Amna Nawaz:
Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was back on Capitol Hill today, this time testifying before senators for his sixth and seventh public hearing since last week. These hearings mark his first time back before lawmakers in months, giving members a chance to press him on some of the biggest changes he’s making on spending cuts, vaccines, and other public health issues.
Lisa Desjardins has been covering those hearings and filed this report.
Man:
The committee will come to order.
Lisa Desjardins:
Today, HHS Secretary RFK Jr. reached the finish line in a marathon of hearings about his agency’s budget and proposed cuts to it.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr., U.S. Health Secretary:
We are cutting red tape, speeding the decisions and demanding transparency. We’re also cracking down on waste, fraud and abuse.
Lisa Desjardins:
President Trump’s budget proposal calls for a 12 percent cut, billions of dollars to the National Institutes of Health, and cuts to programs that support mental health, women’s health, HIV/AIDS prevention and more.
But senators raised a full array of topics.
Sen. Michael Bennet (D-CO):
Do you realize that, last year, the United States had the highest number of measles cases in 30 years?
Lisa Desjardins:
Under Secretary Kennedy, the U.S. is facing the worst measles outbreak it’s seen in decades, over 2,000 cases last year, as the country has seen a drop in vaccination rates for kids.
While some Republicans applauded Kennedy’s handling of the outbreak…
Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC):
We would not be on the right side of this outbreak without your leadership.
Lisa Desjardins:
… Democrats pointed to his past comments questioning vaccines and his move last year to reconstruct the HHS vaccine advisory panel, adding several members who are vaccine skeptics.
Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR):
Why would you be doing something that is so awful for kids on this vaccine issue?
Robert F. Kennedy Jr.:
Senator, we under my leadership handled the measles outbreak better than any country in the world. This is a global outbreak.
Lisa Desjardins:
In the days’ second hearing, Republican Bill Cassidy, a doctor himself, followed up on a previous question which Kennedy did not answer yesterday about Trump’s nominee to direct the CDC, Dr. Erica Schwartz. She supports immunizations.
Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-LA):
Will the new director, whoever she is, have the right to make decisions independently of those political appointees and/or replace them or otherwise reassign them, so they cannot continue to actively undermine trust in immunizations?
Robert F. Kennedy Jr.:
Your characterization of the political appointees is wrong. And the CDC director has that power.
Lisa Desjardins:
Kennedy’s past words came up a few times, including these comments he made in a 2024 podcast suggesting something called wellness farms.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr.:
Every Black kid is now just standard put on Adderall, SSRIs, benzos, which are known to cause — induce violence. And those kids are going to have a chance to go somewhere and get re-parented, to live in a community, where there will be no cell phones, no screens.
Lisa Desjardins:
But in a House hearing last week, he denied saying that.
Rep. Terri Sewell (D-AL):
You were suggesting that the federal government should take Black children away from their families and re-parent them and send them off to some wellness farm, instead of providing them with evidence-based…
Robert F. Kennedy Jr.:
You’re just making stuff up.
Rep. Terri Sewell:
I am absolutely not making this up.
Lisa Desjardins:
Kennedy today apologized for the remarks, but maintained that he doesn’t remember making them.
Throughout, Republicans praised Kennedy for out-of-the-box thinking and his work on everything from drugs for PTSD to nutrition.
Sen. Mike Crapo (R-ID):
I believe that your effort and focus on making America healthy again and helping us to focus on nutrition and prevention and healthy lifestyles is one of the most significant things that you have done.
Lisa Desjardins:
The hearing’s a reminder of how much Kennedy oversees, from Medicaid and Medicare to the FDA,and how much of American life he touches.
For more on Health Secretary Kennedy, what he is prioritizing and the continuing questions around much of his agenda, I’m joined now by Dr. Deb Houry . She served as the chief medical officer for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention until she resigned in protest at the firing of CDC Director Susan Monarez last year.
Dr. Houry, I want to get your reaction to these hearings. And among the things that we know going into it were there were multiple supports suggesting that the White House had pressured RFK to publicly say less about vaccines. From what you heard in these hearings, do you think his position has changed on vaccines or how do you understand it?
Dr. Deb Houry, Former Chief Medical Officer:
Not at all. He was very clear. He didn’t know information about the hepatitis B vaccine, how long it had been safety-tested for. He spoke incorrectly about that.
He didn’t even understand how babies get hepatitis B. He said only from moms. He also — when he talked about measles, he said, no, the child could have died from it. And then he also said that healthy people don’t usually die from infections. But I think having 130 pediatric flu deaths that were unvaccinated, I beg to differ.
Lisa Desjardins:
Now, Kennedy did say repeatedly during these hearings that he believes vaccines save lives, that he wants them to save lives. He says he questions if they have all been vetted, essentially.
I wonder, do you think his policies back that up, this idea of vaccines as lifesaving? I know that sounds like a weighted question, but it’s an important one.
Dr. Deb Houry:
He really cherry-picks, like, data and studies.
To Senator Cassidy, he presented this one study, and he talked about how it was really sanitation that saved lives and not vaccines. I looked at the paper. And, at the end of the paper, it says vaccines significantly contributed to the decline in diseases.
And, actually, there were still several hundred deaths from measles before vaccines were introduced that then, when vaccines came into play, those deaths went to zero. So, the secretary presents things to fit his agenda versus actually using data and science to drive decisions.
Lisa Desjardins:
That was an interesting discussion about what changed in the 20th century in terms of public health.
Dr. Deb Houry:
Yes.
Lisa Desjardins:
But I want to ask about someone now in the 21st century who could be a really important lieutenant for Secretary Kennedy. and of course, is Dr. Erica Schwartz. She’s publicly supported vaccinations and immunizations.
But you have been concerned that she could be ousted or overruled. Today, as we heard, Secretary Kennedy said, no, she will have independent authority. Did that give you any reassurance?
Dr. Deb Houry:
Well, today, he said she’d have independent authority to get rid of the CDC political appointees who’ve been undermining vaccines.
But, earlier this week, he said that he wouldn’t necessarily sign off on her vaccine recommendations. And I thought that was one of the few truthful things the secretary has said.
Lisa Desjardins:
Does her nomination itself make you think the Trump administration wants to go a different direction from the secretary?
Dr. Deb Houry:
Potentially.
But what concerns me is, the secretary is still who the CDC director reports to. And when you look at the vaccine committee that the CDC director gets advisory information from, the charter was updated last week and it changed it from expertise to just knowledge.
And the secretary is still asking for information around vaccine safety and still misspeaking about vaccines. So I think it’s really window dressing at this time.
Lisa Desjardins:
Kennedy indicated he is investing in some health priorities, including Alzheimer’s. But, obviously, there have been cuts in many areas under him.
Senator Collins raised some reporting yesterday that indicates grants with the word women in them have been cut by some 31 percent. I want to ask you, where do you see cuts in NIH and research right now?
Dr. Deb Houry:
I think it’s really confusing when you look at the congressional budget versus the president’s budget, as well as the secretary’s leadership.
Programs like smoking and reproductive health and oral health, violence prevention, drowning are all in the congressional budget. But they’re not in the president’s budget, and all those staff are gone from CDC.So it’s unclear how these lifesaving programs are going to be implemented, when there’s no people to do it.
Lisa Desjardins:
Dr. Deb Houry , we will continue following this along with you. And we really appreciate your time. Thank you.
