. We will emphasize healthy eating and head start and ensure the program continues to serve its 750,000 children and parents effectively. Third, we will equip FDA to expand its food safety efforts through research, regulation, inspection, and education to remove harmful chemicals from food and packaging. Fourth, we will find cutting edge research at NIH while cutting risky or non-essential studies. That includes ending gain of function experiments and research based upon radical gender ideologies. At the CDC, we we will return to core missions tracking disease, investigating outbreaks, and sustaining public health infrastructure while cutting waste. Fifth, we will eliminate DEI funding and redirect resources toward real poverty reduction. We will move beyond lip service to communities of color and take meaningful action to meet their needs. Six, we will strengthen cyber security and health IT. The AI revolution has arrived and we are already using new technology to manage health data more efficiently and securely. Finally, we will rebuild public trust, a trust that eroded through years of industry capture, corruption, waste, and misplaced priorities. We will launch a new era of transparency and public service, creating an honest, science-driven HHS that answers to the president, to Congress, and to the American people. I look forward to working with Congress to pursue this mission together as a bipartisan cause. Let's work side by side to make America healthy again. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Secretary. I'll start with questions. Um, Mr. Mr. Secretary, I appreciate that NIH wants to recalibrate its research port portfolio to address conditions not previously attempted to sufficiently nutrition conditions such as arise after viral infection like myalagic and sephilomiolitis or chronic fatigue syndrome. But this is happening in tandem with reports that HHS is closing the office for long COVID research and practice. and I talk to people for whom long CO is seriously impacting their life. Uh so to what extent will HHS continue to support research, data collection and other programs focused on understanding ongoing health impacts of long coing treatments for long co I'm deeply involved in that personally. I have a son who is uh really dramatically affected by long co. I have many many friends who are affected by that and by Lyme disease incidentally which we also is also a priority. Uh the co office was cut by an executive order from the white house. uh but we have we're everybody at NIH and at CDC is committed to these kind of studies and I can tell you personally I will make sure that they happen. Thank you. The NIH is the largest public funer of biomedical research in the world, giving us an edge over countries like China with whom we are obviously a geopolitical rival. But it takes a long time to develop this and the rising prevalence of neurogenerative disease is one area in which we have an impending crisis if we don't support the research and advanced cures. And my concern and now I'll speak as a guy from Louisiana. if NIH funding is substantially reduced, uh they have folks at my universities at Tulain and LSU who are doing work on these sorts of things. So knowing that the NIH budget is getting squeezed and the indirect cost likewise, how will the NIH successfully do more with less? How will we build those new scientists to find these cures and to compete with geopolitical rivals? Well, for one thing, Senator Cassie, you're talking about neuro degenerative disease now, for example, ALS or Alzheimer's. ALS, right? Um, the Chinese are not uh are not spending a lot of money on DEI and they're uh and we are cutting those u studies. We're cutting studies on uh gain of function studies and we're cutting uh we're cutting grants to foreign scientists from adversarial countries and particularly the Chinese which have the thousand talents program which is openly trying to exploit uh US research and and take our IP. Um we spend more than any country in the world on biomedical research. we spend NIH uh controls about 70% of the global funding by for biomed research. The cuts we have made to date are cuts are administrative cuts as far as I know we have not fired any working scientists of the working scientists the people who are actually doing scientists. There are some people who are scientists that were doing it or administration, but in terms of who did lose their jobs, but in terms of working scientists, our policy was to make sure none of them were lost and that that research continues. Let me uh thank you. Let me ask you, the budget proposes to eliminate several large block grants for hospital and health department emergency preparedness and other core public health capabilities, explaining states are better equipped to fund these activities. Now, um I agree that frontline public health happens at the local level, but what works well in say Louisiana may not work well in a state like New York, but rural underresourced states especially rely upon federal funding to support public health. uh how do you propose we balance competing interest returning power to states because there is a difference in how different states do it but replace the funding necessary to combat um to combat these public health problems. Well, they I think it's a balance uh Mr. chairman and we have a legal obligation. CDC has a legal obligation to do national pandemic response and we will meet that obligation and in fact we are going to improve it and particularly if we can get support from this body to refund reappropriate the popup which is critical for our pandemic response. But there are some functions that are local in nature and in those cases will we we will be supporting local infrastructure to respond. They know better than we know and we saw this during some of the hurricane response where you know uh Governor DeSantis' response which was really Florida localized. there was no deaths and very little destruction to a a hurricane that was as bad as the one that followed that relied on federal response and um and was really a catastrophe for the state. So I think experience shows that the the locality is going to often do better with some functions particularly with the hospitals and infrastructure but we are not relinquishing our responsibility at CDC to manage national emergencies. Thank you Senator Sanders. Thank you Mr. Chairman. Um let me stop going back to prescription drugs. Mr. Secretary, did I hear you correctly to state that your goal is to have Americans pay the lowest prices in the world or equivalent to what is paid in other major countries? That is my goal. That you are prepared to work with us on legislation to achieve that goal. Absolutely. All right. And I believe there's bipartisan support for it. I believe that if the leadership here prioritizes that, we can do that in a very short period of time. Look forward to that. Let me ask you this. As secretary of HHS, we have in America today some 85 million Americans who are uninsured or underinsured. We spend more per capita, as you've indicated, than any other country. Is health care a human right? Are we making America healthy when so many people cannot afford to go to a doctor? when 68,000 people a year die because they don't get to a doctor when they should. Is health care a human right? Will you work with us to guarantee healthcare to every man, woman, and child in America? Well, I think you're asking two different questions. You're asking a philosophical question about whether it is a human right like a constitutional right. As an attorney, I would say that uh it's not a right of a kind that we otherwise enshrine in the constitution because healthc care costs your neighbor money. If I smoke cigarettes for 20 years and I make that choice which is my choice. I don't mean to, you know, I don't have a lot of time. So I just what I I am here. If you ask a qu, if you're asking me a philosophical question, I got to, you know, give you a thoughtful answer within 30 seconds. Yeah, it's a problem. It's not like freedom of speech, which cost, you know, every but every other country, Mr. Secretary, every other country guarantees healthcare to all people as a right. Should we as Americans? The objective is to get Americans a the level of health care that if they want the choice which Americans want Americans they don't want the choice to be uninsured. Well, they don't want the choice to die because they don't get to a doctor. Americans prefer private insurance to uh to other insurance sources. Do you believe? Okay. And I what I would say is, you know, I want to find a solution to this. I want every American to have insurance. President Trump wants every American to be insured and have access to health care. The question is how do we get there? Obamacare is not working. It is not working. And this is the are we can Okay. Sorry to interrupt you. All right. The reconciliation. My job is to try to make it work. All right. I have limited time. The piece, the reconciliation bill that is now being worked on in the House will come to the Senate as it stands right now cuts Medicaid in the Affordable Care Act by more than 715 billion dollars, which the CBO has estimated would eliminate health insurance for 13.7 13.7 million Americans and also raise co-ayments for millions of others. is throwing 13 million Americans off of the health care they have, poor and workingclass people, keeping America healthy. Well, I haven't seen that number. I've seen the number 8 million. And here are the people. The the cuts are not true cuts. The cuts are eliminations of waste, abuse, and fraud. And I can go through I can go through the people who will lose it. million people. There are millions. I really don't need to be rude, but as you know, I have a very limited amount of You asked a question. I'm going to answer it. Well, yeah, I've got a bunch of questions that I would like you to answer as well. All right. We talk about austerity doing more with less. But in that very same bill that is being worked on in the House right now, uh there are $235 billion in tax breaks for the top two10enth of 1%. Do you think that makes sense when that same bill would throw 13 million people off of Medicaid? Should we give tax breaks to billionaires and throw kids and others off of Medicaid? You're conflating the uh congressional bills with proposals from the president. The president No, I'm talking not the congressional bill. I'm talking about the bill, the reconciliation bill. I mean, the president is not trying to do tax cuts for billionaires. He's trying to have no tax on tips and no tax 235 billion by ex by how many billionaires do you know that are making overtime or making any part of the 235 billion. Look, it's a big bill. There are a lot of provisions in it, but you cannot deny the top two10 of 1% will get 235 billion in tax rates while we cut Medicaid. Okay? Senator Paul, thank you. I want to commend uh Secretary Kennedy and the administration for putting forward uh less spending. And one of the reasons I think we need to look at NIH and other grant making organizations is if you keep giving them the same amount, you'll keep getting the same frivolous grants. And I'll recite a couple of them so people can remember. 660,000 was given to study the impact of microaggressions on obesity related eating in Latinx Americans. you know, really maybe heart disease, diabetes, obesity, but eating disorders in Latinx Americans. Here's another one. 419,000 to study if lonely rats seek cocaine more than happy rats. Maybe we could eliminate that and that could go to a real disease. Uh, most recently, NIH recorded a $620,000 grant for LGBTQ plus inclusive teen pregnancy prevention program for transgender boys. And what they discovered was that girls who think they are boys are at least as likely to get pregnant as girls who think they are girls. Amazing. I the the science. But we should all agree that that's just left-wing ideology. That's not science. We should study obesity and cancer and diabetes. I I commend you for shifting the balance. I have a specific question about closing down Fort Dietrich recently. My understanding is that a contractor intentionally slashed the hazmat suit or the biosafety suit of someone who's handling Ebola. You were immediately attacked in the press by saying, "Oh, he's just anti-science. Once it end, shutting down science." Uh, was this a serious breach and is it being investigated? We brought in the FBI to investigate it. It it as you say it appears like it was deliberate criminal act to try to uh that was a kind that is uh equivalent to attempted murder because the pe the the kind of microbes the pathogens that they were handling have a very very high uh case fatality rate up to 50%. The the disturbing thing about it is that there are three leaks a week globally from BSL4 labs and any of those could be cataclysmic for humanity. And as a result, we not only brought close Fort Dietrich and we brought the FBI in to investigate that. We also declared the end of gain of function studies that can uh that will allow those kind of leaks to continue. I commend you for that. I think ultimately legislation will be needed because the next administration could reverse it. I think there is bipartisan support for some controls on gain of function. As you shut down gain of function though, you have to decide what it is and then you have to look for it. So I would suggest that at both Fort Dietrich and at the NBback lab that's nearby run by the DHS that we look at experiments involving Ebola, aven flu, uh Marberg virus to determine one whether gain of function but al determine whether the experiments are wise. I am told in public records that they are doing experiments or have done experiments to aerosolize Ebola at the NBback lab. That's the DH lab, DHS lab nearby to Fort Dietrich. Um my hope is that when you investigate whether to do gain of function or what is gain of function, what is being done, that you'll compile that and at least give us a report in Congress. We're going to ask for it. Uh but so there can be public scrutiny of these things. You will help scrutinize it. But the whole public needs to know how dangerous some of these things are and whether we should be doing them. The idea of aerosolizing Ebola, I think, is uh uh or andor training Ebola to be aerosolized is it is incredibly dangerous. Probably goes against the Biological Weapons Convention and uh I'd like to hear a little bit about whether or not as you investigate this, you plan on bringing information back to Congress or to the public. Yeah, we're going to be absolutely transparent. I'm I have a trip planned to Fort Dietrich with Christina who's the uh director of DHS and with Jay Bachara and other people uh in my agency who are experts on bioweapons who are experts on gay function research and we are going to be absolutely transparent. We've also proposed a a methodology for regulating and for determining which uh what is dangerous gain of function and what is legitimate um uh scientific investigation and how to bring the public into that debate which I think as you point out is absolutely critical. That is where we messed up last time. And as you know, we have some of the Democrats here who are, you know, talking about the great science from NIH. But now we have the major agency, intelligence agencies, the CIA, the FBI, the DOE, and the State Department have all agreed that NIH research almost certainly led to the pandemic, the COVID pandemic. So that's not the kind of the result that we should be allowing or enabling and we're going to end that now if possible the trip to Fort Dietrich and to end back we'd like to be included or invited on that trip if possible. Absolutely. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Secretary, one of my constituents, her name is Natalie Phelps. She's a mom of two from Banebridge uh island in Washington State. She has been fighting aggressive stage 4 cholectal cancer for nearly five years now. Her best hope now is a clinical trial she's participating in at the NIH clinical center. She flew out to NIH a few weeks ago for her first appointment and her care team there wanted her to come back in four weeks to start treatment. But because of the thoughtless mass firing of thousands of critical employees across NIH and HHS that you carried out, Natalie's doctors at that clinical center have told her they have no choice but to delay her treatment by an additional four weeks. Now, an extra four weeks may not sound like a long time, but I will tell you for stage 4 cancer patients like Natalie, this could mean the difference between life and death. Secretary Kennedy, how many staff have been cut from the NIH's clinical center? I want a specific number. I can't tell you that now, Senator Murray. What I can tell you is that if you contact my office tomorrow, I'll look specifically into that. Well, that that is not acceptable. I want an answer back by that. She deserves it. I do it. She doesn't have much time. She deserves an answer back. Wouldn't you rather get her into that clinical trial as fast as you can? Absolutely. So, if you contact my office tomorrow, this is a if that happens. You are here to defend your budget. I'm here to ask you questions about the impact of that. Well, you asked me You asked me about a specific case that I want to help with. I don't think anybody I don't I don't think that should happen to anybody. Okay. Well, what have you and I mean you personally done to assess how those staff cuts are impacting patient care? She is one of many. How what have you done to assess that? I I provided the guidelines that said we shouldn't that no no clinical trials should be affected by the cuts. I have you know only Mr. Secretary I just have a short amount of time. They are impacting clinical trials. You asked me a question. Do you want me to answer it? I I want to tell you, you need to know this. You You're here to defend the NIH budget, which Have you wanted Senator? Do you want me to answer your question? Well, I I want to You want me to answer your question? Tell you that Natalie is sitting there waiting for treatment. I'm offering to help her, but you don't care. Mr. You don't care about Natalie. I've offered to help Natalie. I I am asking you a question, and it is critical. You are here to defend cutting NIH by half. Do you genuinely believe that that won't result in more stories like Natalie's? I think the cuts that were that are now proposed by NIH are going to hurt. I think that President Trump, you know what, listen, there's no agency head in the government like myself that wants to see their budget cut. Well, and I asked you, have you personally assessed what this is doing to patients? And I am telling you one story of one person. It is impacting life or death situation. I think it's You want me to answer your question, Senator? Well, you did. Oh, I I have not you have not allowed me to answer it. Well, I will just say that it is my job to be a voice for people like Natalie and countless other patients who are like her. So, you've got to fix this. I want to know and I want a personal update on Natalie's case and you offered that. Please give that to me in the next 24 hours and I expect details and transparency about the state of NIH Senator Nat to try to get Natalie into Let me I got one minute left and I want to ask you about the NYOSH cuts. Um, I am really alarmed by your decision to essentially eliminate the National Institutes for Occupational Safety and Health. You've already fired nearly 90% of the staff. That includes the staff in my state at the Spokane Research Lab. Um, those are experts. They do essential work to protect miners and firefighters and farm workers, people who work in dangerous conditions. I am told that after a backlash, you are reinstating some of those, mainly in the West Virginia office. But there doesn't nobody in the western United States and there doesn't seem to be any rhyme or reason to how you've made these decisions and uh how do you explain this to my constituents in Spokane who are out of a job and the workers that are being impacted by that? The the work in Nyash will not be interrupted. We're going I've brought back 328 workers mainly in the Cleveland office and the Morganstown office and for the World Trade Center site and that work will continue. The work on mine safety will continue. The epicenter of that work has been Cleveland and it's been Morgantown. We understand its critically important function and I did not want to see it end. Mr. Chairman, I would just say you can't fire 90% of the people and assume the work gets done. Senator Collins. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Secretary, nearly 7 million Americans are living with Alzheimer's disease and caring for people with this devastating chronic disease cost us some $360 billion dollar a year. I am the author of a law that's known as the Bold Act. It takes a public health approach to Alzheimer's. It educates providers, promotes earlier diagnosis. It it helps caregivers and it also promotes lifestyle changes. I have worked very hard to make sure that HHS has the resources to carry out this law which was just recently extended. I'm concerned that the reductions in force of approximately 10,000 staff across HHS will completely undermine this act. And this act in many ways is very consistent with your approach of looking at public health issues for chronic diseases. Uh for example, the healthy aging branch administers the bold act for Alzheimer's. It has lost all of its staff. So, how can you ensure that the CDC continues to implement the Bold Act and the Alzheimer's programs under it when all of the staff responsible for that administration have either been placed on administrative leave or let go? I you know I don't know enough about that program but I know that um under the uh under that divid that that division has been folded into the American the agency for healthy America and a lot of the reports that whole divisions have been liquidated were just wrong. They were divisions that were being reassigned under the reorg. Now, I'm under a um a constraint here because at 4:00 yesterday afternoon, uh we were told that um there was that the a federal judge granted a TTRO in our case on the uh on the reorg and my attorneys have asked me not to talk about any details of the reorg today. Um, so I uh but on that budget line I will work with you. I'm committed. You know Alzheimer's has run in my family as you know. You know my cousin Maria Shriber who's uh deeply involved in it. Um the NIH had a very very checkered history on studying uh Alzheimer's because of the amaloid plaque scandal and uh we have an opportunity now to do really good science and find a cure very quickly and also find out equally importantly why so many people are getting Alzheimer's in this generation. I want to make that happen. I want to work with you, Senator, to make sure that that happens and that those programs uh continue. Thank you. I chaired recently the first appropriations committee hearing of the year and we focused on biomed research and how important it is that America not lose its global edge in innovation that's producing lifesaving and life enhancing discoveries. As among the many issues that we covered, as you might expect, uh the hearing explored the 15% arbitrary one-sizefits-all percent cap that NIH has imposed on indirect but still research related costs for its grants. What we heard is that this cap will mean less basic research, fewer clinical trials, and that it will also cause our scientists and researchers to leave the United States and go to other countries. I believe strongly that this proposed cap is poorly thought out, that it's harmful, and I know that it violates current law because since 2018, we've included in the appropriations bill specific language that prevents NIH from imposing such a cap. So, I know the system needs to be looked at, but are you reviewing how NIH's approach of this onesizefits-all 15% cap on indirect costs would affect laboratories, whether they're private, nonprofit labs, or whether they're in universities, as far as doing crucial biomed research? Yeah. Uh Senator, we are and I you and I have talked about this issue and I think the you know the impetus for the cap was that there were a lot of private universities with giant endowments like Stanford and Harvard that were getting uh indirect payments of 78 70 78%. what that means. If you get a million dollar grant, you NIH then has to pay you an extra extra $780,000 for administrative costs. And a lot of those costs weren't even going to anything to do with science. They were going to uh you know, the university budget. And to in order to curb that abuse, we adopted a uh a 15% which is the industry standard. That's what the Gates Foundation or any other foundation would pay. But I understand University of Maine, University of Alabama, many other universities, state universities were not abusing it. We lost about nine billion a year in those kind of costs. And and so we have uh we have a plan for how to address issues like what's happening at the University of Maine. being gave out. So I will talk to you privately about that. Thank you. Senator, thank you, Mr. Chairman. Secretary Kennedy, you run a department that touches the lives of almost every American. Yet for this budget hearing, these are the six pages that we have gotten in terms of your budget request. We are also seven and a half months into this fiscal year and yet you are not telling the American public anything about how you are spending the billions in taxpayer dollars right now. You had to submit an operating plan to the Congress. And this is just a sample asterisks. Secretary Kennedy, this isn't about your hiding information from me. This is about your hiding information from the American public. And if you're going to cut cancer research or gut mental health support, at least stand by your work and explain it to the American people. Now, Secretary Kennedy, I want to start with what I hope is an easy question for you. Do you think lead poisoning in children is a significant concern? Is it is lead poisoning a sign in children a significant concern? It's a extremely significant concern. Thank you. Then I would like to know why your department has effectively shut down the very program to address lead poisoning in children. The city of Milwaukee requested assistance from the CDC to help the city respond to lead poisoning cases tied to public schools. Six schools have been closed, displacing more than 1,800 school children. The request for federal assistance was denied because of lack of staff. The entire childhood lead poisoning branch has been fired. In the words of a Milwaukee mom, it really sends a message of you don't matter. I don't know what you would say to parents who must now test their children for lead and deal with school closures, but do you intend to eliminate this branch at CDC? Yes or no? No, we do not. Okay. Because you cannot tell us that you want to make America healthy again when you are willfully destroying programs that keep children safe and healthy from lead poisoning. Congress dedicated $51 million in funding for this particular program. But when a community asks for help to prevent lifelong complications for children and there is no one there to pick up the phone and it's not because this program is ineffective. It's because you fired the entire team whose job it is to support communities If that money has been appropriated, we will spend that money. If it's been appropriate to Milwaukee, we will spend it in Milwaukee. I've spent a lot of time in Milwaukee working. You provide expert and the the entire staff has been hi fired. Secretary Kennedy, um I did note in your opening testimony, although we wouldn't know it from the uh skinny budget that we have that you plan on funding the Head Start program, but I want to tell you about the ramifications of what has happened to date with regard to Head Start. I've heard from families across the state, people who are terrified about the uncertainty and instability surrounding Head Start. Just one week into President Trump's administration, Head Start programs in Wisconsin suddenly couldn't access their grant funding. It forced one Head Start in Wacaaw, Wisconsin to temporarily close, leaving 250 families without care. Over the last four months, HHS has provided roughly a billion dollars less to Head Start programs across the country than during the same period last year. The delays in funding have exacerbated uncertainty for programs needing to make payroll. And in some instances, like the one I cited in WACA, programs have had to shut their doors until the payments came through. Now, I don't know what you would say to a parent who is unable to drop their child off at preschool because you failed to get already appropriated money out the door. Or maybe I should ask you, what would you say to a parent who shows up for child care or for Head Start and the doors are closed? I I would be very sad if if somebody showed up. I fought very very hard to make sure that they What is causing the delays in Head Start funding? I fought very I I fought very hard to make sure that Head Start gets all of its funding next year. Well, we need it this year and that what why are there delays now? I don't know that there are senator and I will look into it but I don't know there should not be any delays. The funding is there. We are spending it. It's allocated. I don't know why there would be those kind of problems there. I can tell you that within the agency there were um uh you know there were people who who wanted to make the Trump administration look bad and that there were checks held up that shouldn't have been I will have to look into that. Senator Senator Mowski. Thank you Mr. Chairman. Mr. Secretary, welcome. Good to see you. Um, I want to talk a little bit about the HHS reorganization on some of the programs that uh impact uh Alaska's most vulnerable populations. I I sent you a note um letting you know that just after this hearing I'm going to be chairing a Senate uh committee on Indian Affairs, specifically examine examining HHS tribal programs that are outside of IHS. I really thank you for your early efforts to exempt IHS health care providers from the riffs. That was very important. Um, but I've also heard concerns from tribal leaders on the impacts of riffs to key HHS programs serving their community. So, I know you're going to have some of your folks tuning in on that and I really appreciate that. But some of the other reductions that uh we're looking at uh within your budget do have significant consequences to a state like mine. One is the lie heap program, the low-income energy assistance. For us, it's not a budget line item. You've been to Alaska, you know that the temperatures there can get really, really tough. Um, keeps people from freezing to death in their homes. Another program is NYOSH. Um, and I know that HHS had rescended a number of those employees. That was great news. But the employees that received rift notices for the program uh were not rescended in the NYOSH Center for Marine Safety and Health Studies. So this is this is a big deal for our commercial fishing safety. It could effectively leave our fishing fleet out of compliance with Coast Guard safety rags. So we're we're watching that very very carefully. And then again, shared focus here on making sure that our children is are as healthy as they possibly can be. So, I I want to look to ways that we can strengthen and not eliminate the Head Start program, but I wanted to ask you um you're you're talking about the NASH program. NAOSH. Yeah. You should talk to me about that. And you know, as you know, that's uh that's something that I'm deeply concerned with with the commercial fishery. So, we should talk about it and let's you know, and uh and let's work for a solution. Got it. I am with you right there. Let me ask about um about domestic violence and sexual assault funding. Right now, I'm talking I'm I'm receiving a lot of incoming from our community-based uh domestic and sexual violence uh program operators. They're really concerned about the delayed release of FY25 funding, the absence of notices of funding opportunities, as well as proposed cuts or consolidations that might threaten um the Office of Family Violence Prevention, uh and CDC's Division of Violence Prevention. So, you've got some programs there that are really foundational to domestic and sexual violence. Uh they've been reauthorized with bipartisan support. So, uh, I'm going to enter into the record a a letter from the National Task Force. Um, and it it basically it it was sent to you, I guess, yesterday just urging um the communication of concrete plans for releasing some of these funds. So you're I want to raise that to your level, but I I want to make sure that we're sending the right signal to to so many who are just really on the edge with again these communitybased services that are helping the most vulnerable of the most vulnerable. So we've got the funding that's out there. It's just delayed. We need help releasing that. Yeah. Um my understanding is that that the uh domestic violence funding was not cut. So I don't know. I I mean I have to go back and check, but I specifically asked about that program last night and was told that there was no cuts, that President Trump is committed to it and uh and so I don't know why people would be experiencing uh either even delays and it and it may be that it is with the riffs you don't have people that are processing these things. So again, I want to get to the top of your screen. Um last question for you. I mentioned lie heap. Um the the budget proposal uh the skinny budget proposes to eliminate lie heap and the proposal says that it it's unnecessary because states have policies preventing utility disconnection for low-income households effectively making lie heap a pass through benefiting utilities in the northeast. Further lie heap rewards states like New York and California two of the top recipients for lie heap funding which have implemented anti-consumer policies. I'm just telling you we're not in the northeast. We're not in that bucket. we're cold. Um there are other places that are hot. Lie heap is a lifesaver. Uh I did see your statement from yesterday saying that uh OM was thinking that President Trump's energy policy is going to reduce costs dramatically. It may it may be a while. Right now uh folks in Alaska still need those those ugly diesel generators to keep warm. side. Yeah, I know. I you know I was on the Navajo I first of all I've heard that my whole life because my you know my family was involved in providing lowcost energy to the to the to poor in New England and there are people in New England who suffer from uh if if energy prices are high and you have a cold winter. I was on the Navajo reservation a couple of weeks ago and uh Navajo President Buun Nigran said to me if if we cut N if we cut light heat people will die on this reservation. I know the tr the same is true in Alaska. Um the uh you the presumption behind the budget cuts were that the energy prices were going to drop dramatically in which case the these payments would just become a subsidy of the oil industry. If that doesn't happen, I would expect Congress would then still appropriate the money and I will spend it. I've already spent $400 million between January and now on this program and we've made to get it out, made sure to get it out to all the families that needed it. So, I think you're going to find a lot of support on this community committee for that. Senator Murphy. Uh, thank you very much, Madam Chair. Um, Secretary Kennedy, I want to talk to you about your relationship with this committee and this Congress. I want to talk to you about the statements that you made to the chairman of this committee and to members of this committee during your confirmation hearing about vaccines. Um, you didn't tell the truth. Um, I find that to be really dangerous for our relationship. If I were the chairman who believes in vaccines and voted for you because he believed what you said about supporting vaccines, my head would be exploding. In the hearing, you told us, quote, "I will not work to impound, divert, or otherwise reduce any funding appropriated by Congress for the purpose of vaccination programs." That's not the truth. Exactly. Let me finish. Let me let me finish my Let me finish my question. Yeah, I didn't hear what you said. I'm just asking you to repeat it so I can understand your question. During the hearing during the hearing, I'll repeat it. During the hearing, you said to this committee and to the finance committee, "I will not work to impound, divert, or otherwise reduce funding appropriated by Congress for the purpose of vaccination programs." That is not what happened. You've done the opposite. You canled 12 billion dollars in grants to the states, including my state, that are used to administer and track vaccines. You promised, Chairman Cassidy, when did I do that? Madam Chair, would you allow me to finish my question? Keep going with your question. When did I do that? Let let me let me let me finish my question. Is Asian just tell me when I did it so I can understand what the question is. You have canled you have canled 12 billion dollars in public health grants to states whether you know this or not. That funding is used by the states in part to be able to administer uh and um dispense information about vaccines. Let me Mr. Secretary, let me give you let me let me give you the full paniply of the things we said before the things you said before this committee that didn't turn out to be true. You also promised Chairman Cassidy that the FDA would not change vaccine standards from quote historical norms. But what happened as soon as you were sworn in? You announced new standards for vaccine approvals that you proudly referred to in your own press release as a radical departure from current practice. and experts say that that departure will delay approvals. You also said specific to the measles vaccine that you support the measles vaccine, but you have consistently been undermining the measles vaccine. You told the public that the vaccine waines very quickly. You went on the Dr. Phil show and said that the measles vaccine was never fully tested for safety. You said there's fetal debris in the measles vaccine. And this morning, all true. All true this morning. In fact, you don't want me to lie to the public. That's not none of that is true. Of course it's true. Of course it's true. Senator do not know what you're talking about. For the record, let's have a little bit of order so that you can get Madam Chair. I didn't ask I I didn't ask for a response yet. I'd like to lay out the predicate of my question before I'm interrupted by the witness. He should have respect for this committee. Go ahead. Just this morning in front of the House of Representatives, you also said that you in fact would not recommend that kids get vaccinated for measles. You said you would just lay out the pros and cons. Okay. So this is the summation of everything that you have said to compromise people's faith in the measles vaccine in particular is contrary to what you said before this committee. You said you support the measles vaccine, but then you have laid out a set of facts that are contested and I will submit information for the record from experts who contest what you've said about the vaccine. And the result is to undermine faith in the vaccine. It's kind of like saying, listen, I think you should swim in that lake, but you know, the lake is probably toxic and there's probably a ton of snakes and alligators in that lake, but I think you should swim in it. Nobody's going to swim in that lake if that's what you say. And so I want you to acknowledge that when you say you support the measles vaccine and then go out and repeatedly undermine the vaccine with information that is contested by public health experts, that is not supporting the vaccine. And so I guess I have two simple questions for you. Um, one is, can you clarify what you said in the House this morning? Are you or are you not recommending that that families get their children vaccinated or are you just giving people the pros and cons? And do you understand that when you say these things about the measles vaccine, what ends up happening is less people get the vaccine? That may be what you want, but do you understand that the result of constantly questioning the efficacy or safety of the vaccine results in less people getting the vaccine? So, I I don't necessarily want to spend the remaining 20 seconds in an argument over the science, but do you at least understand that that's the consequence of what you're saying? And are you actually still recommending people get the vaccine or are you not? Senator, if I advise you to swim in a lake that I knew there'd be alligators in, wouldn't you want me to tell you there were alligators in it? So, are you recommending are you recommending the measles vaccine or not? What what I've said and what I said doesn't sound like you are. If that's Are you going to let me answer? Are you gonna keep it? Are you or are you not? Are you gonna let me answer what I pledged before this committee when I during my confirmation is that I would tell the truth that I would have radical transparency. I'm going to tell the truth about everything we know and we don't know about vaccines. Are you recommending the measles vaccine? I am not going to just tell people everything is safe and effective. If I know that there's issues, I need to respect people's intelligence. I think you're answering the question. I think your answer is really dangerous for the American public and for families. The reason people have lost faith in this program is because they've been lied to by public officials for year after year after year. No longer recommending the measles. Senator Marshall. All right. By the way, I said at the hearing this morning that I was recommending the measles vaccine. Go look at the transcript. Senator Marshall. Madam Chairman, thank you uh thank you so much for um being here, Mr. Secretary. We're glad you're here. Let's stay on the the measles vaccine just for a second. Let me catch my breath after that all that. I'm an obstatrician. If a 25-year-old pregnant woman asked me if she should take the measles vaccine, the MMR, it'd be I would have give her the answer, "No, you shouldn't." But if she was 25 and trying to get pregnant, I would give her different advice. Um, I've always valued the sanctity of the physician patient relationship. I went to medical school for four years. I did four years of residency. I delivered thousands of babies. It's my job to give that recommendation. What's the role of the secretary of HHS as far as recommendations of vaccine and just discuss a little bit further? Well, the vaccine recommendations, Senator, are normally made through ASEP, which is the advisory committee of immunization practices, which is an outside consulting committee at CDC. There's another committee called VERUP, which is within FDA, that actually recommends whether the vaccines get licensed or not. And so, that's where the recommendations come from. And you know what? Traditionally, they have not done evidence-based medicine. They only adopted EV evidence-based medicine about uh 12 years ago. And what we've said during our administration is we want to have safety studies prior to the lensure and recommendation of vaccines. Vaccines are the only medical product that is exempt from pre-licicensing safety testing. So the only vaccine that has been tested in a full-blown placebo trial against an inert placebo was the COVID vaccine. The other 76 shots that children in this country receive between birth and 18 years old. None of them have been safety tested in pre-licicensing studies against the placebo, which means we don't understand the risk profile for those products. And that's something that I intend to remedy. Okay. You said earlier you couldn't talk about the reorganization and maybe you cannot answer this question, but I maybe you can at least confirm these facts for me or not. Um is it isn't it true that under Joe Biden's White House they added 20,000 employees to HHS? When you were nominated, there was 28 divisions with HHS, 100 communication offices, 40 IT departments, nine HR units a as well. Is that Can you answer that question? Yes, that's right. There there are dozens of IT departments. There's eight senior finance um officials. There are nine separate offices on women's health, eight separate offices for minority health, 27 separate offices for HIV, 59 behavioral health programs, 40 opioid programs. What we're trying to do is consolidate, streamline, eliminate the redundancies, eliminate all those administrative costs for each one of those little departments. Consolidate them and make them s make sense and make them accountable to the American people. And I don't or I suppose all those IT systems communicate with each other. You all you all are on there's 40 as you pointed out there's 40 procurement department with four separate computer systems that don't talk to each other. So you know and as you pointed out this my department grew by 38% of the last four years. I would say that's great if Americans got healthier but they didn't. They got worse. So what we're trying to do is go back to the you know pre to the precoid levels and to start making the department function as it would if you you know in a rational universe and to bring in you know modern AI and tele medicine and all the opportunities we have now these new efficiencies and for medical delivery to the American people and for patient care and we're not able to take advantage of any of them because there's so much chaos and disorganization. This department and everybody who's gone up against it in the past has thrown their hands up and given up. What we're saying is let's organize in a way that I can quickly adopt and deploy all these opportunities we have to really deliver highquality healthcare to the American people. If if I could, this was was going to be a question. I'm just going to make a statement. All the research that we do on maja, on soil health, on nutrition, in my heart, that's research on cancer, it's research on Alzheimer's. Um, at the end end of the day, as as well, and we should be spending as much money at the front side of this as we are trying to cure the end of it. We're seeing epidemics of colarctal cancer, young age, Alzheimer's, all these things. And I think the research at the front end is every bit as important at the hind end. and and you know, Senator Murphy made a good point. We've the NIH has made all these extraordinary breakthroughs and particularly in treating cancer and you know, reducing mortalities for colorectile cancer. But my question is wouldn't it be wouldn't be isn't it as important to find out why kids are getting colorectal cancer? When you and I were kid there were zero kids with colorectal cancer. It's epidemic now. So, it's not really a badge for us when we say, "Oh, we can make it less lethal. Why don't we go figure out what's causing it and eliminate that exposure?" With all of these, with Alzheimer's, with, you know, heart disease, there's something is making Americans very, very sick. And our response should not be just, okay, we'll develop a pharmaceutical fix for it or a medical fix. Let's figure out what it is and get rid of it so we can have healthy kids again. Thank you, Senator Kaine. Thank you, Mr. Kennedy. I want to ask you some questions about um staff reduction and kind of the timing of it. You were confirmed by the Senate on February 13, so I'm sort of assuming that things happened before you were confirmed where other people's work. On January 28th, the fork in the road letter came out uh to people across the federal employment space um widely attributed to OPM and Elon Musk and Doge. But that was before you were confirmed. So you had nothing to do with the fork in the road letter. Correct. Correct. Okay. You were confirmed on fe February 13. On February 14, one day later, HHS announced that 3,500 probationary employees were going to be laid off. I know you're a hard worker, but am I right to assume that in the one day between your confirmation and the next day, you weren't the primary decision maker about laying off probationary employees at HHS? Uh, I was aware of it and I could have blocked it. Yeah, you were aware of it. So, you weren't the primary decision maker. Was that a decision that was made like OPM or or Doge? Uh, and because it wasn't just HHS, it was all federal agencies who would lay off probation. Do you know where that I had my I had my full upper staff in place before I got there. Right. But did did they make the decision or was it White House and Doge to lay off probationary employ? They made the decision. My staff made the decision although Doge came in and Doge gave us information that we wouldn't otherwise have had access. Okay. Next we go to April. I can also say this. No, all I asked was if you made it and you answered the question and I appreciate it. April 1, um, HHS riffs 10,000 employees effective June 2. Now, by this point, you had been secretary for about about 6 weeks. Um, a few days after that announcement, um, HHS staff briefed our staff, the Senate help staff. And basically just here's some highlights in that 10,000 risks. 467 staff at the Administration for Children and Families, 2473 at the Centers for Disease Control, 322 at CMS, 400 at Hersa, 1,312 at National Institutes of Health, 197 at SAMA, 2519 at Food and Drug Administration. By now, you've been secretary for six weeks, so this was riffs, not the forks. But you were involved in the decision about these 10,000 rifts. Correct. Yes. And in tandem with your with your leadership team. Correct. And as I said before, I pushed back on certain ones and cancelled certain ones. Um I think yesterday, it may have been earlier today, you confirmed that um 20,000 employees have been let go. Uh 10 thou at HHS, 10,000 rift and 10,000 forked. Um, do you do you know how many of the 20,000 were veterans? No, I not. That that is a fact that's very easy to determine from someone's personnel file. So, I'm going to ask that question for the record. Um, we are finding across the the government that veterans are disproportionately being let go. A because they're a higher percentage of the federal workforce and b they're a dramatically higher percentage of probationary employees because they leave military service after 10 or 25 years. and then their probationary new employees when they join the civilian service. So, I want to find the answer to that question. um the where the where does the rubber meet the road on 20,000 riffs and layoffs and and forks um in people not getting cancer trials and I appreciate your willingness to help Senator Murray's constituent in state grants being cancelled in Virginia losing $425 million in funding to the Virginia Department of Health. But here's a a small example. Um all of our offices do case work. All of them do case work and we get requests from constituents all the time. CMS is the largest agency in the federal government. It's budget is nearly twice the size of the Pentagon and people who depend on Medicaid, Medicare and the SHIP program really really depend on it and it's the most consistent in the top three or four in terms of constituent requests to my office. Answer this question about Medicare or Medicaid or the SHIP program. In every administration I've served with, Obama, Trump won, Biden, I get answers to questions on behalf of constituents. I may not get them as fast as I like, and sometimes I like the answer, and sometimes I don't. But let me show you what CMS is now doing to answer constituent questions. I've omitted the name of the constituent and I've omitted the name of my staffer. This was very recent. A hard-working retiree, patriotic taxpaying American who's on Medicare wrote to ask CMS a very simple question about Medicare. Couldn't get an answer, asked us to reach out. We reached out to the Medicare part C and D congressional liaison office. And here was their answer to our basic question. Unfortunately, there is not an update to provide. With the recent change of administration, we are unable to provide any information related on matters related to Mr. X's request congressional casework team. I mean, if you're just an everyday hardworking American retiree on Medicare and you have a basic question about it, you ought to be able to get an answer. A and I'm just going to say I've shared this with my colleagues and many of us are having the same experience where our constituents can't get a basic question answered. I wonder if 20,000 fewer employees is connected to this. I yield back. Mr. Chair, Senator Husted, thank you Mr. Chairman. Secretary Kennedy, thank you for being with us today. appreciate uh the work that you have done in trying to raise awareness about making America healthy again, particularly as it relates to our dietary consumption, how food can be medicine, food can make us sick. uh you have raised a great deal of awareness and when we talk about public education campaigns. I think you've done more to shine the light on things that average Americans can do to make themselves healthier than uh almost any uh secretary I can recall. So, thank you for that service. I also uh have listened to a lot of the conversation today uh where somehow we think that spending more is somehow uh a a you know compassionate on every single thing like you have to spend more to do it even though every single person in this Congress knows that they are spending borrowed money that our children will have to repay $106,000 their share of the national debt when you're a child born into this nation right now and everything that you can do to create savings and improve the quality of services that American taxpayers get from your agency. I commend you on it. I encourage you to do so. Uh, I I want to give you the opportunity to share a couple points that you might want to share about how some of the work that you're doing in this budget is going to help people become healthier, generate some better outcomes for them, and savings that you think can be created, that would not harm somebody's health, but actually preserve the fiscal future of this nation so that those children can grow up and have access to the American dream that we all uh had access to when we were born in this nation. So just share your thoughts and I appreciate you raising that about the debt issue because the point I was making earlier was that you know there's no agency head that wants to reduce the size of their agency. You know I'd rather have as much money and power as I can possibly have. I recognize that President Trump and the OM director have a a larger duty and a larger vision which is we're spending $2 trillion a year that we don't have and we're building our children and that is a moral deficiency. Senator Sanders asked me about the mor mor morality of universal health and you can and you know there's a good moral argument for that but there's also a moral argument and when you know we're spending a trillion dollars a year just to service that debt within five years half of every dollar collected in taxes is going to go to servicing the debt and within 10 years it could be 100% and then our kids are doomed and that is a you know the debt is a social determinant of health. We are trying to reverse that and we're doing it in a way that's not just throwing more money at the problem. We're, you know, we're revising the grass standards. 20 years of Democrats have said we need to revise the grass standards. I've done it in 100 days. We're getting rid of nine synthetic petroleum based synthetic dyes in our food. 20 years the Democrats been saying we want to do this. And I've done that in 100 days. I'm re we're rewriting the dietary guidelines. The dietary guidelines that President Biden gave us 453 pages long. And it's just an industry generated document. The same industry impulse that put Froot Loops at the top of the food pyramid. We are creating a four-page document that can be locally sourced so that that will drive the diet the the school lunch program. Um, we we are we we've we've called on and inspired governors and legislators across the country to ask for exemptions to the SNAP program to get soda and candy off of SNAP. We've Am I getting is that a is that a time? No, you're you're good. I And thank you for the work on SNAP, by the way, because getting unhealthy foods out of that program. If you're at the bottom cortile of income, you're almost twice as likely to obese as you're at the top quartile. And diabetic and and it and it's costing people their productivity, their quality of life. It's costing the American taxpayer uh more money through Medicare, Medicaid, and other health services we provide. And I just would say uh we talked about kids. I want to give you a moment to just share a thought. Uh in 2022 we had a shortage of infant formula formula. There's a look at children now about how what they should have in that infant formula. You're doing that with the um operations. Yeah, exactly. Uh tell us a little bit about that and just if you have a moment. Well, I'll just say Mr. Chairman, thank you for doing that. How about that? But the secretary made the statement that no vaccines except for co have been evaluated against placebo. For the record that's not true. A roto virus, measles and HPV vaccines have been and some vaccines are tested against previous versions. So just for the record to set that straight. Next, Senator Hessen. Oh, thank you Mr. Chair and uh Secretary Kennedy, thank you for being here. Um, I'd like to start by talking about the current measles outbreak, which I know is a concern for all of us here today. Two children in Texas have tragically died from measles this year, the first children to die from measles in our country in more than 20 years. Measles is almost completely preventable with the measles vaccine. As you know, it's critical that families hear directly and clearly from healthcare leaders about how they can best protect their children. So, Mr. Secretary, I'd like to give you an opportunity to say clearly here today to any parents who are watching that the best way to protect their children from measles is to vaccinate them. Yeah, I have said that the best way to stop the spread of measles through vaccination. But I would say this, we have handled this measles outbreak. We get a measles outbreak every year. We've handled this measles outbreak better than any other nation. what I was interested in. I'm just you can you can say you what I asked you to do was to say straight to the camera as you did on social media that it is your position that the best way for parents to prevent their kids from getting measles is to vaccinate them and that is your statement today. All right. Well, that is great. Thank you. Um now you lead the nation's health department. So let me ask you a couple of questions. Do you think HHS should employ anyone who has endangered the health of children? No. Um, you hired David Guyire to lead autism research at HHS, an individual who fraudulently posed as a doctor and gave dangerous medications and medical tests to children with autism. According to the state of Maryland's investigation, David Guyire, who has no medical license or training, gave hormone blocker injections to children with autism who were as young as eight years old, which the Maryland Board of Medicine said poses a substantial risk of harm, Secretary Kennedy, yes or no. Will you fire David Guyire? First of all, what you're saying is not true. And I we did not hire David Guyire to manage autism research at HHS. What is his job? What is his job then? You just said some very defamatory well no I things about a a person who by the way so let let me just be clear for the record those charges Senator I am going to correct the record on this defame let me tell you what let me tell you what the record says and then I will hear from you. Last week when Mr. O'Neal was here in his confirmation hearing I submitted for the record the charge that the state of Maryland laid out. Now, if you'd like also for me to submit to the record with unanimous consent today the findings of the state of Maryland uh which find him $10,000 for practicing medicine without a license. He does not have a medical license and for providing and instructing and giving uh children hormone blockers. That is what the finding of the Maryland Department, the state of Maryland licensing board was. And I'll submit that for the record. I hope with unanimous consent. I'm assuming that you don't know what I'm about to tell you or you wouldn't say something that was so dishonest. You might you may or may not know that David Guyire sued the American uh uh Oh, I do know that. I do know that. That doesn't change the findings, nor does it nor does it change the experience of the parents who testified. That finding was reversed by a court and he was awarded $5 million against that is not true. Now, let me let me ask you. So, I just want confirmation. David Guyire is still at HHS. I wrote you a letter months ago and you have not responded. Well, I apologize for that. That's our bad and I will respond. But David Guyer is not managing autism research. And what is his job? He never said that he What is his job at HHS? This is somebody who gave parents the impression that he was a doctor and gave hormone blockers to children as young as eight, telling them that hormone blockers would somehow magically magically help their kids with autism. His father is very was was his father is a doctor, but he is not and his father was not in the room and did not and and he faked his father's signature according to the state board of medicine and and that that ruling was overturned by a court. So what you're saying is just wrong. It's just a lie. And they were actually the court said that the Maryland Board of Physicians was guilty of actual malice in fabricating those charges against David Guyer. Well, we will pursue this. Um asked and I will submit for the record. So do you want to know why we brought David Guyire in? Sure. Because it wasn't to run autism research in 2002. David, the the CDC runs a vaccine safety data link which is supposed to be the vaccine information for the biggest HMOs that are supposed to allow CDC to have a surveillance system for vaccine injury. It's a backs stop system. The CDC will not let any physicians in there to look at it or any scientist independent scientist. He's neither a scientist nor a physician. Right. Congress ordered CDC to open it to the Guyires. So they are the only scientists who have ever been in there. But again, Mr. Mr. Guyer is not a scientist. Thank you. Okay. Senator H's times expired. But before we move on, did you have a unanimous consent request that I heard in there? Senator, you Senator Holly, I did a unanimous consent request uh for um the printout of the website that shows Dr. Guyire is in not Dr. Guyire, that's his father, Mr. Guyire, uh, is employed and also a unanimous consent request for the finding from the board of licensing in Maryland. Without Yeah, without objection to both of those. And now, Mr. Kennedy, before we get to my time, uh, do you want if you'd like to to finish your response, go ahead and I'll recognize myself. Um, David Guyire is is the only living independent scientist who's seen the VSSD inside. There's been a lot of monkey business with the VSSD, including allegations of fraud. And we he was hired by an independent contractor that we not as an HHS employee, but by an independent contractor to look at the documents that we were getting to the VSC to see if they conformed with what he saw between 2002 and 2016. And that's the only reason that he was brought in to see if there was the there is so much information that has disappeared from that database. The only way we could find out what information disappeared was because he was the one guy who saw it. And just let the record show he's not a scientist. Thank you very much. All right. Um, Secretary Kennedy, different subject on on a different subject. You and I have talked before when you've been before this committee and you and I have talked in person a number of times about methress zone. Just want to follow up with you because since the last time you were before the committee and the last time you and I spoke, there's been a major study by the 865,727 prescribed cases of mythopressone abortions, chemical abortions between 2017 and 2023. Have you seen this study? Are you familiar with this? Do you Yes, I am. You will remember then that this data shows it's the biggest study on mere stone done I think ever. And it showed that nearly 11% of women experience very serious adverse health effects to include sepsis, hemorrhaging, infection, of course, emergency room visits. Now, when by the way, that's 22 times higher. That rate is 22 times higher than the FDA's current label, which says it's just 0.5 the incidence of serious adverse health events. So, my question to you is this. You previously testified to the committee that you would do a a toptobottom review of me prestoneone is subject to a rims currently. You have said you'll do a toptobottom review. Do you continue to stand by that? And don't you think that this new data shows that that the need to do a review is in fact very pressing? I think the uh the new data first of all it validates the cast study which is previously probably the most comprehensive um data that we've seen on it and it is uh and it's alarming and clearly uh it indicates that at very least the label should be changed. Um I've asked Marty McCary who's director of FDA to do a complete review and to report back. Good. Do you have any any sense of timeline just that it will be a top priority though for you? Is that is that safe to say? Um you say that it probably indicates the label needs to be changed. Do you think it's also important as part of your review to consider whether it's necessary now to put back in place the long-standing safety protocols that always accompanied mereone until the last administration? In-person dispensing, doctor visits, uh screening for ectopic pregnancies. I I know that Marty McCary will make a recommendation. And I I feel that uh that uh the policy changes will ultimately go through the White House through President Trump. But you'll make a recommendation based on the data. Yes. Good. Um on a different subject, talking about the advertising that is routinely done by pharmaceutical companies. You have been a longtime critic of direct to consumer pharmaceutical advertising. uh you wrote I think in the Wall Street Journal a little over a year ago about uh the need to revisit guidelines around pharmaceutical advertising. Is that is that still your view? I mean that's your view. Pharmaceutical advertising is particularly insidious because you know that commercial advertising has some level of first amendment protection not as great as political speech. It it doesn't have the kind of strict scrutiny applied to political speech. It still has a level of protection, but pharmaceutical advertising is unique because if if a company's advertising, for example, Coca-Cola, the consumer has a choice to whether to buy it and then he's spending his own money on it. So, he's got skin in the game. Pharmaceutical advertising, the consumer's purchasing the product, and it's usually the most expensive form of the product. So that they're usually advertising because they want to bury the the existence and the availability of generic drugs that are much cheaper and equally effective. And the consumer is spending not his own money but most often our money taxpayer money. Furthermore, the pharmaceutical ad is is getting tax deductions. So we are we are funding it. I want to ask you just about that. Under current law, pharma companies can deduct their advertising costs as a business expense. Do you think it's time to change that? Yeah, and I've actually have a call in to Scott Bassan about that. But we are I'm working very hard on this issue and we expect to come out with a policy within the next few weeks. Well, let me propose that we work together. Today, I'm introducing legislation to repeal the taxdeductibility of these advertisements. It is a bipartisan bill with Senator Shaheen on the other side of the aisle here. It is a biccameal bill with both the Democrat and Republican sponsors in the House of Representatives and and my view is it's time to get rid of these tax breaks for these companies and to end this practice. Can you support that? 100% supported. Fantastic. I look forward to working with you on that. All right, let the record reflect I'm giving up Senator Hick 15 seconds. Senator Sanders will also support that. Absolutely. And I'll go further. The idea you This is coming out of your time now, John. The answer is yes. All right, Senator Hickver, Senator Sanders can finish your thought, please. We are the I think along with New Zealand, the only countries on earth that allow for pharmaceutical advertising. I think it's time we ended that. Yeah. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Uh, and thank you, Mr. Secretary, for taking the time and for your willingness to come into public se sector. I'm not going to try and play gotcha. I thought but it is an opportunity to spend a little bit of philosophical time and I guess one question is do you think our country spends too much on scientific research? No. Okay. And so obviously you know the NIH is the largest in terms of biomedical research. There's the Howard Hughes Institute but the 70% of the world. Exactly. 70% of the world. Um and I guess when you look at the level of cuts that we're facing over there that and I'm recognize that a lot of these cuts are imposed upon you. So, uh, but there's there's a gap in basic fundamental research that's going to have to be filled somehow. And have you got any any ideas of how we can do that given the scale that the dimension of the lawsuit we're facing? Well, you know, first of all, my my job is to support the president on this and to support OM, but you know, like the reality is that as I've said and no agency head wants to see cuts to his agency and I love scientific research. So I want to do it as much as possible but I think because of uh the we are very very aggressively implementing AI and I think we're going to do it faster and better than anybody else in government any other agency. We brought very very high quality caliber people from Silicon Valley. Yeah. And I get that and that will accelerate and help us do more. That's brought we can shorten clinical trials. We can uh we can get rid of animal trials which we're already doing. I'm in support of all that. We we talked about that and we can do and you you we we can now dig research I'm talking about is not that so much is the the the fundamental scient basic science research like bench science or epidemiological studies or whatever. And I think we can do a lot of that stuff quicker. You know, I'll take as much money as you give me and I'll spend it. Well, well, I just want to make sure to urge you to be a fighter for for more of that research because there's a a a questioning of science right now uh within many in the White House, not everyone, but many in the White House. It really needs to be pushed back. Um uh and Senator Holly Isa, I'll I'll sign on to that bill as well. Um, second question I've got, uh, we have a lot of, uh, issues around wildfires in in Colorado right now. And, um, with the this is back to the the NYOSH, the National Institute of OC National Institute of Occupational Safety, Health, uh, that you had mentioned that they kept them in in Cleveland and, uh, I think somewhere in Pennsylvania. Pretty much everyone's laid off in in Colorado. In Morgenstown. Yeah. Yeah. uh everyone's laid off in Colorado and and that uh the question really and I think a couple have been ordered to be reinstated but uh all the west is dealing with I mean thousands tens of thousands probably hundreds of thousands of people out fighting fires these are people risking their lives uh you know walking away from their families every day and the basic research uh that needs to be done uh I don't think the replacements are going to be in many cases they're new onto the job, they're not going to be sufficient to address address and really make sure the specific health needs of these workers, these outdoor workers are addressed. So, question is, how can we how can you uh make sure that folks in Colorado like firefighters are are able to do their jobs safely? Well, I you know there I think a lot of the cuts that we're implementing now are painful cuts and that um that they you know they're they're cuts that are going to um are going to be difficult. And I think the president's uh position is that we're spending $2 trillion that we don't have and we are taking from our children and we've got to protect their rights to prosperity, to enrichment, to dignity, to choice. And uh you know, so I get I I heard that argument and I appreciate it. I'm a a great frugal a voice of frugality at least in my office uh and try to push it around the uh the Senate where where it's allowed. Uh but we're looking at budgets that's going to increase the deficit by who knows how much four to five trillion dollars. Uh to take things like this that we know are successful and not just for Colorado but for most almost every western state essential and we're cutting you're saving such a small amount of money for something that's so important. I just hope that you can push back on that a little bit and someone's got to take a stand for these things that are minor financial benefits but significant losses to how we provide safety for workers and our citizens. I'm happy to work with you on that, Senator. Okay, great. I yield back to the to the chair. The committee will adjourn for five minutes subject to the call of the chair. Please It's Everybody Oh, that's okay. It's okay. No, that's okay. I need to put also. Guys, let's start taking your seats, Senators, Senator, can I just say one Yes, sir. Um, I want to clarify an issue that we talked about before. Senator Murray had raised the issue of a constituent of hers who she said had been uh denied a place in a clinical trial in Washington due to the riff. We've been able to run down that case. The patient was medically ineligible for that trial. medically ineligible, medically ineligible. It had nothing to do with the riff. And NIH had been trying to get her into another clinical trial, but none of our clinical trials were shut down because of the riff. That was a canard. Thank you for Secretary Compassion for Americans with autism and their families. there there's still so much that we don't know about the conditions and there are many questions to be answered and that's why I was glad that you recently announced an autism research database similar to a registry that you created. The NIH has more than 80 registries for different diseases and they're a critical tool to understand disease progression. But even in spite of all of that, you were immediately attacked for privacy violations and accused of ulterior motives. Can you tell us today how how will this database handle protected health information and is it an optin or an opt out database? This is like thank you for senator for asking that. This database as you say there's actually 190 disease databases at at my agency. Almost every important disease has a registry and the red arthritis has a registry. For example, heart disease, cancer, various kinds of cancers. And the registry is intended to help scientists research what causes the ideology of diseases and also what the cures are. It's entirely voluntary. Um patient privacy is protected. uh the data is digitalized and depersonalized so that people cannot find out who the who the patient is and patients have an absolute right to opt out of it. So it's entirely voluntary but it's very important tool for scientists use who want to understand how to treat diseases if there's a number of people who've used for example chelation therapies on autism and you can look at that you can see what the outcomes were or other kinds of therapies um microbiome treatments all these other these various treatments the physicians and frontline treatment uh uh nur nurses and doctors are using across the country to address disease and find out which ones work and which ones don't. You've also been accused of assuming an environmental cause of autism and rejecting a genetic cause. Can we say that your critics are misrepresenting what you really believe? Well, I don't believe I I don't think I I think if my critics are saying that I rejected genetic cause, I think they're correct in the sense that the autism is an epidemic and the genes do not cause epidemics. They can contribute a vulnerability, but you need an environmental toxin. It's like cigarettes and smoking. smoking cigarettes was killing one out of every five of his customers. The tobacco industry that meant four out of five were survived. So there's a genetic component to the ones who die who got lung cancer and died. And that is a genetic vulnerability, but you also need an environmental toxin. You cannot have a a sudden epidemic without an environmental exposure. Have you halted or redirected funding away from any pre-existing autism research? I I am told and I haven't done this calculation myself, but I'm told that there was a 20 to1 um uh research ratio for genetic cause of autism over the past 20 years at NIH. And if you ask me, I believe that was because they did not want to look at the environmental exposures because they were scared of what they'd found. So I don't think we should be funding that genetic work anymore. I think we know a lot about the genes that prevalified vulnerabilities, high testosterone, low glutathione, the MTHFR gene, the genes that control methylation, all of these are involved and we know that. And what we really need to do now is to identify the environmental toxins. I I I appreciate greatly your attention and effort on that. Um, Secretary Kennedy, we're importing a third of our medicines from China. It's a public health risk as well as a national security risk. And you and I discussed this in your confirmation hearing. Um, I I asked you at that point about reshoring medicine production from China uh during that hearing. I wonder if you could give us any updates on how that's happening. Yeah, I think there are very exciting things happening and uh and some of them as a direct result of President Trump's tariffs and I've been working very closely with David Ricks of Eli Lily. I think they've been the most aggressive of any of the pharmaceutical companies about answering uh President Trump's summons to onshore production. They have nine facilities now that are breaking ground and they're one of them the API facility that they're breaking ground on will be I believe the biggest API facility in the world. These are um ingredients you active pharmaceutical ingredients. China controls that market right now and this single facility could give us back dominance of that market. So, I'm very very optimistic about what's happening and uh you know I'm very grateful to Eli Liy which has not always been a big ally of mine and I'm grateful and we've been working very closely with the leadership of Eli Liy to make sure they get what they need to onshore uh production because we saw during co uh that for essential medicines we cannot afford to have the the uh the ingredients offshored. Thank you for your leadership. I yield back. Senator Marky, thank you. Uh, Mr. Secretary, all I've been hearing from you today is your defense of and advocacy for brutal cuts to Medicaid, brutal cuts to NIH research to find the cure for Alzheimer's and cancer and other diseases, brutal cuts to community health centers, brutal cuts um to the CDC, the early warning system for diseases, and all to find the funding for tax cuts for billionaires and millionaires. That's all I've been hearing. And it is absolutely unbelievable that the Secretary of Health in Human Services can sit before the Health Committee and make such an argument. So, Secretary Kennedy, for months I've been hearing from people uh about the impact that you and Donald Trump have had on them, and for months I've been sharing their stories uh and I've compiled them here in Mr. Mr. Chairman, I'd like to include my Make America Sick agenda without objection. Included in the record. Thank you. Um, this is a set of stories that are being told to me that I would like to relate to you. Jennifer, who's from Massachusetts, is a stage 4 cancer patient. There is no cure for her diagnosis. Her life depends on federal investment in research and for clinical trials to continue uninterrupted to find a cure for Jennifer with NIH funding. She's right to be worried. I heard from Henry in Rhode Island who wants uh a a continued funding for cancer research where he works. He's worried about getting fired because the lab's NIH grants under new leadership were cut. He wants to work on cancer research to find the cure for Jennifer. You've already terminated $1.8 billion in NIH funding, which for Jennifer should really stand for National Institutes of Hope. She's losing hope. You're defending a 40% cut, Mr. secretary in research for Alzheimer's, for cancer, for stroke, for diabetes, for mental health. They're being slowed. They're being slashed. And I understand streamlining, but this is not streamlining. It is a bludgeoning of our health's future and a giveaway of our global scientific leadership. And it will be people like Jennifer who will pay the price. Lou from Massachusetts, he wrote to me about his son who died of an overdose. He said his son Zach was quote a loving and loves family member who had the illness of addiction. He wants research to cure this disease, funding for treatment without stigma, support for health workers, serving people with addiction to prevent any other family member from suffering from the same fate. Can you honestly tell us that or tell him actually that you can cut1 billion dollars1 billion dollars from the substance abuse and mental health administration including funding for programs to teach first use first responders how to use the lockxon to help to guarantee that other parents not lose their children? Can you honestly tell me that the cuts you have already made to addiction treatment across the country will make anyone healthier? How can you justify a billion dollar cut to substance abuse and mental health? Mr. Secretary, uh, Senator Marky, you weren't here when I was talking earlier, but one of the things that I've talked about is that the budget for my agency increased by 38% over the Biden administration and Americans got sicker and more Americans overdosed and more Americans died from cancer. And we have now an epidemic of colarctal cancers in our children. And the chronic disease rate has now gone up to 60%, the autism rate has dropped to one in 31 children. And all that money that was supposed to cure those diseases or revert them, none of it worked. All we need is leadership and a new vision. And I'm bringing that to my agency. And I'm realigning my agency. President Trump is negotiating with the Chinese about keeping fentinel out of our country. Well, that's a good thing, isn't it? Well, in the meantime, we can't be cutting the programs for the people who are already suffering from opioid related diseases. We can't cut the programs. Yes, it would be great if we could cut it. Be great if we could reduce it. While we're waiting for that to happen, why would we cut $1 billion from the programs that go to the families that have the substance abuse issues right now? Why would we cut it now before we get a solution to the problem? First of all, we most of the programs that had support addiction including now track, naron, suboxin, uh, methodone, housing, we we operate under s of 500 rehabs that were that give people access under Medicaid. We are keeping those intact. We have the President Trump because of his leadership has dropped the fentanyl imports from this country because of his leadership at the border by 40%. So we're actually doing more with less and we are going to continue to do that. And what I'm doing at my agency is I'm realigning all these perverse incentives that have driven up costs and driven down health. I'm realigning so that people can make money in this country and markets can make money. Look at look at 80,000 people died last year. This is not about efficiency. This is about cruelty. Cutting these programs. People are already addicted. These people already need help. You're that families need right now. Senator Marky. Thank you, Mr. Senator Moody. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Uh, and thank you for being here. Um, I think it is wonderful that we are doing this hearing. Thank you, uh, Mr. chairman and uh I believe this is the help committee's first HHS budget hearing in more than two decades and certainly I don't think this afternoon has been easy on you and we are grateful that you're willing to answer the hard questions. Thank you, Senator Moody. And have the difficult discussions because if I heard you correctly, uh, you know, the 60% 50% whatever increase in the last five years in your agency, you said reflected or resulted in people getting sicker and more people dying. And we have to do more than just think throwing money at something is going to solve a problem. And I am grateful for everyone that's stepping up on the cabinet and saying, "I want to do this job in a deliberate way that's going to deliver for the people that means more than just coming here to Washington and Washington and throwing money at problems and spending taxpayer monies without giving a lot of deliberate forethought to results." And I think that's what you've been trying to say here today. And I appreciate you tackling this because not many people would want to brave uh this job certainly at this moment in time. And as our nation is spiraling out of control and more and more debt and more and more spending, we have got to be responsible for the future stability and success of this country. So, thank you. I start there. I also note that in some of the numbers that we saw in this proposal, um there there wasn't much information in terms of asking for more money. I'm assuming that you're not asking for more money specifically related to the FDA. And I wanted to focus on a few things. Uh, and I believe your approach is probably going to be how can we be better? How can we use the resources we have to do more for the American people, deliver on their health without spending more money? And one of those ways I believe in the FDA um would be to tackle um Chinese elicit vapes uh I think 60% of their vape market that are in no way regulated. We have no idea what are in these things. Chemical ridden vapes all over the United States being bought by all of our kids. Uh I I would ask that you dig into that and and look at that. I know the FDA has been backlogged. Uh and the excuse kept, you know, excuses kept coming out on why they weren't following through and enforcing this thing. Meanwhile, we have more and more kids that are vaping these chemicals and we have no idea what's in them. So would you look at that with your department using the resources that you're asking for today? Yeah, absolutely. We are looking at it right now. And during the Biden administration, the FDA slowwalked the uh the approvals for US vaping companies. And the US vaping companies in my view are were acting very responsibly. They were putting chips in their vapes that would make sure that young people could not use them. um they were giving good information about addiction and uh and they were they had very extensive labels. They really went out of their way not to make it attractive to children. They were slow walk so they're off the market and in order to fill the vacuum hundreds of Chinese companies came in with these colored beautifully you know attractive comic books watermelons all these flavors that targeted kids they have video games on the vapes that lure kids into addiction we are going to we are going to wipe them out we're going to get rid of all thank you for that commitment as a mother of a teenager And on behalf of all moms of teenagers, I know that vaping was going on in some of even our mil elementary and middle schools. We thank you using the resources that you are given to you. If we were just more deliberate and aggressive in what we're doing within the agency, I think we can make a huge difference. And I want to direct your attention to one more important issue. One of the things that drives me crazy is when nonsense regulations are on the books and they have no benefit whatsoever, but yet they're on the books and businesses are trying to comply with them. In our citrus industry, our orange juice producers, there is a regulation that requires a certain sugar content. It's called a brick standard. Doesn't affect quality or nutrition at all. In fact, um, our oranges now that are being produced in Florida produce slightly less sugar. But because of this arbitrary standard, producers of orange juice in Florida have now had to start importing foreign or from foreign companies and foreign nations oranges into our country to mix with our products to deliver orange juice. The standard it doesn't affect quality or raise the sugar content the oranges. We want to lower the sugar content that's required by this regulation. I'm sure you would not disagree with that, but would you look into an interim final rule that would lower that slightly to save the orange juice industry domestically? Yeah. Why don't you call Heather Flick, who's your Anna Anderson this week, and we will uh we will act on that as quickly as we can. Again, using the resources we have, just being smarter in our approach, we can do a lot to save a once thriving industry. Thank you. Thank you, Senator Kim. Thank you, Chairman, Secretary. Uh, I wanted to just relay I had a town hall. I had a fire captain show up to this town hall, somebody who worked uh at ground zero, and he is somebody who said he was diagnosed with cancer. He said he's on borrow time. And he was livid, absolutely livid about what he said, the administration gutting the World Trade Center health program. And we've talked through some of these cuts that have happened before. Some staff cuts, some may be brought back on the administrator cut. I I just need to hear from you. I promise as fire captain, I'd ask you about this. What in the world happened? Why was the staff cut for this program? What are we to expect going forward? I restored the staff to that program. Why was it cut to start with? Uh it was uh you know it was part of the overall budget cuts. Our agency was asked to make very very serious budget cuts uh that were going to be painful and uh and uh some of them should not have been made and that was one that should not have and I reversed it. Were you unaware or were you aware that the decision to cut NAOSH staff would cut that world trade center health program? Well, you know, my my agency is the biggest agency in government. It's twice the size of the Pentagon. It's represents about 20% of the US economy. We have hundreds of institutes and sub agencies. We try to be as careful as we can about what we cut and what we didn't. We made a couple of mistakes. I don't think you were trying to be as careful as you can. I mean, that's the problem that we've seen by rushing these decisions. You this was I know early in your time there. Senator, I understand I understand that if you look at this from a distance, you'd say, "Why don't you just do this surgically and cut one person at a time?" The we this agency has grown so big so fast and everybody who comes in says, "I'm going to cut it down." and nobody's been able to do it. And there there was there there was an understanding that the longer that you wait, the more the inertia kicks in. And we had to act quickly so that we can do something for the American people that is lasting. And we understood that there would be some mistakes made and that we would go back and reverse them when they were made. But it was more important to decisive action quickly that could eliminate the the metastasizing of this agency to you know which was growing and growing growing as our health declined. So where is this going to land now? Can you tell us right now that staffing of the world health the world trade center health program will go back to where it was before you became secretary? That program will continue. There will be continuity in that program. That's continue. Yes. but at full strength of where it was before you were secretary. The program itself will continue. Well, look, the fire captain always also raised this issue about the National Firefighter Cancer Registry. Also something I promised him I'd ask you about. Why was that shut down? The cancer reg? I don't know about that. You don't know about this? No. Okay. Well, look, what I'll just tell you is I'm happy to work with you on it. There's a national firefighter cancer cancer registry and this is something that's part of NYOSH and because of the cuts when I go to the website as I am right now it says the information on this page is not currently being updated and access to tool is limited. Firefighters can no longer enroll in the national firefighter registry for cancer. So I just raise this because this is incredibly important not just for those that were at ground zero but just at large across our nation to try to help our firefighters. So, can you promise me that we will work together and try to get this back up and running as soon as possible? I will work with you on this issue, Senator. Yeah, look, I understand what you were saying when it comes to your prioritization, but I I will tell you it is sending an absolutely disastrous message, especially to our firefighters. I mean, I hope that on the list of things in this Congress that we think are bipartisan, are unanimous, it should be about supporting our heroes at the World Trade Center, especially when we have more firefighters who have died since 9/11 because of medical issues that they had working there at ground zero than those number of firefighters that died on September 11th. And so if if we can't even agree on that, if that is not seen as a high enough priority to try to protect, then I am worried about everything else that is more controversial, has a less unonymity. So secretary, I will follow up with you on the national registry and I do want a firm answer on you on what is the final staffing at the World Trade Center Health Program. And with that, I'll Senator Murdy has returned. She's asked request for 30 seconds to respond to what the secretary had responded to her. May I ask a question? Yes, sir. Yes, sir. 30 seconds. Take me down to four minutes and 30 seconds. No, sir. Okay. I 5:30 if you want. Even better. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you for accommodating um and letting me speak here because uh SE Secretary Kennedy came back and said that my constituent that I spoke about earlier was not delayed by staffing cs. First off, she is already enrolled in that clinical trial. It's not a question of eligibility. Um the issue, as I stated clearly, was the delay in care that she got and what you you stated, Secretary Kennedy, is not true. I spoke with Natalie actually last night. She asked her NIH doctor directly why. And she when she was informed of the delay, and her doctor at NIH said very plainly twice, her care was delayed because of staffing cuts. And I would just, Mr. Chairman, I think it's important for the record to show my staff has put in inquiries with HHS leadership and they've been unresponsive so far. And just to make it clear, this is just one case of many, but that is those are the facts. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Senator Scott, thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, Secretary Kennedy, for being here with us today. I I oftentimes hear you say uh the quote, "Happy to work with you." And I I will say that you said it to to to Senator Kennedy and as a person who's asked you to work on a number of topics, when you say happy to work with you, you've actually been a man of your word and I truly appreciate that. Uh we talked about the importance of sickel anemia and the research being done and I invited you down to South Carolina and you took me up on my offer. you came last month and I really appreciate you taking the time and investing the energy to talk about an issue that's critical to so many folks uh specifically African-Americans. And as a guy that is thankful that we are working to eliminate diversity, equity, and inclusion in the federal government, I do not want some folks to think that all things racial are somehow DEI. And frankly, selanmia is a classic example of something that has a racial nexus, but it's not diversity, equity, and inclusion. It's just a basic fact that African-Americans 99.9% of the time are the folks that are suffering through cyclic cell anemia and frankly if you go beyond cyclic cell anemia you find other diseases that have a consistent presence in minority communities and to that end I think it's really important that we continue to work together uh on building on issues impacting minority and other communities and I would love Senator Secretary Kennedy, as you move through this reorganization that you are currently going through, I would like for you to answer the question. Will you commit that programs involving minority health will continue and not get tied unnecessarily and inappropriately to DEI? Yeah, absolutely. We will continue. We have we I think that one of the minority health programs has been terminated and it was one that was deeply embedded with the uh DEI ideology but there are seven others that are going to continue. I want to thank you for inviting me down to South Carolina. That was a wonderful trip. It was really I got to witness a microcosm, a template for how medicine ought to be working. Yes. You have brought together under your leadership hospital systems, pharmaceutical companies who and the biotech companies that developed this new technology for for treating cickle cell and they had all and patients and they had all worked together to make it affordable so that South Carolina now has this extraordinary program where if you have sick cle cell in South Carolina you can get 100% funding with I think it's 100% cure or Close to it. Very close to it. Thank you. I'll just ask the two questions as opposed to asking the the preliminary to the questions. For all the parents of children with sick cell, can you please just reassure them that the administration of health for America will work on CCLE and addressing minority health issues? A simple yes or no. And will the full budget and when it's released reflect funding at AHA for both the office of minority health and sick cell activities that used to be housed in CDC. Yeah. Well, absolutely my commitment. In fact, I had a a company and this morning meeting with FDA that has a new technology that may that seems as effective and may be even more economical. And I'm very very excited and I'm excited to show it to you. uh if it proceeds if it makes it through the traps at FDA. Excellent. But uh yeah, absolutely. I'm going to continue to make that a priority of this agency. Great. Let me change topics for quickly with my minute and 45 seconds left since I was extended extra 30 seconds. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I really appreciate the work that you're doing, frankly, as it relates to addressing how our food supply contributes to chronic diseases, including the phasing out of petroleum based as part of your make America healthy movement. I'm really encouraged by the FDA's announcement last week approving three new natural color additive petitions. During your confirmation hearing process, I shared your passion for shaking up the food industry, and you are truly doing just what you said you were going to do as it relates to food additives. Because of your bold actions at HHS regarding petroleum based food additives, the food industry responded by getting rid of these dyes in favor of natural alternatives. Thank you for your work in bringing healthier food options for our kids. Can you talk about how you will use your position to continue to build on your work eliminating artificial food dyes to further improve the quality of food sold to Americans in our quest to make Americans healthier? Yeah. I mean, one of the the big areas of neglect has been linking specific food additives and food processes to the chronic disease epidemic. NIH has neglected that area of study. It is now the central focus of NIH. is going to be looking at and FDA looking at ultrarocessed foods at sugars and and the 10,000 additives that are in our food that in nobody else's food in the world and looking at the impact so that we can put accurate labeling on and when they're really dangerous we can require we can revoke their authorizations under grass. Thank you, Chairman Cassidy, uh, Ranking Member Sanders, and, uh, welcome, Mr. Secretary. Um, I have nothing personal against you. I don't even know you, but what I do know as the former deputy secretary of health and social services in Delaware is how important your agency is to the lives of so many people in our country. Um during the confirmation, your confusion of Medicaid versus Medicare um did not instill a lot of confidence. Um but today, as you talk about this these budget cuts being painful, um I am reminded of Delawarians who have come up to me and and cried and said, "Please don't let folks take away my Medicaid." Uh individuals with disabilities. While you talk about cutting this large large department, there are talks about including more things in the department from the Department of Education. And so I I'm I'm concerned about that. And when we met in January, you committed to radical transparency and responding to all congressional inquiries within 30 days. Um since then, we've sent dozens of letters. Um, and to my knowledge, uh, like Senator Hassan, I haven't received any any responses and given your stated commitment to transparency and your focus on efficiency and responsiveness in your opening comments, um, I think this is a great opportunity to get your commitment that you will respond to the letters from this committee and also an opportunity to maybe talk about a few of the things that that I uh, wrote to you about. So, let's begin with um this letter. In March, I wrote to you expressing my concern about the delayed meeting of the federal vaccine experts, otherwise known as ASIP. The meeting of this committee is a key step in getting vaccines to millions of people from babies to seniors, and delays can have negative impacts on vaccine accessibility and affordability. And while I'm glad that the meeting finally happened, we're quickly approaching flu season and the CDC still hasn't adopted the April recommendations. And I can understand the delay given that there seems to be no current CDC director. Um so in the spirit of radical transparency, uh my question is who is the uh acting CDC director? Uh the acting director was Susan Manares, but she is now up for um for uh permanent director. And so she's been uh uh replaced by Matt Bizolei. Uh does this person have a medical background? Uh I believe or public health expertise. He's a public health expert. Public health expert. So the fact that the recommendations are kind of stuck is and and the fact that you kind of had Well, I can I can I clarify something? He ASIP does not do the flu shot. Yeah. I don't I don't want to get that and those that the flu shot was and my question was more about do we have a CDC director um and then I want to enter into the record um information about what harms could be caused when until we get one to shift gear. We're relying on this committee to but this was my question. This is my the director. We are we are senators and so I don't want to have the same exchange that happened before with other people. I just want to ask my questions. Um I want to just shift gears. Your proposed compassionate budget would cut funding for multiple maternal and child health programs. And I I I know as a new parent I remember learning that my baby should sleep on their back. Um the NIH safe to sleep campaign you've shuttered after launching this campaign in 1994. the rate of suff sudden infant deaths dropped by 50%. Many parents in this room um maybe remember getting their children screened for hearing loss or rare diseases. Um that program has also been shuttered. Um you've cut programs that collect data on IVF, maternal health, infant mortality, all while President Trump is calling himself the fertilization uh president. None of these policies are based in compassion. And my only uh concern, even following up on Senator Kim's question, is understanding what goes into gutting a program that has um increased, you know, the efficacy of parents and being able to take care of their children. Um I I will my time is expired. Um, but I will just say again, uh, a budget is a reflection of priorities. And to me, this budget, the cuts to Medicaid that are talked about right now across in the House of Representatives, um, are going to have real, like you said, painful impacts on people's lives. And, uh, I hope there's some real compassion in the end. And I hope that you hear from our constituents as we are hearing from them as well. and we will continue to um we will continue to try to fight for them. So I yel back. You've left me no time to respond, but I can assure you that I will act with compassion. Senator also Brooks. Thank you so much, Mr. Chairman. U Mr. Secretary, um I'm talking, I'm over here. I've been sitting through this hearing all day today and have noted that you've been unable in most instances to answer any specific questions relating to your agency. Um I think because I haven't been given time. Well, no, you have been given time. But the point of the matter is uh you have been unable to answer specific questions. Sir, you are the wrong person for this job. And you have had in this hearing today the unmitigated goal to say at the beginning of your testimony that China is ahead of the United States in healthc care because China does not have DEI. I didn't say that. Well, we can roll back the tape. You absolutely can. And you will find I didn't say that. That is absolutely what you said. I I was talking about science. I didn't say they're ahead of they're ahead of us in some forms of science. Certainly not in healthcare. Well, we can roll back the tape, but nonetheless, let me go on with my questions and ask you this. Uh you just heard about the safe to sleep campaign. Um and you have made cuts. You made it very clear here today. You have no knowledge whatsoever of the absolutely amazing scientists and researchers who you have callously fired. You know nothing about the cuts. You can fire any working scientist senator. That sir is not true either. But nonetheless, it is not true. Let me ask you specific question. The safe to sleep campaign. Well then you can you name sir which office the safe to sleep campaign operates out of? Which campaign? Well, that's the one that the senator just asked you about two minutes ago that prevents babies from dying in their sleep. A 30-year program inside your agency. You would agree that it's I think it's part of HERSA or ACF. It's ACF. No, actually it's in Health and Human Services. And I think and again, they're all within Health and Human Services, but the subdivision is ACF. No, actually the name of the Children and Families. No, let me tell you what it is. the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development. This is actually the one that your aunt Ununas Kennedy Shrivever um is the person who it's named after. Um and you you noted just a moment ago, the senator reminded you that although this is a very important agency, prevents babies from dying. This is the same one you fired every single person in this office as of April the 1st. Um it is also, as I said, there were no working scientists fired during the riff. We can we can um bring you that information later, but because what you just said is not true. Well, then the question also is in addition to firing the individuals who make sure babies don't die in their sleep, um why did you cut funding and staff from the CDC's National Center on Birth Defects and develop developmental disabilities, which supports the Special Olympics? Was that a mistake? I've heard you say you've made some mistakes today. Was that also a mistake? We switched Those programs, the Administration for Healthy America, they have not been cut. Well, the funding has been cut and this is one that oversaw the Special Olympics. Are you aware of that? We have not cut the Special Olympics. You've cut the funding. And you also dismantled the Division of Reproductive Health and Women's Health and Fertility. You're aware of that, right? We have right now we have 42 divisions that do maternal health and we're consolidating them. And the mainstream media has uh has portrayed those as cuts, but they're not cuts, they're consolidations. It's it's ridiculous to have 42 divisions that are all supposed to be doing the same thing with administrators. Well, let me ask you a question. So, it doesn't exist right now. It's been dismantled. That is a fact that that particular division what you plan to do in the there's 42 divisions on the general health we consolidate. Sir, let me finish what I'm saying here. The fact of the matter is you have dismantled it as we speak. Um and are you aware what what does the assisted reproductive technology mean to you? Does are you familiar with that? Are you talking about IVF? Well, it's assisted reproductive technology. It's a division. Do you know what it does? The is it part of NIH? No, it's actually a part of your agency. It's a part NIH is part of my agency, Senator. You should know that. I do know that, but it's actually a part of it's the CDC is where it is. Okay, then it's CDC, right? Okay. Let me just ask you. Uh uh and again these are all of the things you seem unfamiliar with the ones the the programs that you've you're unfamiliar with that my agency that NIH and the CDC are part of HHS. Oh I absolutely know NIH is in my county. I was there this past weekend with that you have fired. So I absolutely know where NIH is sir and don't need any help from you in knowing that. I see the time. Thank you. Senator Blunt Rochester. Did you have something You mentioned something but didn't formally ask and I want to make sure. Uh yes, Mr. Chairman. I'd like to introduce this into the record. It is uh the CDC Without objection, it's entered into the record. Thank you, Senator. Senator Sanders, uh ask unanimous consent to enter into the record. uh 21 letters to groups raising concerns about the HHS reorganization, budget, and riffs. Also ask unanimous consent on behalf of Senator Murphy to enter two articles into the record. Without objection, for any senator wishing to ask additional questions, questions for the record will be due in 10 business days on May 28th at 5:00 p.m. Thank you again, Secretary Kennedy, for being here. The committee stands adjourned. Sorry.