[Senate Hearing 119-21]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
S. Hrg. 119-21
NOMINATION OF ROBERT F. KENNEDY, JR.
TO SERVE AS SECRETARY OF HEALTH AND
HUMAN SERVICES
=======================================================================
HEARING
OF THE
COMMITTEE ON HEALTH, EDUCATION,
LABOR, AND PENSIONS
UNITED STATES SENATE
ONE HUNDRED NINETEENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
ON
EXAMINING THE NOMINATION OF ROBERT F. KENNEDY, JR., OF
CALIFORNIA, TO BE SECRETARY OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES
__________
JANUARY 30, 2025
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and
Pensions
[GRAPHIC NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.govinfo.gov
__________
U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE
59-490 PDF WASHINGTON : 2025
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
COMMITTEE ON HEALTH, EDUCATION, LABOR, AND PENSIONS
BILL CASSIDY, M.D., Louisiana, Chairman
RAND PAUL, M.D., Kentucky BERNIE SANDERS (I), Vermont,
SUSAN M. COLLINS, Maine Ranking Member
LISA MURKOWSKI, Alaska PATTY MURRAY, Washington
MARKWAYNE MULLIN, Oklahoma TAMMY BALDWIN, Wisconsin
ROGER MARSHALL, M.D., Kansas CHRISTOPHER MURPHY, Connecticut
TIM SCOTT, South Carolina TIM KAINE, Virginia
JOSH HAWLEY, Missouri MAGGIE HASSAN, New Hampshire
TOMMY TUBERVILLE, Alabama JOHN HICKENLOOPER, Colorado
JIM BANKS, Indiana ED MARKEY, Massachusetts
JON HUSTED, Ohio ANDY KIM, New Jersey
ASHLEY MOODY, Florida LISA BLUNT ROCHESTER, Delaware
ANGELA ALSOBROOKS, Maryland
Amanda Lincoln, Majority Staff Director
Danielle Janowski, Majority Deputy Staff Director
Warren Gunnels, Minority Staff Director
Bill Dauster, Minority Deputy Staff Director
C O N T E N T S
----------
STATEMENTS
THURSDAY, JANUARY 30, 2025
Page
Committee Members
Cassidy, Hon. Bill, Chairman, Committee on Health, Education,
Labor, and Pensions, Opening statement......................... 1
Sanders, Hon. Bernie, Ranking Member, U.S. Senator from the State
of Vermont, Opening statement.................................. 3
Witnesses
Kennedy, Robert F., Jr., Los Angeles, CA......................... 4
Prepared statement........................................... 7
ADDITIONAL MATERIAL
Statements, articles, publications, letters, etc.
Murray, Hon. Patty:
HPV Tweet for the Record..................................... 60
New study: Vaccine Manufacturers and FDA Regulators Used
Statistical Gimmicks to Hide Risks of HPV Vaccines, by
Robert F. Kennedy, Jr...................................... 61
Kaine, Hon. Tim:
Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.'s X Posting on 9/11................... 68
Has Gardasil Really Eliminated Cervical Cancer in Australia?,
by Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., October 8, 2019................. 69
Effects of HPV Vaccination on the Development of HPV-Related
Cancers: A Retrospective Analysis of a United States-Based
Cohort..................................................... 74
Impact of a Population-Based HPV Vaccination Program on
Cervical Abnormalities: a Data Linkage Study............... 75
Impact of HPV Vaccination and Cervical Screening on Cervical
Cancer Elimination: a Comparative Modelling Analysis in 78
Low-Income and Lower-Middle-Income Countries, The Lancet... 87
The Effects of the National HPV Vaccination Programme in
England, UK, on Cervical Cancer and Grade 3 Cervical
Intraepithelial Neoplasia Incidence: a Register-Based
Observational Study, Lancet Article........................ 103
Australian Data: Cancer Epidemic in Gardasil Girls, by Robert
F. Kennedy, Jr............................................. 112
Invasive Cervical Cancer Incidence Following Bivalent Human
Papillomavirus Vaccination: a Population-Based
Observational Study of Age at Immunization, Dose, and
Deprivation, JNCI: Journal of the National Cancer Institute 113
HPV Vaccination and the Risk of Invasive Cervical Cancer, The
New England Journal of Medicine............................ 122
Murphy, Hon. Christopher:
Transcripts of RFK Jr. Speeches at AutismOne................. 131
Children's Health Defense November 2019, Letter for the
Record..................................................... 133
Markey, Hon. Ed:
Leading Samoa Medical Freedom Hero Goes Free After Court Case
Dismissed, by Robert F. Kennedy, Jr........................ 137
Moody, Hon. Ashley:
Third Presentment of the Twenty-First Statewide Grand Jury
Regarding Unaccompanied Alien Children (UAC), in the
Supreme Court of Florida................................... 147
Fourth Presentment of the Twenty-First Statewide Grand Jury
Regarding Unaccompanied Alien Children (UAC), in the
Supreme Court of Florida................................... 193
Final Report of the Twenty-Second Statewide Grand Jury, The
State of Florida........................................... 218
Alsobrooks, Hon. Angela:
RFK Jr. Campaign Uses HHS Freeze as a Fundraising Tool, by
Isabella Cueto and Rachel Cohrs Zhang...................... 362
Sanders, Hon. Bernie:
Autism and Vaccines References............................... 364
NOMINATION OF ROBERT F. KENNEDY, JR.
TO SERVE AS SECRETARY OF HEALTH AND
HUMAN SERVICES
----------
Thursday, January 30, 2025
U.S. Senate,
Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions,
Washington, DC.
The Committee met, pursuant to notice, at 10 a.m., in room
562, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. Bill Cassidy,
Chairman of the Committee, presiding.
Present: Senators Cassidy [presiding], Paul, Collins,
Murkowski, Mullin, Marshall, Scott, Hawley, Tuberville, Banks,
Husted, Moody, Sanders, Murray, Baldwin, Murphy, Kaine, Hassan,
Hickenlooper, Markey, Kim, Blunt Rochester, and Alsobrooks.
OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR CASSIDY
The Chair. I think you all have about every angle you can
get of the witness, so I am going to call us to order. I thank
everybody for being here. Bobby, I see your family behind you,
and I like your family except for the nephew who is a Florida
Gator. We will let that go.
The Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and
Pensions will please come to order. Again, Senator Kennedy,
Bobby Kennedy, thank you for appearing before the Committee and
for your willingness to serve our Country, as your family has
served our Country.
You and I have talked at length about a variety of issues
impacting Americans' health. These have been candid
conversations, and I very much appreciate your willingness to
engage.
There are many things you and I agree on. We are in total
agreement on the need to address ultra-processed foods to
reduce obesity, and obesity, of course, the leading cause of
chronic disease and, therefore, shorter lifespans. And this
will be a priority in this Committee, and I look forward to
collaborating with you, if you are confirmed.
But it is no secret that I have some reservations about
your past positions on vaccines and a couple other issues.
We know a lot about you. I will tell you a little bit about
myself. Before I entered politics or even thought about running
for office I practiced medicine for 30 years, working in public
hospitals in California and Louisiana, specializing in liver
disease, caring for those who otherwise would not have had a
specialist, if you will dedicating my life to saving lives.
That is being a doctor.
Now, there was a moment in my career that really informs me
now. In the early 2000's, I was loading a patient onto an air
ambulance, an 18-year-old young woman, to go to get a liver
transplant from acute liver failure due to hepatitis B. Barely
an adult, her entire life ahead of her, and all the hopes and
dreams she might want the children, the grandchildren, the
future generations wiped away if she did not get to the LSU
hospital in Shreveport for an emergency transplant.
Now, the transplant, an invasive, quarter-of-a-million-
dollar surgery, that had a 5 to 10 percent mortality rate, but
even if she survived would leave her with a liver transplant
and hospital bills every year of $50,000. And as she took off,
it was the worst day of my medical career, because I thought,
$50 of vaccines could have prevented this all.
That was an inflection point in my career. And since then,
I have tried to do everything I can to make sure I never have
to speak to another parent about their child dying due to a
vaccine-preventable disease.
I worked with community and business leaders to form a
public-private partnership in the Capital Region of Louisiana.
We vaccinated 36,000 children for hepatitis B. And since the
CDC and the ACIP have recommended universal vaccination for
children, the number of acute hepatitis B cases in our Country
has declined by almost 90 percent.
As a physician who has been involved in immunization
programs, I have seen the benefits of vaccinations. I know they
save lives. I know they are a crucial part of keeping our
Nation healthy.
Now Bobby, I have learned you have got a tremendous
following. My phone blows up with people who really follow you.
And there are many who trust you more than they trust their own
physician. And so the question I need to have answered is what
will you do with that trust?
Whether it is justified or not, and you may not want this
to be the case, but I have constituents who partly credit you
for their decision to not vaccinate their child. Now that is a
real conversation. And I am hearing from them, and they want
you confirmed.
Now, you are going to tell us this week, as you did--I
think you will tell us today, as you did in the Finance
Committee yesterday--that you are pro-vaccine. So what will you
tell the American mother? Will you tell her to vaccinate her
child or to not, or to have a conversation with her doctor, but
for many that will be permission to not vaccinate their child.
We know that to be the case.
Your past of undermining confidence in vaccines, with
unfounded or misleading arguments, concerns me. Can I trust
that is now in the past? Can data and information change your
opinion, or will you only look for data supporting a
predetermined conclusion? This is imperative. You have the
responsibility to restore trust in our public health
institutions in this position you have.
Now, let's turn a little political. I want President Trump
to be successful. It is important for our Country. Any action
you take as HHS Secretary will shape his legacy, and we both
want that legacy to be positive.
Thank you for coming before the Committee, for being
willing to serve, and I look forward to today's conversation.
With that I yield to my Ranking Member, Senator Sanders.
OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR SANDERS
Senator Sanders. Thank you, Senator Cassidy, Mr. Chairman,
and Mr. Kennedy, thank you for being with us.
I am going to discuss later the issue of vaccines, which
Senator Cassidy raised and is of concern, I think, for all of
us. But before I go there, I wanted to congratulate you, in a
sense, for the phrase ``Make America Healthy Again.'' I think
that is a cry that all of us, a goal that all of us share,
because, as you have indicated, we are a very unhealthy
society.
We are the richest country in the history of the world, and
yet we rank far below every other major country in terms of our
life expectancy. That is outrageous. To me, equally outrageous
is that if you are working class in this country you are going
to live 6 or 7 years shorter lives than if you are rich. In
America today, 68,000 people die every year because they cannot
get to a doctor. They cannot afford to get to a doctor. You
pointed out yesterday the outrageous costs of health care in
America, two or three times more than other industrialized
countries are paying.
Unbelievably, in this country, hundreds of thousands of
people deal with cancer, struggling for their lives. You know
what happens to them? They go bankrupt. They deplete their life
savings.
In other words, when we talk about making America healthy,
we have got to talk about a broken, corrupt health care system.
Your uncle, President Kennedy, and your father, Bobby
Kennedy, a great Senator from New York, your uncle sat right
now where Senator Cassidy is sitting, Chairman of this
Committee. All of them did what I think is the right thing.
They said that health care is a human right. They looked all
over the world, and saw every other major country guaranteeing
health care to all people, whether they are rich or poor, young
or old. So I am not quite sure how we can move to making
America healthy again unless we have the guts to take on the
insurance companies and the drug companies and guarantee health
care to all people. I will be asking you a question about that.
Lowering the cost of prescription drugs. How do you make
America healthy again if one out of four people in this country
cannot afford the price of prescription drugs, which is far
higher in America than any other country on Earth?
Under President Biden, we made some progress, and this
Committee played an active role in having Medicare begin, for
the first time, negotiating the price of drugs that we are
paying. And I am going to ask you whether or not you will
demand that President Trump follow what we accomplished here.
We are the only major country on Earth not to guarantee
paid family and medical leave. Mr. Kennedy, there are women
today who are having babies, and they have got to go back to
work in a week or two because they have no guaranteed paid
family and medical leave. How do you have a healthy country
when women and men get fired because they stay home taking care
of their sick kids? That is not making America healthy again.
I would go a little beyond the jurisdiction of Health and
Human Services, but I think it is important. If you are working
50 or 60 hours a week making 13, 14 bucks an hour, which is
what millions of Americans are making, can you be healthy? Will
you join those of us who think that, in the United States, the
wealthiest country on Earth, people that work 40 hours a week
should not live in poverty? We have got to raise the minimum
wage to a living wage.
Lastly, and we discussed this very briefly, President Trump
believes that climate change is a hoax. I happen to believe,
and most Americans believe, and virtually the entire scientific
community believes that it is an existential threat to this
planet. I do not know how you are going to make America healthy
again or keep the world healthy when you have massive heat
waves, droughts, floods, and extreme weather disturbances.
Louisiana had them. Vermont had them. That is not keeping
America healthy.
Now, that is not within the jurisdiction of HHS, but I
surely hope that you will, if you are confirmed, demand that
President Trump change his position and work with those of us
who are trying to transform our energy system, and in fact,
keep America healthy by addressing the crisis of climate
change.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
The Chair. Thank you, Senator Sanders. And now I would like
to welcome our nominee, Mr. Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. Mr. Kennedy
has a long career as an attorney and advocate for various
health and environmental concerns. He has championed a range of
issues like healthy foods and efforts to fight chronic disease,
while calling for greater transparency and accountability in
our public health infrastructure.
Mr. Kennedy has an important opportunity to reform the
Department and to restore trust in our Federal health agencies.
I look forward to hearing more about his policy priorities and
his plans to advance President Trump's agenda to Make America
Healthy Again.
I thank him for joining us today, and I will now turn over
to Mr. Kennedy to introduce himself.
STATEMENT OF ROBERT F. KENNEDY, JR., LOS ANGELES, CA
Mr. Kennedy. Thank you, Chairman Cassidy. Thank you,
Senator Sanders, Ranking Member Sanders, Senators, and other
Members of this distinguished Committee.
Cheryl and I were heartbroken last night to learn the
tragic accident that took so many of our fellow Americans,
including our servicemembers. We are in an apartment where we
were able to see the rescue operations from our window. Senator
Marshall, please know that I will continue to pray for you as I
texted you last night, for those who were lost who called your
state home, as well as Senators Kaine and Alsobrooks. We
appreciate the first responders and local officials who are
working so hard. May God continue to be with us, and all who
are impacted, and those who continue to help with the recovery.
I am humbled to be sitting here today as President Trump's
nominee to oversee the U.S. Department of Health and Human
Services. I want to thank President Trump for entrusting me to
deliver on his promise to make America healthy again.
I am grateful to have my family here once more with me. I
want to introduce my wife Cheryl, my daughter Kick, my son
Bobby, my daughter-in-law, Amaryllis, and my nephew, Jackson
Hines. I want to thank them as well as the many members of my
large extended family, for the love that they have so
generously shared.
I want to particularly thank you, Mr. Chairman, for the
time that you have spent with me and the times we have talked
in person and by phone. I greatly admire your passion for
public health and your commitment to science, and this
Committee is blessed to have a medical doctor at the helm and
two other medical doctors, Dr. Marshall and Dr. Rand, on the
Committee.
I explained yesterday at the Finance Committee that my
journey into the issue of health began with my career as an
environmental lawyer. Working with hunters and fishermen and
mothers in the communities and small towns along the Hudson
River, I learned that human health and environmental health are
intertwined and inseparable. The same chemicals that kill fish
also sicken human beings.
Today, Americans' overall health is in a grievous
condition. Over 70 percent of adults and a third of children
are overweight or obese. Diabetes is ten times more prevalent
than in 1960. Cancer among young people is rising by 1 or 2
percent per year. Autoimmune diseases, neurodevelopmental
disorders, asthma, Alzheimer's, ADHD, depression, addiction,
and a host of other physical and mental health conditions are
all on the rise.
The United States has worse health than any other developed
nation, yet we spend more on health care, sometimes double,
sometimes triple, as other comparable nations. Last year we
spent $4.8 trillion, not counting the indirect costs from
missed work. That is almost a fifth of GDP. It is tantamount to
a 20 percent tax on the entire economy. No wonder America has
trouble competing with countries that pay a third of what we do
for our health care, and yet have a healthier workforce.
But I do not want to make this too much about money. It is
the human tragedy that moves us to care. President Trump has
promised to resurrect America's global strength and our
leadership and to restore the American Dream. He understands
that we cannot be a strong nation unless we are first a healthy
people.
A healthy person has a thousand dreams. A sick person has
only one. Today, over half of our countrymen and women are
chronically ill and have only one dream. When I met with
President Trump last summer, I discovered that he has more than
just ``concern'' for this tragic situation, but genuine care.
President Trump has committed to restoring the American Dream,
and 77 million Americans delivered a mandate to do just that,
due in part to his embrace and elevation of the Make America
Healthy Again movement. That movement, led largely by MAHA moms
from every state, many of whom have traveled to be here
yesterday and today, Senators, this is one of the most powerful
and transcendent movement I have ever seen. The nation is ready
for change and recognizes that this is a unique inflection
moment. I have promised President Trump that if confirmed I
will do everything in my power to put the health of America
back on track.
I have been greatly heartened to discover a deep level of
care among Members of this Committee, both Democrats and
Republicans. I came away from our conversations hopeful that we
can put aside our divisions for the sake of a healthy America.
For a long time the Nation has been locked in a divisive
health care debate about who pays. Well, when health care costs
reach 20 percent of GDP, there are no good options, only bad
ones. Shifting the burden around between government and
industry and corporations is like changing the deck chairs on
the Titanic. Our Country will sink beneath a sea of desperation
and debt if we do not change course and ask the fundamental
question, why are health care costs so high in the first place?
The obvious answer to that question is chronic disease. The
CDC says over 90 percent of health care spending goes toward
managing chronic disease, which hits lower-income Americans the
hardest. The President's pledge is not to make some Americans
healthy again but to make all Americans healthy again.
There is no single culprit for chronic disease. Much as I
have criticized certain industries and agencies, President
Trump and I know that most of the scientists and experts
genuinely care about Americans' health. Therefore, we will
bring together all stakeholders in pursuit of this unifying
goal.
Before I conclude, I want to make sure this Committee is
clear about a few things. News reports and many in the hearing
yesterday have claimed that I am anti-vaccine and anti-
industry. Well, I am neither. I am pro-safety. I am pro good
science. I worked for 4 years to raise awareness about mercury
and other toxins in fish, and nobody called me anti-fish. All
of my kids are vaccinated, and I believe vaccines have saved
millions of lives and play a critical role in health care.
Nor am I the enemy of food producers. American farms are
the bedrock of our culture and our national security. I was a
4-H kid, and I spent my summers on ranches. I want to work with
our farmers and food producers to remove burdensome regulations
and unleash American ingenuity. MAHA simply cannot succeed if
we do not have the partnership of America's farmers.
In my advocacy I have often disturbed the status quo by
asking uncomfortable questions, and I am not going to apologize
for that. We have massive health problems in our Country that
we must face honestly. And the first thing I have done every
morning for the past 20 years is pray to God that he would put
me in a position where I can end the chronic disease epidemic
and protect our children. That is why I am so grateful to
President Trump for the opportunity to sit here before you
today and seek your support and your partnership in this
endeavor.
I will conclude with a promise to you, Mr. Chairman, to the
Members of this Committee, to the President, and most of all to
the tens of millions of parents across America, especially the
moms who have propelled this issue to center stage. Should I be
so privileged as to be confirmed, we will make sure our tax
dollars support healthy foods. We will scrutinize the chemical
additives to our food supply. We will remove the financial
conflicts of interest from our agencies. We will create an
honest, unbiased, science-driven HHS, accountable to the
President, to the Congress, and to the American people. We will
reverse the chronic disease epidemic and put the Nation back on
the road to good health. Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Kennedy follows.]
prepared statement of robert f. kennedy, jr.
Chairman Cassidy, Ranking Member Sanders, and Members of this
distinguished Committee, I am humbled to be sitting here today as
President Trump's nominee to oversee the U.S. Department of Health and
Human Services. I want to thank President Trump for entrusting me to
deliver on his promise to make America healthy again.
I also want to thank my wife Cheryl, who is with us here today; and
all the members of my large extended family, for the love that they
have so generously shared. Ours has always been a family devoted to
public service, and I look forward to continuing that legacy.
I want to particularly thank you, Mr. Chairman, for the time that
you have spent with me. I greatly admire your passion for public health
and commitment to science, and this Committee is blessed to have a
medical doctor at the helm.
My journey into the issue of health began with my career as an
environmental lawyer. Working with hunters and fishermen and mothers
and the small towns on the Hudson, I learned that human health and
environmental health are inseparable. The same chemicals that kill fish
make people sick too.
Today, Americans' overall health is in a grievous condition. Over
70 percent of adults and a third of children are overweight or obese.
Diabetes is ten times more prevalent than in 1960. Cancer among young
people is rising by one or 2 percent a year. Autoimmune diseases,
neurodevelopmental disorders, asthma, Alzheimer's, ADHD, depression,
addiction, and a host of other physical and mental health conditions
are on the rise.
The United States has worse health than any other developed nation,
yet we spend far more on healthcare--at least double; in some cases,
triple. Last year we spent $4.8 trillion, not counting indirect costs
like missed work. That's almost a fifth of GDP. It's tantamount to a 20
percent tax on the entire economy. No wonder America has trouble
competing with countries that pay a third what we do, yet have
healthier workforces.
But I don't want to make this too much about money. It's the human
tragedy that moves us to care. A healthy person has a thousand dreams.
A sick person has only one. Today, over half of our countrymen and
women are chronically ill.
When I met with President Trump last summer, I discovered he has
more than just ``concern'' for this tragic situation, but genuine care.
President Trump has committed to restoring the American Dream, and 77
million Americans delivered a mandate to do just that--due in part to
his embrace and elevation of the Make America Healthy Again movement.
This movement--led largely by MAHA moms from every state, is one of the
most powerful and transcendent I've ever seen.
I have promised President Trump that if confirmed I will do
everything in my power to put the health of Americans back on track.
I have been greatly heartened to discover a deep level of care
among Members of this Committee too. I came away from our conversations
confident that we can put aside our divisions for the sake of a healthy
America.
For a long time, the Nation has been locked in a divisive
healthcare debate about who pays. Well, when healthcare costs reach 20
percent of GDP, there are no good options, only less bad. Shifting the
burden around between government, corporations, and families is like
rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. Our Country will sink
beneath a sea of desperation and debt if we don't change course and
ask: Why are healthcare costs so high in the first place?
The obvious answer is chronic disease. The CDC says 90 percent of
healthcare spending goes toward managing chronic disease, which hits
lower-income Americans the hardest. The President's pledge is not ``To
Make Some Americans Healthy Again.'' It's all of us.
There is no single culprit for chronic disease. Much as I have
criticized certain industries and agencies, President Trump and I know
that most of their scientists and experts genuinely care about
Americans' health. Therefore, we will bring together all stakeholders
in pursuit of this unifying goal.
Before I conclude, I want to make sure the Committee is clear about
a few things. News reports have claimed that I am anti-vaccine or anti-
industry. Well, I am neither; I am pro-safety. I worked for years to
raise awareness about the mercury and toxic chemicals in fish, but that
didn't make me anti-fish. All of my kids are vaccinated, and I believe
vaccines have a critical role in healthcare.
Nor am I the enemy of food producers. American farms are the
bedrock of our culture and national security. I was a 4H kid and spent
my summers on ranches. I want to work with our farmers and food
producers to remove burdensome regulations and unleash American
ingenuity.
In my advocacy I have often disturbed the status quo by asking
uncomfortable questions. Well, I won't apologize for that. We have
massive health problems in this country that we must face honestly. And
the first thing I've done every morning for the past 20 years is pray
to God that he would put me in a position where I can end the chronic
disease epidemic and bring health back to our children. That is why I
am so grateful to President Trump for the opportunity to sit before you
today and seek your support and partnership in this endeavor.
I will conclude with a promise--to the Members of this Committee,
to the President, and most of all to the tens of millions of parents
across America, especially the moms who have propelled this issue to
center stage: Should I be so privileged as to be confirmed, we will
make sure our tax dollars support healthy foods. We will scrutinize the
chemical additives in our food supply. We will remove the financial
conflicts of interest in our agencies. We will create an honest,
unbiased, science-driven HHS, accountable to the President, to
Congress, and to the American people. We will reverse the chronic
disease epidemic and put the Nation back on the road to health.
______
The Chair. Thank you, Mr. Kennedy. I will start. And for
everyone's information, yesterday Finance went long. This is
not the Star Chamber. This is where I think most people can get
their questions out in 5 minutes. And so I will let it go a
little bit over 5, but out of deference to our witness, who has
already testified for 3 hours, I will be a little tight. That
said at the end, taking the Ranking Member and the Chairman's
privilege, the two of us will have a chance to have a little
bit more, and that is what you get for being the Chair. So,
that said. Let's begin.
Bobby, if I may, because you said I could, you once
described yourself as pro-vaccine to me. Now, the context of
what I am about to ask is that there are multiple studies
establishing the safety of measles and hepatitis B vaccine, and
specifically that they are not a cause of autism. In this
position--and you have previously said yes. But if you are
approved to this position, will you say, unequivocally, will
you reassure mothers, unequivocally and without qualification,
that the measles and hepatitis B vaccines do not cause autism?
Mr. Kennedy. Senator, I am not going into the agency with
any----
The Chair. That is kind of a yes-or-no question, because
the data is there. And that is kind of a yes or no. And I do
not mean to cut you off, but that really is a yes or no.
Mr. Kennedy. If the data is there I will absolutely do
that.
The Chair. Now, there is the data, just because I used to
do hepatitis B, as I said. I know the data is there.
Mr. Kennedy. Then I will be the first person, if you show
me data, I will be the first person to assure the American
people that they need to take those vaccines.
The Chair. Now, what concerns me is that you have cast
doubt on some of these vaccines recently, I mean like the last
few years, but the data--and I can quote some of it--the data
has been there for a long time. I have been out of the game, I
have been in Congress for 16 years, and this data was, in large
measure, generated before I came to Congress.
My concern is that if you are making those claims and being
so influential, I mean, your bully pulpit is incredible, with
that responsibility that you never acquainted yourself with
anything that might contradict that which you are previously
saying.
Let me ask once more. If the data is brought to you and
these studies that have been out there for quite some time, and
peer-reviewed, and it shows that these two vaccines are not
associated with autism, will you ask, ``No, I need even more,''
or will you say, ``No, I see this. It has stood the test of
time, and I unequivocally and without qualification say that
this does not cause autism.''
Mr. Kennedy. Not only will I do that, but I will apologize
for any statements that misled people otherwise.
The Chair. Thank you. Next----
Mr. Kennedy. I just want to pledge to you that I will never
stick on a point if somebody shows me data that says I am
wrong. I know that is an interpretation people have, but it is
absolutely wrong. I am science-driven and evidence-driven.
The Chair. I think the concern is how persuadable people
are. But let me go on because I have limited time. I am going
to hold myself to the same 5 minutes.
Yesterday, Senator Bennet in Finance asked you if you had
once previously made statements that Lyme disease was created
as a military bioweapon, and you said you may have said that
once. Do you still believe that Lyme disease was created as
military bioweapon?
Mr. Kennedy. I have never believed that, Senator. What I
said is that we should always follow the evidence. There were
three books suggesting that. I have not read them through. What
I have said is we should always follow evidence, not matter
what it says.
I never have said that definitively Lyme disease was
created in a bio lab.
The Chair. Okay. Next, again, this will be kind of a yes or
no. Do you commit that you will revise any CDC recommendations
only based on peer-reviewed, consensus-based, widely accepted
science, in other words, not personal beliefs or the beliefs of
any single person that you or your Department may identify?
Mr. Kennedy. Absolutely, Senator. I am not going to go into
HHS and impose my preordained opinions on anybody at HHS. I am
going to empower the scientists at HHS to do their job and make
sure that we have good science that is evidence-based, that is
replicable, where the raw data is published.
The Chair. I am almost out of time, so let me get to
another question.
Mr. Kennedy. All right.
The Chair. Do you promise that FDA will not de-prioritize
or delay review and/or approval of new vaccines and that
vaccine review standards will not change from historical norms?
Mr. Kennedy. Well, we will have the best vaccine standards
with safety studies, and I will----
The Chair. That is a little bit of a different answer than
the question I asked, because what is the best could be in the
eyes of the holder. So let me read it again, promise that the
FDA will not de-prioritize or delay review and/or approval of
new vaccines and that vaccine review standards will not change
from historical norms.
Mr. Kennedy. Yes.
The Chair. Great. With that I will set a good example and I
yield my time to the Ranking Member.
Senator Sanders. Thank you, Chairman Cassidy. And I am
going to do what I very rarely do is actually follow-up on a
question of Senator Cassidy.
There have been, as I understand it, dozens of studies done
all over the world that make it very clear that vaccines do not
cause autism. Now, you have just said, if I heard correctly,
well, if the evidence is there. The evidence is there. That is
it. Vaccines do not cause autism. Do you agree with that?
Mr. Kennedy. As I said, I am not going to go into HHS with
any preordained----
Senator Sanders. I asked you a simple question, Bobby.
Studies all over the world say it does not. What do you think?
Mr. Kennedy. Senator, if you show me those studies, I will
absolutely, as I promised to Chairman Cassidy, I will----
Senator Sanders. That is a very troubling response, because
the studies are there. Your job is to have looked at those
studies as an applicant for this job.
All right. Let me ask another question, this one about
COVID. Scientists from Yale School of Public Health and
University of Maryland have estimated that the COVID vaccine
saved 3 million lives and prevented 18 million
hospitalizations. President Trump, someone who I do not often
agree with, has said that the COVID vaccines was, quote, ``one
of the greatest miracles of the ages.'' That is Donald Trump.
Bobby, you had a very different perspective. At a time when
thousands of Americans were dying from COVID every week, in May
2021, you petitioned the Food and Drug Administration to revoke
the emergency use of COVID vaccines.
My question to you is, were the scientists who told us that
the COVID vaccine was imperative, and President Trump who told
us that it was this great thing, were they right, or were you
right when you told people that they should not take COVID
shots?
Mr. Kennedy. Senator, I filed that lawsuit after CDC
recommended the vaccine for 6-year-old children, without any
evidence that it would benefit them and without testing on 6-
year-old children. And that was my reason for filing that
lawsuit.
Senator Sanders. Was the vaccine, the COVID vaccine,
successful in saving millions of lives?
Mr. Kennedy. I do not know. We do not have a good
surveillance system, unfortunately.
Senator Sanders. You do not know?
Mr. Kennedy. I do not think anybody can say that. If you--
science that shows that.
Senator Sanders. But you know, Bobby, if I show you, you
are applying for the job. I mean, clearly you should know this,
and that is the scientific community has established that, that
the COVID vaccine saved millions of lives. And you are casting
doubt. That is really problematic.
All right. Let me ask you another question on another
subject. My Republican colleagues, and President Trump, are
moving toward making massive cuts into Medicaid in order to
provide tax breaks to the wealthiest people in this country. As
I am sure you know, Medicaid provides health insurance to tens
of millions of children, provides the funding for two out of
every three seniors in nursing homes, it provides 43 percent of
the revenue for community health centers, something I feel very
strongly about, and it is so important for millions of people.
If confirmed, in terms of making America healthy again,
will you stand up to the White House and say, no, we cannot
throw millions of children off of health care, millions of
elderly people out of nursing homes, we cannot cut Medicaid to
give tax breaks to billionaires?
Mr. Kennedy. President Trump has made no indication to me
that he intends to throw millions of people out of nursing
homes or deprive people of their health care, Senator. It is a
health care system that is broken, is not working. You have
been working on it your entire career. As Americans get less
and less healthier, as premiums rose----
Senator Sanders. Bobby, I----
Mr. Kennedy [continuing]. As----
Senator Sanders [continuing]. The health care system is
broken.
Mr. Kennedy. You asked me to fix it----
Senator Sanders. But to fix it----
Mr. Kennedy [continuing]. It works for the American people.
Senator Sanders. But my colleagues here, certainly in the
House of Representatives, are prepared to make massive cuts in
Medicaid. Now I happen to believe in a Medicare for All system,
which guarantees health care to all people, not what we are
talking about. But, in fact, there is serious discussion of
massive cuts to Medicaid, which would cause devastating harm on
children and people in nursing homes. All I am asking you, if
that proposal goes through will you say, ``Hey, you are not
keeping America healthy by throwing children off of health
care.''
Mr. Kennedy. Senator, I have not seen any congressional
proposals. I can only tell you what President Trump has told
me, which is that he wants me to make Medicaid, Medicare, and
Obamacare better.
Senator Sanders. Well, if you have not seen those proposal,
I suggest you go to any newspaper. They are there. Thank you,
Mr. Chairman.
The Chair. Senator Paul.
Senator Paul. I think the discussion over vaccines is so
oversimplified and dumbed down that we never really get to real
truths, and it is why people up here are so separated from real
people at home.
We talk about hepatitis B. It is a terrible disease. It
could lead to liver failure, as the Chairman said. But the
reason you have distrust from people at home, why they do not
believe anything you say, and they do not believe government at
all, is you are telling my kid to take a hepatitis B vaccine
when he is 1 day old. You get it through drug use and sexually
transmitted. That is how you get hepatitis B. But you are
telling me my kid has to take it at 1 day old. That is not
science.
Every person with a bit of common sense, even people who do
not resist vaccines--I have vaccinated all my kids. I believe
vaccines are one of the modern miracles beyond all pale. The
Speckled Monster is a great book about the introduction of the
smallpox vaccine in 1720, into our Country. All miracles.
But I am not a one-size-fits-all. It is not all or nothing.
I chose to wait on my hepatitis B vaccine, and we did it when
they went to school. Does that make me an awful person? Does
that make me an anti-vaxxer because I questioned the government
dictate of whether I do it? And I am not speaking for anybody
else. I am only speaking for myself. But for goodness sakes,
let's have an honest debate about these things.
The COVID vaccine. If you asked me my opinion, there were
reporters running up and down this hall, and they say, ``Are
you still anti-vaccine?'' No, I am pro-vaccine. But on the
COVID vaccine, and on the COVID illness, there was a
thousandfold or more difference between the elderly and
children. If you do not acknowledge that, you are committing
malpractice. You are showing your ignorance. If you say a 6-
month-old must be mandated to get it, the science is not there.
All this blather about the science says this and the
science says that, no, it does not. The science actually shows
that no healthy child in America died from COVID. Look it up.
No healthy child died from COVID.
The thing is, is that it is a thousandfold greater. So if
you ask me my advice as a physician, if you were 65 or older,
or overweight and some other conditions, I would have said,
``Hell yes, I would take the COVID vaccine.'' The risks of the
disease were real and much greater than the vaccine. But if you
asked me, ``Should my healthy 6-month-old get it?''
See, these are the nuances you are unwilling to talk about
because there is such a belief in submission. Submit to the
government. Do what you are told. There is no discussion. There
ought to be a debate. You are not going to let him have the
debate because you are just going to criticize and say, ``It is
this, and admit to it or we are not going to appoint you.''
But it is more complicated than that. And this is why
people distrust government, because you are unwilling to have
these conversations. And go home. Ask your Democrat young
mothers, your Republican young mothers if they are vaccinating
their kid for hepatitis B, and they are like, ``Well, do I have
to do that on day one to this precious little baby.'' Is there
science to say you should not do it? Probably not, but it is my
kid. There is not clear-cut science saying not to.
But on autism, there is no good science of anything to show
what causes autism. We do not know. It is a profound disease,
and I know many moms here, and dads, who have kids with autism,
and I know them personally, I have met their kids. But the
thing is they saw their kids developing completely normal,
maybe speaking 100 words, go to no words, at about 15 months of
age.
Now, there is not proof. There is not proof that the
vaccines cause it. That is true. There is not proof that it
causes it. But we do not know what causes it yet, so should we
not be at least open-minded? We take 72 vaccines. Could it be?
I do not know. But we should not just close the door and say we
are no longer because we believe so much in submission, we are
not going to have an open mind to study these things.
It is sort of this crazy notion. Schizophrenia I would put
in the same notion. You have a kid who is completely normal to
18 or 19, and their brain goes haywire. How does that happen?
It is the most bizarre disease. Should we not be open? Could it
be our food? It might be vaccines. It might be our food. But
autism is more common. I do not know about the schizophrenia
statistics, but autism is more common. Shouldn't we want to be
open-minded? Instead, we are so closed-minded and we are so
consensus-driven that the science says this. Well, science does
not say anything. Science is a dispute, and 10 years from now
we could all be wrong.
We were told in the beginning, 20 years ago, they did this
enormous study and they said everybody over 50 should take an
aspirin. I thought, well, that is a pretty good idea. It makes
sense. But you know what? Twenty years later they measured it,
and they found if you had no heart disease and you were taking
aspirin your chance of dying from a brain bleed or from a
stomach bleed were greater than the risk of heart disease. If
you have heart disease they still say take an aspirin. If you
do not, they have changed their minds 20 years later. But would
have all said I was crazy and I should no longer be in public
discourse if I had said, 20 years ago, ``I do not feel like
taking an aspirin. I ride my bike all the time. I am afraid I
might hit my head.''
But that is what country is about. It is what dissent is
about. So I just ask you to look at the larger picture and give
the guy a break who says, ``I just want to follow the science
where it leads, without presupposition.'' I think really what
we have up here is presupposition. You have already concluded,
it is absolute that autism is not caused by--we do not know
what causes autism, so we should be more humble in what we say.
Sorry I did not get to a question.
[Applause.]
The Chair. For the record, if a child is born to a
hepatitis B mother, that child may have a 95 percent chance of
becoming a chronic carrier.
Senator Paul. We vaccinate those people, and nobody is
against that.
The Chair. But if that----
Senator Paul. That is a very small percentage and a red
herring. That is not what we are talking about. Ninety-nine
point 9 percent of kids do not have a hepatitis B mom, and
could they wait awhile? Could they get vaccinated a 3 months or
a year? Yes.
The Chair. Again, for the record, if the mother's hepatitis
B status is known, then that can be delayed. The problem is
oftentimes, or at least a significant percentage of the time,
the mother's status is not known. If she is hepatitis B-
positive a vaccine on day one of life prevents chronic
hepatitis B 95 percent of the time.
It really depends upon the knowledge of the mother's
hepatitis B status. And when they used to do just, Okay, we
know the mother's status or not, there are mothers that snuck
through. Their status was unknown. We can blame the OBs--yes,
Marshall.
But for record, there is an absolute rationale for that.
But you are right, if the mother's status is definitively
known, then it can safely delayed.
Now Senator Murray.
Senator Murray. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. HHS has really
broad and critical responsibilities to protect and preserve
health care and social services, from women's health to
childcare to biomedical research. That is just a few.
In light of last night's tragedy, I do want to express my
thoughts and prayers, but it is, I think, a painful reminder to
all of us that we need competent people running our Federal
agencies to respond when a crisis strikes.
Mr. Kennedy, let me start by talking about vaccines. I
think we all agree that cancer is a particularly nefarious
chronic disease, and the American Cancer Society reported
earlier this month that women under 50 are experiencing a
dramatic increase in the incidence of that disease.
Fortunately, there is clear data showing that the HPV
vaccine has saved lives and cut cervical cancer rates
dramatically. You have called the HPV vaccine, quote,
``dangerous and defective,'' and said it actually increases the
risk of cervical cancer. Do you stand by those statements, yes
or no?
Mr. Kennedy. The HPV vaccine, I brought litigation, I
represented----
Senator Murray. Yes or no.
Mr. Kennedy [continuing]. I represented----
Senator Murray. Do you stand by your statement?
Mr. Kennedy. Let me answer.
Senator Murray. I am trying to. Yes or no. It is a simple
yes or no.
Mr. Kennedy. I----
Senator Murray. Do you stand by your previous statement?
Mr. Kennedy. I litigated on that issue. I represented
hundreds of young girls who felt that they were injured by the
vaccine. That trial is happening right now in Los Angeles.
Senator Murray. Well, let me ask you----
Mr. Kennedy. Those questions will be answered by a jury in
that trial.
Senator Murray. You said that no loving parents would allow
their daughter to receive that vaccine. If confirmed as HHS
Secretary, would you recommend that parents get their children
vaccinated against HPV?
Mr. Kennedy. I recommend that children follow the CDC
schedule, and I will support the CDC's schedule when I get in
there, if I am fortunate enough to be confirmed.
Senator Murray. Would you recommend that parents get their
children vaccinated against the measles, yes or no?
Mr. Kennedy. Against measles? Yes.
Senator Murray. Well, I will just remind everybody that
parents look to our health leaders for advice on these
decisions. You would be a health leader. And for the record I
would like to put into the record his previous statements on
these vaccines.
The Chair. Without objection.
[The following information can be found on page 60 in
Additional Material:]
Senator Murray. I do want to ask you a question about
character. I still believe character matters, and I want to let
you respond to this. You were accused of sexual harassment and
assault by Eliza Cooney, who was first hired as a part-time
babysitter by your family. When you were confronted about this
accusation you said you were, quote, ``not a church boy'' and
that you, quote, ``have so many skeletons in my closet.'' You
then texted Ms. Cooney an apology and indicated you had no
memory of what she described.
Mr. Kennedy, I am asking you to respond to those
accusations seriously in front of this Committee. Did you make
sexual advances toward Ms. Cooney without her consent, yes or
no?
Mr. Kennedy. No, I did not, and the story has been
debunked.
Senator Murray. But why did you apologize to her then?
Mr. Kennedy. I apologized for something else.
Senator Murray. Well, that is not my understanding. Let me
just ask you----
Mr. Kennedy. All you have to read is the texts which she
published. It is not for that.
Senator Murray. That is not how I have read it. Are there
any other instances where you have made sexual advances toward
an individual without their consent? Just yes or no.
Mr. Kennedy. No.
Senator Murray. No. Mr. Kennedy, you said that you are
going to say to NIH scientists, ``God bless you all. Thank you
for your public service. We are going to give infectious
disease a break for 8 years.''
Mr. Kennedy. Excuse me?
Senator Murray. You just said thank you for your service to
our Federal employees. You want to give infectious disease a
break. That is a quote. Will you support the development and
distribution of vaccines for the avian flu? Yes or no.
Mr. Kennedy. For the avian flu, yes.
Senator Murray. My time is almost up, but having read a lot
and listened a lot, I just want to remind all my colleagues
that by voting to confirm Mr. Kennedy we would be telling our
constituents he is worth listening to. That alone could get
people killed before he even lifts a finger, because he does
not even need the leverage of power to influence people. As we
saw in Samoa, all he needs is a megaphone.
To affirm his views by voting to confirm him as our highest
health official we should not mince words about what that would
mean. When babies die from whooping cough because parents were
not sure if the vaccine was safe, we will have to look them in
the eye. When measles sweeps through schools and hospitals,
nursing wards, will this be worth it? There are political
realities. We all get that. But there is also right and wrong,
fact and fiction, and there are also people staying healthy or
dying pointlessly from diseases we can prevent because they
thought Congress took its job vetting our health care Secretary
seriously.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
The Chair. We are going to now go out of order. We are
going to go to Senator Marshall. He would like to be able to
view the press conference regarding the tragedy on the plane
from Wichita.
Senator Marshall.
Senator Marshall. Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank
you, Mr. Kennedy, for your kind words this morning, for your
caring text last night. I am grateful for all my colleagues,
most everybody reaching out to us. And it is certainly a tough
day for Kansans and many others who lost loved ones, and we
will look forward to meeting with the President later today and
those loved ones. And we just want everyone back home to know
that we are wrapping our arms around them, that we are mourning
with them, and we will get through this together. So thank you.
Mr. Kennedy, take a second and just describe why fighting
chronic disease is so important to you. Who are we fighting
for? What is your role as HHS Secretary, and is there anything
that is a bigger priority to you than this, as you go into this
role?
Mr. Kennedy. Thank you, Senator. When I was a 10-year-old
boy, my uncle was in the White House, the chronic disease among
American children was 2 percent. Today it is 66 percent. The
cost of chronic disease to our Country when my uncle was
President was zero. There were not even treatments for chronic
diseases at that time. Today the cost is $4.3--$4.5 trillion.
It is bankrupting our Country. Seventy-seven percent of
American kids cannot qualify for military service. Thirty-eight
percent of teens, according to NIH's last report, which was 3
weeks ago, 38 percent are diabetic or pre-diabetic.
When my uncle was President the typical pediatrician would
see one or two cases of diabetes in his lifetime, juvenile
diabetes. Today it is more than a third of the kids who walk
through his door, or her door, is diabetic or pre-diabetic.
Autism rates have gone from 1 in 1,500 to 1 in 10,000,
depending on what study you look at, in my generation, 70-year-
old men today. In our children it is 1 in 34. I had 11
siblings. I had dozens of first cousins.
Senator Marshall. Mr. Kennedy, I am sorry. So what is your
role as HHS Secretary to fight that disease?
Mr. Kennedy. There has never been an HHS Secretary who came
into this--it was all about the typical partisan debate about
how we allocate the costs, whether insurers pay it or whether
hospitals, providers, or families pay it. And the costs
continue to rise. All the things we are debating on, our kids
are getting sicker and sicker.
Senator Marshall. Yes, just to quote you from yesterday, it
is like we are moving the chairs on the Titanic----
Mr. Kennedy. Yes, and the ship is sinking, and nobody is
paying attention to it. And yesterday I got question after
question from the Democrats about measles. In 1963, the year
before the measles epidemic, or the measles vaccine was
introduced, 500 American kids died from measles, almost all of
them extremely poor and malnourished. We have 252 million
Americans who are suffering from chronic disease, and none of
them, they did not mention diabetes, they did not mention heart
disease, they did not mention cancers yesterday.
We need to refocus if we are going to save our Country.
This is existential. Our Country is not going to be destroyed
because we get the marginal tax rate wrong.
Senator Marshall. I think----
Mr. Kennedy. It is going to be destroyed if we get this
issue wrong. And I am in a unique position to be able to stop
this epidemic.
Senator Marshall. Mr. Kennedy, I want to just contribute,
as one of the three physicians on here, and even as I listen to
my friends across the aisle, my conclusion is that we have to
guard the physician-patient relationship, and give those
parents of these kids the information. All three of us are
going to disagree on exactly who should and should not get a
particular vaccine. We all recognize the incredible successes
of different vaccines, as well.
But we have to give the American public the best
information, non-biased information, and I would love to get
you to respond to that. But I have an important question for
folks back home, and this will be my last question.
I have never seen a person whose words, written and spoken,
have been so misattributed, exaggerated, sensationalized, and
taken out of context. Will you just speak to my farmers and
ranchers back home and tell me about your, where do they fit
into this role of MAHA and how we are going to work with them,
and just your compassion toward these farmers and ranchers.
Mr. Kennedy. I mean, MAHA will not succeed without the
cooperation and partnership of agricultural producers, of
farmers and ranchers across this country. I was a 4-H kid. I
grew up working on ranches. And I have worked for years
representing farmers in various forms of litigation. Thomas
Jefferson said that American democracy is rooted in tens of
thousands of independent, freeholds owned by farmers. We are
losing farmers today, and we cannot afford to lose a single
farmer. And on my watch I do not want to lose a single farmer.
We have to offer farmers an offramp from chemically
intensive agriculture, which they do not want to do, which even
the chemical industry is ready to change, so that they can grow
crops that they can sell in Europe, so they can grow crops.
Senator Hawley told me, during our meeting, that four out of
five of his brothers-in-law have Parkinson's. There is illness
all over the farm community, and it is undoubtedly related to
the intensity of chemical pesticides.
The Chair. Mr. Kennedy----
Mr. Kennedy. We need to reduce that. I am not going to do
anything to coerce the farmer. President Trump was the best
President in modern American history for the American farmer,
the first one to see farm prices go up. He has instructed me to
take care of the farmers and make sure they are full partners.
Senator Marshall. God bless you. Thank you.
The Chair. Senator Baldwin.
Senator Baldwin. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Kennedy, I
have been listening to the back-and-forth and questions, and
when people have tried to pin you down you have said----
Mr. Kennedy. Can you speak up, Senator Baldwin.
Senator Baldwin. Yes. I have been listening to the back-
and-forth, the questions, and when people tried to pin you down
on a point you said, ``Show me the data'' or ``Bring me the
studies.'' And I want to suggest that data is out there, and
those studies are out there. And if you are going to review all
those studies and data, you are going to be doing that, if
confirmed, for your first year of being Secretary.
When we talked, we were talking a bit about vaccines at the
end of our meeting, and you said, really, to me, that there is
no post-approval safety monitoring. And that led me to believe
that you are not aware of the significant and ongoing safety
monitoring that occurs after years of rigorous studies showing
vaccines to be safe and effective.
I want to give you the opportunity to set the record
straight here. Are you aware of the measures in place
throughout Health and Human Services to ensure vaccine safety
after approval? Yes or no.
Mr. Kennedy. I am aware of the VAERS system, which CDC
admits, captures fewer than 1 percent of vaccine injuries.
Senator Baldwin. So you are aware of CDC monitoring----
Mr. Kennedy. I am also aware----
Senator Baldwin [continuing]. Are you aware of the FDA
post-approval monitoring?
Mr. Kennedy. I am aware of only two systems.
Senator Baldwin. Are you aware of the Vaccine Safety
Datalink?
Mr. Kennedy. Oh yes. I am very aware of that.
Senator Baldwin. Are you aware of the Vaccine Adverse Event
Reporting System?
Mr. Kennedy. I am aware of the Vaccine Safety Datalink that
CDC keeps under a lockbox and will not let independent
scientists look at it.
Senator Baldwin. Are you aware of the Clinical Immunization
Safety Assessment Project?
Mr. Kennedy. As I said----
Senator Baldwin. Are you aware of V-safe?
Mr. Kennedy. I am aware that they are broken, and I can
explain to you how each one of those is broken, if you are
interested. What I want to do is make sure we have gold
standard science, that we get the conflicts off the panels so
that people--this Congress----
Senator Baldwin. What I listed right now are just some of
the guardrails that are in place to ensure that lifesaving
vaccines are safe and effective, and this is after numerous
clinical trials, rigorous studies, and review by an independent
panel of experts that show vaccines are safe and effective,
which is available to all the public.
If you want to take a second look at the science, like you
have said, well, it is here, it is available, and it is
conclusive. And saying anything else is undermining vaccines.
To a different----
Mr. Kennedy. I am, by the way, repeating what Congress
found----
Senator Baldwin. A different issue----
Mr. Kennedy [continuing]. In the 2003 investigation.
Senator Baldwin. Mr. Kennedy, I want to move to what I hope
will be pretty simple stuff. In general, for a drug to be
considered safe would you say that 97, 98 percent of people
taking that drug and having no complications is generally safe?
Mr. Kennedy. It would completely depend on what the drug
is. If it is a drug given to a healthy population, that would
not be acceptable.
Senator Baldwin. Again, this is as high a level as it gets.
Would you say that when 99 out of 100 people experienced
minimal or no complications, that drug is safe?
Mr. Kennedy. It depends on what the risk is from the
disease. It depends on what the benefit from the drug is. If
you are dying of cancer, you will take a drug with that kind of
risk profile.
Senator Baldwin. If we were to talk about----
Mr. Kennedy. If you are a healthy individual----
Senator Baldwin [continuing]. Peer-reviewed----
Mr. Kennedy [continuing]. If you are a healthy individual
with zero risks----
Senator Baldwin. I am talking about mifepristone. But if we
were to talk about peer-reviewed, replicable studies of a
medication, would you say that you needed 10 trusted studies to
get the same conclusion?
Mr. Kennedy. It depends on what the----
Senator Baldwin. Twenty trusted studies?
Mr. Kennedy. It depends on what the----
Senator Baldwin. What is your number?
Mr. Kennedy. It completely depends on the kind of study you
are talking about, randomized studies or observational studies.
Senator Baldwin. Is it safe to assume that 100 studies that
are replicable and peer-reviewed is enough?
Mr. Kennedy. Well, it could be one study if it was a
powerful enough study.
Senator Baldwin. The most widely used medication abortion
drug, mifepristone, has been FDA approved for nearly 25 years.
More than 100 studies have confirmed that 99 percent of
patients who took the abortion pill had no complications. So
with all of that, I can only conclude that you would commit to
keep this science-backed and proven medication on the market
and accessible for women. Is that correct?
Mr. Kennedy. I am going to--with mifepristone, President
Trump has not chosen a policy. I will implement his policy.
Senator Baldwin. Regardless of the studies, regardless of
the data, regardless of the science, you have been talking
about show me the data, show me the studies----
Mr. Kennedy. Well, if you----
Senator Baldwin [continuing]. You would have that policy
regardless----
Mr. Kennedy. Senator----
Senator Baldwin [continuing]. Of what the science says.
Mr. Kennedy. Senator, the devil is in the details. If you
are telling me 99 percent of women did Okay but 1 percent died,
I would say that is not beneficial risk profile.
Senator Baldwin. That is not what the studies show.
Mr. Kennedy. I know, but you are not showing me. I need
those details from this study before I--I cannot buy a pig in a
poke. Show me what the study says.
The Chair. Let's move on.
Next would be Senator Mullin.
Senator Mullin. Thank you, Mr. Kennedy, for being here. We
have fortunately been able to form quite a friendship over the
last year, and I appreciate it. I appreciate the in-depth
conversations we have had.
I just want to point out, I do not understand why my
colleagues all of a sudden say we cannot question science. It
absolutely blows my mind that all of a sudden it is such shame
that Bobby is sitting up here where he is questioning science,
because I guarantee you if he was sitting here, and he was
going to be the Secretary of HHS underneath the former
President Biden, which I enjoy saying former President, I would
bet you that you guys would be having his back 100 percent, and
enjoy the fact that he is questioning science, and would
probably support his positions 100 percent. But because he is
now on the Republican side, you guys are like going way off the
rail, and how dare he question science.
My God, if we did not question science where would we be
today? We have always questioned science. Science is always
evolving, always changing. Have a glass of wine today; it is
healthy for you. Do not have a glass of wine a day. Have a
piece of chocolate a day; it is healthy. Dark chocolate is
healthy for you. Take an aspirin a day, as Senator Rand Paul
pulled out. I mean, where would we be today if we did not ever
question science?
But I will say there is an issue that I have, as a father
of six, that when my kids come out from getting their vaccines
they look like a freaking pincushion. I mean, 72 vaccinations?
I think there is a reason we should be questioning that.
When you start looking at the risk of autism, why would we
not be looking at everything? Who would not want to look at
everything? Give me anybody in this room that does not know
somebody that you are personally connected to that one of their
children does not suffer from some severity of autism. Give me
one. And you guys are all saying that Bobby cannot question it?
I do not get it, guys. I do not understand your point,
other than the fact you just oppose him because he supports the
President that you guys do not like now. I applaud him for
going into this situation and saying let's question something.
The definition of insanity is doing the same thing, expecting
different results. Is it not true that you are supposed to
question science? Is anybody going to question the fact that is
not true?
Share the numbers with me again about autism, where they
were at when you were a child to where they are at today, as my
kids are children.
Mr. Kennedy. There were not a lot of studies when I was a
kid, but the best studies, and really the only studies out
there, there are two studies. One shows a rate of about 1 in
10,000, another about 1 in 1,500. And, there are other estimate
in between. Today, it is 1 in every 36 kids, according to CDC.
I want to say one other thing. Relevant to the point you
just made, in 1963, my uncle, John F. Kennedy, awarded the
highest civilian honor to Frances Kelsey. Frances Kelsey was a
young scientist at NIH, who came in and objected to the panel
having approved thalidomide for American children. All the
scientists of that day--they were doing it in Europe--all the
scientists of that day, and the scientific panels that worked
for the agency, approved, green-lighted thalidomide.
She stood up and screamed and fought and risked her job and
risked her reputation, and she blocked it in our Country. Three
years later, everybody recognized that she was a hero and a
savior of our children, because we were not getting the kind of
terrible, diabolical deformities that they were experiencing in
Europe. My uncle gave her the highest civilian honor because
she questioned science and was courageous enough to stand up
and say, ``I do not care what happens to me. This cannot
happen.''
Senator Mullin. The irony is that she was a Democrat at
that time and she questioned science. But now all of a sudden,
because you are working for Republicans, you are not allowed to
question science.
Let's go back to this and say, let's just use the number 1
in 10,000 at your age. Now, we are a little bit different in
age. I am not going to say how old you are, but you look great
for your age. I will say that 1 in 36, if that is not a
pandemic then what is? One in 36, and it used to be 1 in 10,000
have autism now? Can any of you guys, with a straight face, say
that we should not look at every aspect to what we are putting
in our kids, be it from the food to the vaccines. One in 36.
That scares the living daylights of me. With six kids? I could
have 36 grandkids. I am just doing the math. I am the youngest
of seven. My family seems to be pretty active in that area.
I am not necessarily trying to be funny, but I am being
very serious, guys. We should support the fact that Bobby is
questioning that. He is not saying he is against it. He is
saying he is going to question it and the let the studies
follow where they were, or they will. And God bless you for
doing that. Thank you.
Mr. Kennedy. Thank you, sir.
[Applause.]
The Chair. Senator Kaine.
Senator Kaine. Thank you, Mr. Chair, and congratulations on
your nomination, Mr. Kennedy. I enjoyed our conversation.
Thank you for starting off today acknowledging the pain
felt by people in this region from this horrible air tragedy
last night. Senator Marshall and Senator Moran, a lot of folks
from Kansas, a lot of folks from Virginia, D.C., Maryland, but
also when that passenger list comes out, and when the three
soldiers' names are revealed, every office here is going to
have some connection to them, because you have your staffs who
live here, and we kind of dread seeing that list of names.
I drove to the airport at 6:30 this morning, and went
across the bridge over the Potomac, and saw the operation, the
recovery operation kind of underway in daylight hours. And I
thought about the last big aviation disaster in Richmond, when,
on 9/11, a plane slammed into the Pentagon. And Virginia got
hurt very bad that day and so did the Nation.
Just a couple of months ago you posted this on your X
account. ``On 9/11, it is hard to tell what is conspiracy
theory and what isn't.'' I would like to introduce that for the
record, Mr. Chair.
The Chair. Without objection.
[The following information can be found on page 68 in
Additional Material:]
Senator Kaine. We take that kind of stuff pretty
personally. Virginians know what happened on 9/11, and we do
not need folks giving oxygen to conspiracy theories about 9/11.
Now, one thing I noticed about this post is it was in July
2024. It was 23 years after 9/11. You had a lot going on in
your life. You were running for President then. What made you
decide, in the midst of everything going on in this country and
in this world in July 2024, and your own candidacy for
President, that now was the time to say, ``It is hard to tell
what is conspiracy and what isn't'' about 9/11? What was so
important about making this point in July 2024?
Mr. Kennedy. Senator, the dramatic drop in trust in our
government, and this is particular one of the templates of
that, is what happened at CDC.
Senator Kaine. Yes, no, no. I want to move aside from that,
because you say, you go on to say, ``I won't take sides as
President. I won't take sides on 9/11.'' Wow. ``I won't take
sides on 9/11.''
Let me ask you this. As a general matter, do you find it
hard to tell what is a conspiracy theory and what is not? Is
that kind of a general deficit that you have in your own
analytical abilities?
Mr. Kennedy. My father told me, when I was 13 years old, he
said, ``People in authority lie,'' and that the job of a
citizen, in every democracy is to maintain----
Senator Kaine. You are an authority.
Mr. Kennedy [continuing]. A fear as to skepticism.
Senator Kaine. Okay. I get it. And you are an authority,
and you are an authority, but you would not take sides on 9/11
and you are admitting, I have a hard time telling is what is a
conspiracy theory and what is not.
Mr. Kennedy. Senator, I have investigated it. The things I
investigate I take sides on. People are allowed to hold that
opinion. I am not going to tell them they are crazy for holding
that opinion. I am going to say, ``What is your evidence?'' And
if I hear the evidence I am going to say that does not make any
sense.
Senator Kaine. You will not take sides on 9/11. Wow.
Senator Murray asked you some questions about Gardasil, and
this is a vaccine that is manufactured in Virginia. There are
other HPV vaccines. I am going to enter into the record a whole
series of studies from many, many nations that talk about the
dramatic positive effect of Gardasil. Could I introduce those
into the record, Mr. Chair?
The Chair. Without objection.
[The following information can be found on page 69 in
Additional Material:]
Mr. Kennedy. Those studies are on trial right now.
Senator Kaine. Let me ask a question. These are studies
from Scotland, Sweden, the U.K., Australia, the United States,
multiple studies. And then I am going to introduce into the
record, I guess it is a blog post of yours, ``The verdict is no
inescapable. Gardasil is killing girls.'' And I would like to
introduce that into the record, as well.
The Chair. Without objection.
[The following information can be found on page 74 in
Additional Material:]
Senator Kaine. You have a pretty significant financial
interest in litigation against Gardasil. You have received
contingency fees and payments for referring people to lawyers
suing the manufacturer. And in your ethics vetting----
Mr. Kennedy. I have never received any money from any
Gardasil, or any other vaccine lawsuit.
Senator Kaine. Let me read a quote. This is your words. In
your ethics vetting for this nomination you said, quote,
``Pursuant to the referral agreement, I am entitled to receive
10 percent of fees awarded in contingency cases referred to the
firm.''
How can folks who need to have confidence in Federal
vaccine programs trust you to be independent and science-based
when you stand to gain significant funding if lawsuits against
vaccine manufacturers are successful?
Mr. Kennedy. I have given away all of my rights to any fees
in that lawsuit.
Senator Kaine. I yield back.
The Chair. Next is Senator Scott.
Senator Scott. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Kennedy, good
to see you again. Thank you for being here before the
Committee.
One of the beauties of our Country is we have foundational
documents that point us in the right direction. I think it is
the compass that shows us due north, true north.
The Declaration of Independence mentions life, liberty, and
the pursuit of happiness as unalienable rights. You and I had a
serious conversation about the importance of life, and I am a
pro-life Christian, as you know. And you said, you assured me,
that your deputies were going to be pro-life. Is that still the
case?
Mr. Kennedy. I will implement President Trump's policies. I
serve at his pleasure. But I share President Trump's view that
every abortion is a tragedy. I share----
Senator Scott. My question was, are you having deputies
within HHS that will be pro-life?
Mr. Kennedy. As I said, I can tell you exactly what I am
going to do, so there is no mistake. I am going to implement
President Trump's policies. President Trump has told me he
wants to end late-term abortion.
Senator Scott. Are you hiring people who are pro-life at
HHS?
Mr. Kennedy. Yes, I am.
Senator Scott. Thank you. During the first Trump
administration, HHS began investing in policies to support
individuals living with sickle cell anemia. This has continued.
A career staff person has dedicated time to coordinate
sickle cell disease-related activities across HHS, and other
government agencies. Will you commit to continuing to have an
individual serve in this coordinated role for sickle cell?
Mr. Kennedy. Yes, and I have worked on sickle cell for
many, many years. I told you, I have many friends who have
sickle cell, several of them. I have seen the suffering that
they endure. One out of every 365 Blacks in our Country has
sickle cell.
There are now promising gene therapies that are very, very
expensive. But it is something that NIH should be
enthusiastically supporting, that kind of research.
Senator Scott. Well, you answered my second question, so
that is great, which was, today, you noticed the FDA gene
therapies are really a breakthrough, evolutions in science,
that are really one-time cures. So you support the continuation
of the research that makes that more available?
Mr. Kennedy. Absolutely, Senator.
Senator Scott. Thank you. That is great news. This past
fall, due to one facility making the majority of our IV drugs
in the U.S., it was devastated by Hurricane Helene. Hospitals
and health care facilities across the country faced IV
shortages.
Nephron Pharmaceuticals, in Columbia, South Carolina, tried
to shore up IV support in South Carolina hospitals, by creating
the Palmetto Line in its facility, to help make IVs for
hospitals across the state. We must do more proactively, to
address the shortages and the shortage risks, as well as to
provide and promote the production of medical products here in
the U.S. If confirmed, how will you prioritize efforts to
prevent and reduce drug shortages, including for essential
medicines?
Mr. Kennedy. Including?
Senator Scott. Essential medicines?
Mr. Kennedy. I mean, President Trump has told me it is his
priority to bring essential medicine manufacturing back to this
country. It is a national security threat. So much of it has
been exported abroad, and particularly to China, and it is a
priority for him. So it is a priority for me, as well.
Senator Scott. Very good. Will you commit to fostering
productive public-private partnerships that can provide the
government with key information on pharmaceutical supply
chains, help direct shortages, and improve the long-term
security and resiliency of the U.S. drug supply?
Mr. Kennedy. Absolutely, Senator.
Senator Scott. Thank you very much. And one of the things
that we study, I had two opportunities to question you. Once,
yesterday at the Finance Committee. I opted, as opposed to
seeing you twice, just to see you one time, and spend my time
doing some other things with that time. But I think it is
important for us to recognize that we are in a critical place
as a Nation.
We are so dependent on other countries for the essentials,
from health care and beyond, and we ought to work on a strategy
of resilience across this Nation, in all of the essential
areas, that we need to become less dependent on the rest of the
world, and more dependent on ourselves.
I hope that as your term at the HHS, you will spend a lot
of time thinking through, and all the layers and complexity
that is under HHS, how we become more and more resilient as a
Nation.
Mr. Kennedy. That is absolutely critical for our national
security, and for our economy. President Trump is doing that
through HHS, but also, more importantly, through the Commerce
Department, and meeting directly with pharmaceutical industry
leaders, to figure out what kind of incentives that they need,
to bring manufacturing home.
Senator Scott. Perfect. Thank you. Mr. Chairman, I yield
back my 8 seconds.
The Chair. Then, we will go to Senator Murphy.
Senator Murphy. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Mr.
Kennedy, thank you for joining us here today.
Listen, credibility matters so much, when you lead the most
important health agency in the world. The Secretary of HHS has
got to be trusted that he is telling the truth, that he cares
about science, has no political agenda.
Mr. Kennedy, I want to go back to some of your testimony
yesterday, before the Finance Committee, when you either
feigned ignorance about some very clear statements that you
have made in the past, or you outright denied saying things
about the vaccine program that you have undoubtedly said.
With a day's hindsight, I want to give you another chance
to be honest about the things that you have said. Senator
Warnock asked you yesterday if you had compared America's
vaccine program to the Catholic Church's pedophilia scandal.
You said you never said that. Now, I am not asking you to
explain what you said.
Mr. Kennedy. I did not say I had never said that.
Senator Murphy. You did not say it? You did not say that?
Senator Warnock----
Mr. Kennedy. I did not say that I had not said that,
Senator. I said, the other question, he asked----
Senator Murphy. You are--you are doubling--that is fine.
Mr. Kennedy [continuing]. Me about Nazi death camps.
Senator Murphy. That is fine. You are doubling down on
that. You said, Senator Warnock also asked you if you compared
America's vaccine campaign to the Nazi death camps and the
Holocaust. Again, you said yesterday you did not say that.
Mr. Kennedy. I did not say that.
Senator Murphy. You did not say that. Senator Bennett asked
you yesterday if you had made an allegation that AIDS is a
different disease in Africa than it is in America. On that one,
you said you did not recall.
Having had a day to think about it, do you recall saying
that AIDS is a different disease in Africa than it is in the
United States?
Mr. Kennedy. I looked up that passage in my book, and found
that indeed, the diagnostics for AIDS are very different in
Africa than in the United States, that the list of symptoms is
almost completely different.
Senator Murphy. Let me just, I will submit this for the
record, but having denied the first two statements, let me just
read what you said.
You said, in 2013, ``Is it hyperbole to say that the people
who run our vaccine programs should be in jail? They should be
in jail. To me, this is like Nazi death camps. Look at what it
does to the families who participate in the vaccine program. I
can't tell why somebody would do something like that. I can't
tell you why ordinary Germans participated in the Holocaust. I
can't tell you what was going on in their minds.''
With respect to the pedophilia scandal, you said, ``The
pedophilia scandal in the Catholic Church is a perfect metaphor
for what is happening in the United States. The vaccine
program, it is the same reason we had a pedophilia scandal in
the Catholic Church, because people were able to convince
themselves that the institution of the church was more
important than these little boys and girls who were being
raped.''
I do not disagree with Senator Mullin. I do not want an HHS
Secretary that is not going to question science. I think it is
important to question science. But you are not questioning
science. You have made up your mind. You have spent your entire
career undermining America's vaccine program. You make these
purposeful comparisons to those that are administering the
vaccine program to the Nazi executioners, to the people who
covered up the Catholic Church's pedophilia scandal, because
you have made a decision that there is a comparison, that there
is evil in the vaccine program, as there was evil in the
pedophilia scandal and the Nazi death camps.
You are not exploring science. You have made up your mind.
You have spent your entire career trying to undermine these
programs. The reason that these statements, these incredibly
aggressive, over-the-top statements matter to us is because it
just is not believable, that when you become Secretary, you are
all of a sudden going to be consistent with science. People who
have spent their career saying these kinds of things, running
the kinds of campaigns that you have run, do not all of a
sudden change their stripes.
Mr. Chairman, I will submit these statements into the
record.
The Chair. Without objection.
[The following information can be found on page 131 in
Additional Material:]
Mr. Kennedy. Can I respond to that, Senator? My statement
about the Catholic Church is almost identical. The findings of
the Government Oversight Investigation Committee had
investigated the CDC's vaccine program in 2003. Senator Burton
was Chairman of that Committee, and he said that certain
individuals in that program had written off a generation of
kids, because of, quote, ``misplaced institutional loyalty to
the CDC, and because of entanglements with the drug company.''
So----
Senator Murphy. But, but you.
[inaudible]----
Mr. Kennedy. Let me finish what I am saying.
Senator Murphy. You equate, you equate----
Mr. Kennedy. You made some grave accusations----
Senator Murphy [continuing]. Pedophilia, to the
administration of vaccines?
Mr. Kennedy. No, it was not pedophilia.
Senator Murphy. It was a perfect metaphor.
Mr. Kennedy. Well, if you have 1 in 36 kids who is
neurological injuries, and if that is linked, that is something
that we should study.
Senator Murphy. Is it a perfect metaphor? Is it a perfect
metaphor?
Mr. Kennedy. It is not a perfect metaphor, but there is no
metaphor that is perfect. But I am pro-vaccine. I am going to
support the vaccine program. I want kids to be healthy, and I
am coming in here to get rid of the conflicts of interest
within the agency, to make sure that we have gold standard,
evidence-based science. And if you show me where I am wrong in
this, show me a single statement I have made about science that
is erroneous.
The Chair. Thank you.
Senator Hawley.
Senator Hawley. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Mr.
Kennedy, welcome. I enjoyed our conversation last month, in our
office. And thank you for remembering, as you did again today,
my uncles who we talked about, Boris and Lauren and Jean, who
all have recently passed away from Parkinson's, grew up in a
farm family. That was kind of you to remember them, so thank
you for that.
Let me start by asking you a question about children, and
the safety of children. President Biden's administration, his
HHS issued a rule--a rule, so it is binding--requiring that
every doctor in America, including pediatricians who receive
any kind of Federal funding, so that is anybody who takes ACA
funding, excuse me, anybody who takes CHIP funding, this is
almost every health provider in America, requiring them to
conduct gender transition and gender, so-called, affirming
procedures. So that means hormones, that means puberty
blockers, that means surgeries, in some cases. They impose that
rule on doctors across the country. This has been litigated,
and it has been actually stopped by a couple of courts, who
found that it was way outside of HHS's jurisdiction.
My question to you is, will you rescind this rule that
imposes this radical policy, and talk about being anti-science,
this radical policy, on just about every pediatrician in the
United States of America?
Mr. Kennedy. Yes, I will. And by the way, that rule is
anti-science. The most thorough meta-review on gender-affirming
care has come out in the Cass Report, which reports really
catastrophic impacts on children, and that is science. It is a
meta-review of all the existing scientific studies.
But even more, just from a common sense, if you are a
patient, do you really want somebody performing surgery on you
who is morally opposed to that surgery? It does not make any
sense.
We need to embrace diversity in this country. Our people
who believe that is important, I respect them. We should hear
them out. We should debate. We should have a congenial
conversation.
But there are also people who believe that it is an
atrocity, and they need to be listened to, too. And we need to
embrace diversity, and make room for diversity in this country,
and not force people to do things that are against their
conscience.
Senator Hawley. Let me just point out that on this rule,
what is particularly pernicious about it is, we are talking
about gender transition surgeries, gender transition care on
minor children. This rule purported to preempt all state law.
So in states like mine, and many others, where the voters have
said, ``We do not want gender transition procedures performed
on minors,'' the Biden administration attempted to use Federal
money and force pediatricians to do it anyway. So I am glad to
hear you say you will rescind that rule. I think that is
terrific for the safety of children.
Mr. Kennedy. Senator, I would add that we do not let
children drink. We do not let them drive an automobile, because
they have bad judgment. They are flooded with hormones. Their
brains are still in formation. Their sexuality is still in
formation.
Allow them to make judgments that are going to have life-
changing, forever implications for the rest of their life at
that age is unconscionable, particularly in light of the Cass
Report.
Senator Hawley. I am glad to hear you say that. Let me ask
you a question about NIH research, if I may. I know this is
something that you care a lot about. Under the first Trump
presidency----
Mr. Kennedy. I do want to add that people who have gender
differences should be respected. They should be loved. But
loving them does not--sometimes, love means saying no to
people.
Senator Hawley. Let me, on NIH, under the first Trump
presidency, HHS stopped new NIH research that involved human
fetal tissue from elective abortions. Now you were asked about
this tangentially yesterday by Senator Cantwell, and I want to
get your quote right.
You said to her correctly, you said, ``Stem cell research
today can be done on umbilical cords, and do not need any fetal
tissue,'' which is correct. My question to you is, will you
reinstate President Trump's policy, that ensures that no
Federal research and no Federal tax dollars is conducted on
fetal tissue taken from elective abortions?
Mr. Kennedy. Yes.
Senator Hawley. Fantastic. Let me ask you just about Title
X. You were asked about this yesterday, too, and I think I
understand your answer. I just want to be sure I have got it
crystal clear. Title X, which prohibits the funding of the use
of Federal taxpayer funding for abortions, or to flow to
entities like Planned Parenthood, that perform abortions, or
refer people to abortions.
You were asked yesterday, if you would support President
Trump's rule that says no Title X funding for those who perform
abortions or refer people to abortions. I think your answer
was, yes, you would reinstate that rule. I just want to be sure
I am right about that.
Mr. Kennedy. Yes.
Senator Hawley. Fantastic. Last point that I have for you,
on mifepristone, the chemical abortion drug, you said yesterday
that you would study its safety. I think that is good. I want
to make an additional point here, just about how the Biden
administration changed the rules on mifepristone, that I hope
that you will take into consideration, because you pointed
out--I am almost done, Mr. Chairman--you pointed out that we
need to honor the wishes of voters and states, and their right
to set life policy.
I just point out that the Biden administration's rule on
mifepristone, which they did after the Dobbs decision, means
that in any state, including ones like mine, where voters or
state legislators say, ``We do not want abortion performed
after a certain point,'' if the Biden administration rule on
chemical abortion stands, and you can mail in these abortion
drugs, without a doctor visit or referral, that means no state
ban, no state decision, no voter decision is going to matter.
We are going to have a one-size-fits-all policy set here in
Washington. I hope you will take that into consideration.
Mr. Kennedy. I will implement President Trump's policies.
The Chair. Senator Hassan.
Senator Hassan. Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman, and Ranking
Member Sanders. Good morning, Mr. Kennedy.
Look, I want to just take a moment, because like a few of
us on this dais, I sit on Finance, as well as HELP. And one of
the things that was most disturbing to me about yesterday's
hearing was the suggestion, from some of my friends on the
other side of the dais, that our intense questioning and
concerns about Mr. Kennedy were driven by partisanship.
I have voted for five of President Trump's nominees to date
in the last couple of weeks. One of them, the new Secretary of
Transportation, was on the scene last night at DCA. Like all of
us, I take really seriously our obligation for advice and
consent. And I am concerned, as Senator Mullin expressed his
concern, about the need for science to help us move forward on
critical, critical issues.
Now, some of you are new to this Committee and new to the
Senate, so you may not know that I am the proud mother of a 36-
year-old young man with severe cerebral palsy. And a day does
not go by when I do not think about, what did I do when I was
pregnant with him, that might have caused the hydrocephalus,
that has so impacted his life.
Please, do not suggest that anybody in this body of either
political party does not want to know what the cause of autism
is.
Do you know how many friends I have, with children who have
autism? The problem with this witness' response on the autism
cause, and the relationship to vaccines, is because he is re-
litigating and churning settled science, so we cannot go
forward and find out what the cause of autism is, and treat
these kids, and help these families.
Mr. Kennedy, that first autism study rocked my world. And
like every mother, I worried about whether, in fact, the
vaccine had done something to my son. And you know what? It was
a tiny study of about 12 kids, and over time, the scientific
community studied, and studied, and studied, and found that it
was wrong.
The journal retracted the study, because sometimes, science
is wrong. We make progress. We build on the work, and we become
more successful. And when you continue to sow doubt about
settled science, it makes it impossible for us to move forward.
That is what the problem is here. It is the re-litigating
and rehashing and continuing to sow doubt, so we cannot move
forward, and it freezes us in place.
Now let me move on to my other concerns from yesterday's
hearing. During yesterday's hearing you really showed a lack of
knowledge about Medicare and Medicaid. So what is Medicare Part
A?
Mr. Kennedy. Medicare Part A pays mainly for primary care
or physicians, and then, Medicare----
Senator Hassan. No. So it is about--Medicare Part A is
seniors' coverage for inpatient hospital care. What is Medicare
Part B?
Mr. Kennedy. For physicians and doctors. Medicare Part D is
for----
Senator Hassan. That is coverage for outpatient care and
home health. So what is Medicare Part C?
Mr. Kennedy. Medicare Part C is a program, where it is the
full menu of all the services, A, B, C and D for Medicare----
Senator Hassan. It is Medicare Advantage, which, it is the
private insurance option for seniors on Medicare.
Mr. Kennedy. Exactly.
Senator Hassan. Mr. Kennedy, you want us to confirm you to
be in charge of Medicare, but it appears that you do not know
the basics of this program. So let's turn to Medicaid.
Mr. Kennedy. I just explained the basics.
Senator Hassan. No, I had to correct you on several things.
Mr. Kennedy. Oh, you just added information, Senator.
Senator Hassan. Yesterday, you said----
Mr. Kennedy. You did not correct me. I did not get it
wrong.
Senator Hassan. Mr. Kennedy, my time is limited, and I hope
the Chair will give me a couple of more minutes.
Mr. Kennedy. Is this a question, Senator?
Senator Hassan. Yes, Medicaid----
Mr. Kennedy. All right. Because you are giving me very
little time to answer one.
Senator Hassan. Let's turn to Medicaid. Let's turn to
Medicaid. You said yesterday to Senator Cassidy, ``Medicaid is
fully paid for by the Federal Government, and it is not fee-
for-service.'' That statement is false. Do you now understand
that statement is false? Yes or no?
Mr. Kennedy. That Medicaid is paid for by the Federal
Government, I believe I said no.
Senator Hassan. You said it is fully paid for. Medicaid, in
fact, sir, is a Federal-state partnership----
Mr. Kennedy. Well, no. The states, the state has a
partnership, that is right.
Senator Hassan. Right. So you were wrong yesterday. So you
are acknowledging that statement was false, right?
Mr. Kennedy. I misstated something.
Senator Hassan. All right, good. So yesterday, when you
were questioned about Medicaid, you repeatedly dodged
questions, by saying you want to make it better. Republicans
are circulating a proposal that would end Medicaid expansion in
some states, including in New Hampshire.
I will continue, submit this for the record, but it is
important to me to understand whether you believe that taking
Medicaid away from 60,000 people in New Hampshire would make
Medicaid better. And would it make New Hampshire healthy again?
I will submit that for the record. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
[Applause.]
The Chair. Senator Tuberville.
Senator Tuberville. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Thank you, Mr. Kennedy, for being here. Being a few months
older than me, I am going to be respectful of your elders.
Mr. Kennedy. Not by much.
Senator Tuberville. Yes, not by much, that is right. But
thank you. Look at this room. We have not had a full room in
here since I have been in here 4 years, on any hearing.
Thank you for bringing the light to what this is all about.
It is about health in our Country. There might have been a half
a dozen people in, in the last Health and Human Services
nominee. Nobody was interested. A lawyer who worked from home
in California, did not do a damn thing, in terms of what we
needed, when COVID was full steam. So thank you.
Thank you for getting our young people involved. My two
boys, 28 and 30, a year or so ago, they were going to vote for
you for President of the United States. You know why? Because
you are trying to save their group of people from the chemicals
and the things that we have in our food. They are fired up
about it. And you brought light to that, and thank God you have
done that. You brought importance to what we are doing.
I coached for 40 years. In the last 4 or 5 years I coached,
I had never seen like the run on drugs our young people are
being given by doctors across this country.
We have a attention deficit problem in this country.
Attention deficit, when you and I are growing up, our parents
did not use a drug. They used a belt, and whipped our butt, and
told to sit down.
Nowadays, we give them Adderall and Ritalin. They are like
candy across college campuses and high school campuses. Mr.
Kennedy, what are we going to do about that?
Mr. Kennedy. Today, 15 percent of American kids are on
Adderall, and there is clearly a major problem with over-
prescription, not just with our children, but with our entire
population. We have 4.2 percent of the world's population, and
we take 50 percent of the pharmaceutical drugs.
There is a recent study by Peter Gotzsche, who is one of
the founders of the Cochrane Collaboration, that showed that
prescription drugs are now the third-largest cause of death in
our Country, after cardiac arrest and cancer.
We are not getting healthier. Americans are getting less
and less healthy. Seventy percent of pharmaceutical profits
globally come from our Country, which has 4.2 percent of the
world's population.
We are the only country that allows full-scale
pharmaceutical ads on TV. And we are all being told, ``You can
make yourself--you can eat anything you want, you can smoke
anything you want, you can do anything you want, and there'll
be a drug to fix you in the end.'' And it is not a good
formula. And our kids are getting sicker and sicker. They are
not getting better.
Nobody here, all the people here who are defending this
current system and defending these pharmaceutical industry
profits, many of whom are taking huge amounts of money on the
pharmaceutical industry, millions of dollars, for many of these
Senators. And none of that, this is not making our Country
healthier; it is making us sicker. We need to get rid of these
conflicts, we need good science, and we need good leadership,
able to stand up to these big industries, and not bend over for
them.
Senator Tuberville. Thank you. And you brought to light the
vaccines over the last couple of years. I will have my first
granddaughter here in a couple of weeks, and my son and his
wife have done their research about vaccines, and she is not
going to be a pincushion. We are not going to allow that to
happen. But you brought that up.
But, as you and I talked about vaccines, ``Coach, let's
empower scientists to do their job. Let's go by what they do.
Let's do not just do something for the pharmaceutical
companies.'' So I appreciate you doing that.
One other thing is, you and I talked about Red Dye No. 3.
And just happened, you and I talked about that, and a few days
later in this room, we had the FDA director, and I asked him,
``Why do we use Red Dye 3 in our cosmetics?'' Or, ``We do not
use in cosmetics, we use in our food, but we do not use it in
cosmetics, because it causes cancer. What in the heck's going
on?'' Well, a few weeks later, because of your insistence, we
dropped it.
Mr. Kennedy. Thank you for that, Senator.
Senator Tuberville. Tell me about dyes and things that you
are concerned about, because I get more talk about that, than
anything.
Mr. Kennedy. We have 10,000 ingredients in our food in this
country, because FDA employs a standard called the GRAS
standard, and looks at any new chemical is innocent until
proven guilty.
In Europe, they have 400 ingredients in their foods.
Kellogg's makes Fruit Loops for the United States alone. It is
loaded with red dye, blue dye, yellow dye, and many, many other
ingredients. They make the same product for Canada, it is all
vegetable dyes, and for Europe.
If you eat a McDonald's French fry in this country, it has
11 ingredients. You eat the same product in Europe, it has
three. We are allowing these companies, because of their
influence over this body, over our regulatory agencies to mass
poison American children, and that is wrong, it needs to end,
and I believe I am the one person who is able to end it.
Senator Tuberville. Thank you.
The Chair. Senator Kim.
Senator Kim. Thank you, Chairman. Mr. Kennedy, good to see
you. I wanted to just start by asking you if you support
medically assisted treatment to help people get off of opioid
addiction?
Mr. Kennedy. Yes, I do.
Senator Kim. Do you think it is safe? And would you
consider it to be the gold standard of the approach?
Mr. Kennedy. The Cochrane Collaboration, which is the most
prestigious scientific research organization has said that, as
found in studies, the gold standard is 12-step programs. You
need an entire retinue, entire menu of treatments because many
addicts will not respond immediately, at least, to 12-step
programs, and for many of them, Suboxone and other and even
methadone are critical interventions that save lives, that get
addicts off the street, and they should be available as a
treatment option. I would not describe them as gold standard,
but I would describe them as medically necessary.
Senator Kim. Well, this is something. Look, I know we all
take this very seriously in terms of the plight of opioid
addiction in our Country, and that is something that I hope we
can recognize we need to lift up more and more. NIH has said
over and over again not enough people are doing it, and in
fact, an NIH published study does call it the gold standard of
treatment for opioid use disorder.
You are on a mission against and fighting against chronic
disease. You talk a lot about obesity. I wanted to get your
thoughts if you support Wegovy, Ozempic, other similar types of
GLP-I drugs to fight obesity?
Mr. Kennedy. The GLP drugs, the class of drugs are miracle
drugs, but I do not think they should be the first frontline
intervention for 6-year-old kids for whom they are currently--
that is the standard of practice now. If every American
qualifies for GLP by being overweight, 74 percent of our
population will ask for them, and the Federal Government was
paying for it, it would cost over a trillion dollars a year. It
would double the insurance costs for employers in this country,
and it would be a tsunami. And they have a lot of side effects.
Senator Kim. You said you support it, but that you do not
see it being the tool of choice for especially young kids. Is
that correct?
Mr. Kennedy. Exactly. For people who have morbid obesity,
for people who have diabetes, absolutely. And they should not
be prescribed alone without also prescriptions for exercise,
because otherwise they eat away at muscle. They are
counterproductive. They go after muscle first. They have all
kinds of bad side effects. About half the people on GLPs get
off of them after 2 years, and then there are problems when you
get off them. So it is----
Senator Kim. I wanted to----
Mr. Kennedy. Okay. Go ahead.
Senator Kim. Yes. I wanted to move on to just clarify some
statements you made in the past. In the past you said, quote,
``Wi-Fi radiation does all kinds of bad things including
causing cancer.'' Do you still stand by that statement?
Mr. Kennedy. Yes. I won a case in front of the Court of
Appeals against the FCC on that very issue.
Senator Kim. 5G, do you feel the same way about 5G?
Mr. Kennedy. Well, I am just saying, electromagnetic
radiation does.
Senator Kim. An RF you think----
Mr. Kennedy. Yes.
Senator Kim [continuing]. Causes--another issue that comes
before your work if you were to be confirmed----
Mr. Kennedy. Let me just clarify that. It changes DNA, and
there are scientific studies that have linked it to cancer,
many of them. But it does other things, including neurological
injury, that are the frontline injuries that we are most
concerned about and that are best documented.
Senator Kim. One other issue that comes before your work if
you are confirmed, I wanted to ask if you would support and
continue and expand CDC's role in collecting and disseminating
data on firearm mortality in the United States. Something
that----
Mr. Kennedy. I believe that we need to study the causes of
mass shootings. We need to study all the causes.
Senator Kim. You said earlier in response on avian flu, you
would continue the investments that you would support vaccine
development. I just want to clarify, does that mean you support
investments in mRNA vaccine research and development?
Mr. Kennedy. I am not going to pick a vaccine right now. I
need to look at all the data. I need to look at safety data and
advocacy data. But I am going to continue research on every
kind of vaccine.
Senator Kim. Mr. Chair, I yield back.
The Chair. Thank you, Senator Kim.
Now, Senator Banks.
Senator Banks. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Kennedy,
President Trump just won a historic election victory and you
are a big part of it. At the outset of the hearing, you talked
about those MAHA Moms, that coalition that you led, that
movement that was behind you that supported President Trump on
Election Day, giving him one of the biggest electoral college
votes in my lifetime. You were a part of that. The voters voted
for President Trump, and President Trump by the way is a man of
his word. He always follows through on what he says he's going
to do. And one of the things that he said he was going to do
was put you front and center in this Administration to make
America healthy again.
That is why at the end of the day, a lot of those moms have
been here yesterday and today from Indiana to support you in
this movement, and that is why you have my full support. And
anything other than voting for you, to confirm you, would be
thumbing my nose at that movement, the millions of people in
this country who want us to focus on making America healthy
again.
One of the things I have thought a lot about, I serve on
the Armed Services Committee as well, I just left another
hearing with the nominee to be our new secretary of the Army,
is the national security risk of an obese nation. Seventy
percent of our kids are not eligible today to serve in the
United States military. And the Army, 2 years ago, was 25
percent off of its recruitment goals, and obesity among our
kids is one of the reasons why, and I think you would agree.
My first question for you, this epidemic in this country is
as much of a public health risk as it is a national security
risk. Would you agree with that?
Mr. Kennedy. Absolutely, Senator. And like I said, well, I
did not say this, when my uncle was President, 3 percent of
Americans were obese, and today 74 percent are obese or
overweight. In Japan, 3 percent are obese. So what we are
seeing here is not happening elsewhere.
American kids did not suddenly get gluttonous and lazy.
Something is poisoning them, and we need to figure that out,
and then we need to end those exposures. We need the gold
standard science. And all of these MAHA Moms recognize that we
now have a unique opportunity in history where history now is
at an inflection point, where we have a unique opportunity to
reverse this epidemic.
We know what we have to do. We have to study the additives.
We have to end the conflicts of interest on the nutrition
panels and on the drug panels that are loaded with people who
have corrupt entanglements with the industries they are
supposed to regulate, that have turned these agencies into sock
puppets for the industries they are supposed to regulate.
We need somebody who can come in who can break that
inertia. We are attracting the most talented group of people
that work in NIH and CDC and FDA in modern history, and people
who are not coming there for jobs. They are innovators, they
are disruptors, they are entrepreneurs, and they are coming in
not because they want position, but because they actually want
to change things and give us gold standard science and make
America healthy.
Senator Banks. I know you agree that fitness is a part of
that, a major part of that.
Mr. Kennedy. Absolutely. My uncle started the Presidential
Council on Physical Fitness. I won a contest when I was in
school, I got an award for it, and it was a piece of pride for
me and for many people in my generation, I am sure coach won
his.
Senator Tuberville. [Inaudible.]
Senator Banks. I want to move on to another national
security threat. The biggest existential threat to America is
the Chinese Communist Party. And right now we are importing
one-third of our medicines from China, and even more of our
generic drugs come from China. It is a public health risk and a
national security risk. What can you do as HHS Secretary to
reduce our reliance on China and help our domestic
manufacturers?
Mr. Kennedy. This is a huge priority for President Trump.
He sees this as perhaps our greatest national security
vulnerability. Over the past few years, so much of our
critical, of our essential medicines, the production of them
and the supply chains, have been exported to China and it is a
crisis now in our Country. If there is a pandemic, if there is
a war, if there are any conflicts, China will now be able to
ransom American health, and that is not a good situation. We
need to bring that production home, and President Trump is
committed to doing just that.
Senator Banks. Well, sir, I think you are going to have a
tough job. You have my full support. But you have got lawmakers
against you. You are going to have bureaucrats against you. You
are going to be working with the limits of the administrative
state at the Department. But I will have your back and I want
to work with you to get it done to support----
Mr. Kennedy. Thank you, Senator Banks.
Senator Banks [continuing]. This movement. Thank you. I
yield back.
The Chair. Senator Blunt Rochester.
Senator Blunt Rochester. Thank you, Chairman Cassidy and
Ranking Member Sanders.
Mr. Kennedy, during our meeting, you shared your vision for
the Department, and we discussed priorities important to my
home State of Delaware. But I must say, as a former cabinet
secretary and a health official in my state, in listening to
your answers today in this hearing, I am deeply concerned and
shocked by your apparent lack of understanding of frankly some
of the basic responsibilities of the Department. It is one of
the largest, most complex, and it is vitally important. And
yesterday, during your Finance hearing, and today, you confused
details about Medicare and Medicaid. You did not know what
authorities you have under the Emergency Medical Treatment and
Labor Act, known as EMTALA, and you made false claims about the
safety of mifepristone.
However, what concerns me the most as a mom and a first-
time grandmother is your decades long track record of promoting
vaccine misinformation and profiting from it despite the harms
that it may cause to American children. And with that, I will
turn to my questions.
In yesterday's hearing, you did not seem to know anything
about EMTALA, even though I raised it with you during our
meeting last week. So I will give you another opportunity. Yes
or no, do you believe that a person presenting to an emergency
room with a severe illness should have any type of emergency
care needed to save their life?
Mr. Kennedy. Any American who the law says.
Senator Blunt Rochester. Yes or no?
Mr. Kennedy. I am answering the question, any American----
Senator Blunt Rochester. Yes or no was the direction.
Mr. Kennedy. Under the law, every American who presents to
emergency room must be treated, and I can enforce that law, and
I believe that is the right thing to do.
Senator Blunt Rochester. Do you agree that a person who is
experiencing severe pregnancy complications should be able to
receive emergency care to save their life if that care is an
abortion?
Mr. Kennedy. My understanding of President Trump's policy
is that women----
Senator Blunt Rochester. I am not asking you President
Trump's policy. I am asking you what do you believe.
Mr. Kennedy. Yes, if it is necessary to save the life of
the mother, of course.
Senator Blunt Rochester. So you do believe----
Mr. Kennedy. Of course, yes.
Senator Blunt Rochester.--yes, they should. Do you commit
to ensuring that pregnant women will have access to all
necessary emergency care, including an abortion, if it is
required to save their life or preserve their life?
Mr. Kennedy. If it is required to save their life.
Senator Blunt Rochester. Would you agree that the ability
to provide quality emergency care for pregnant women is
essential to preventing maternal mortality?
Mr. Kennedy. Providing care for pregnant women? We should
be providing care for pregnant women. President Trump wants to
do that.
Senator Blunt Rochester. Bottom line for me, women should
not be forced to rely on emergency airlifts to other states for
lifesaving care. And to be blunt, in our meeting, your lack of
understanding really, again, was very concerning.
In a 2023 interview, you described yourself saying, ``I am
a Kennedy Democrat. I believe in labor unions. I believe in a
strong, robust middle class. I believe in racial justice.'' And
just yesterday and today during this hearing and the hearing
yesterday you said we need to respect diversity.
Mr. Kennedy, the Trump administration recently issued an
executive order that directs the Federal Government to
eliminate grants, contracts, policies, programs, and activities
that include diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility.
This executive order has already caused widespread confusion,
fear, and uncertainty for health care providers, researchers,
public health professionals, and service providers across the
country. You said in our meeting that you understand that
health disparities exist.
Yes or no, in your view do the following programs count as
health DEI programs, programs that target Black women to
address the maternal mortality crisis?
Mr. Kennedy. Senator, there are seven----
Senator Blunt Rochester. Yes or no?
Mr. Kennedy. I am not going to answer that yes or no. If
you want an answer, I am happy to give it to you, but it is not
a yes or no.
Senator Blunt Rochester. I just want a yes or no.
Mr. Kennedy. It is not susceptible to a yes-or-no answer.
If you want to hear an answer, Senator----
Senator Blunt Rochester. Let me shift this because I only
have 36----
Mr. Kennedy. If you want to hear an answer, Senator----
Senator Blunt Rochester.--I have got 36----
Mr. Kennedy [continuing]. I am very happy to give you one.
Senator Blunt Rochester. I have got now 33 seconds. And
there are people out here who want to understand that if they
are at a pride parade and they are a health care provider, can
they give out a brochure? They want to know----
Mr. Kennedy. If you want people to understand, let me
answer the question.
Senator Blunt Rochester. If they are trying to have a
program in a Black church that is on Martin Luther King Day,
will they be able to have that program? Will it be funded? Will
they get in trouble? Will they be fired? That is the cause and
concern. We all know that it is important that we have a
healthy country. But as you said----
Mr. Kennedy. You want me to answer the question, Senator?
Senator Blunt Rochester. I think I got my answer.
Mr. Kennedy. Great.
Senator Blunt Rochester. Thank you, and I yield back.
The Chair. I will allow the witness to answer.
Mr. Kennedy. There are seven departments at NIH that
protect minority health and that seek to eliminate the shocking
and unacceptable disparities in minority health. I believe in
helping all people who are vulnerable. The DEI programs that
President Trump eliminated have spent $63 million with no
discernible positive impact on human health in this country.
There are institutions already that exist, and existed before
President Biden, whose job it is to do just that.
Senator Blunt Rochester. Will you cut those programs that
you just referenced?
Mr. Kennedy. That decision is up to Congress, not to the
HHS Secretary.
Senator Blunt Rochester. Thank you. I yield back.
The Chair. For the record, treating a miscarriage or
ectopic pregnancy is not an abortion. It is just false. And so
since I am not into misinformation, I would ask that
misinformation not continually be repeated.
Senator Husted.
Senator Husted. Thank you very much. Mr. Kennedy, thank you
for the work that you have done to create awareness about the
food we eat and how it affects our health, particularly with
our children. And you have helped put that on the American
agenda rightfully so, and I appreciate that.
I want to share with you a few statistics. According to the
CDC, obesity prevalence is around 42 percent among adults with
lower incomes compared to 31 percent among higher income
individuals. That the relationship is strong among women, 45
percent of low income women are obese compared to 29 percent of
higher income women.
I know I have had this conversation over the course of my
public service career many, many times, because at the states
we run the Medicaid program, that it impacts those health
statistics. That obesity impacts our programs, the cost of
them, the quality of life of the people who are served.
I also get this question about why in the world does the
Federal Government continue to subsidize programs that lead to
unhealthy foods, and why do we operate programs in the way that
we do like with SNAP that pays for foods that we know are
causing people to be unhealthy?
I know you do not have the sole authority in this matter.
The Department of Agriculture and the Congress certainly has an
impact on that. But could you just shed some light on how you
see your role in trying to impact that? Because we see that
these policies are disproportionately affecting poor people and
the inability to change them and make America healthy again is
having a disproportionate effect not only on them, but the cost
of all of these programs we are trying to maintain.
Mr. Kennedy. Thank you for the question, Senator. NIH has
been diverted away from studying the etiology of chronic
disease. So there is almost nothing at NIH, very, very low
percentage of its budget, a $42 billion budget, that is devoted
to finding out why we are having this obesity epidemic. We know
it is an environmental toxin. Epidemics are not caused by
genes, that genes may provide a vulnerability. You need an
environmental toxin. Why aren't we devoting science to finding
out what those toxins are and then eliminating them?
The focus is on infectious disease, and we almost
altogether ignore chronic disease, which causes 92 percent of
the deaths in this country. And during COVID, we had the
highest death rate of any country in the world. We had 16
percent of the COVID deaths. We only have 4.2 percent of the
world's population. No country did as poorly as us. You ask CDC
why is that? They say because we are the sickest people on
Earth. The average person who died from COVID had 3.8 chronic
diseases. American Blacks were dying from COVID greater than
almost any population in the world, over 3000 deaths per
million population. The only people worse are Indian
reservations, which have an even a higher rate, and the only
person who did worse globally were Samoans.
The American Blacks were disproportionately impacted
because they disproportionately have diabetes, obesity, cardiac
illnesses, and other chronic disease. We need to start studying
those and we need to get rid of the conflicts in the agency
that obstructs those studies and that are focused on advancing
the mercantile interests of the food industry and the
pharmaceutical industry rather than the health of the American
people.
Senator Husted. Well, I would ask you, if confirmed, to
take a leadership role across the agencies to advise us on what
policy changes we must make to both not make it worse, but to
make it better. Because we subsidize, literally we have
policies as a government that encourages the production of
foods and the sale of foods to particularly our poorest
Americans that lead to these problems. We are literally
creating the problem that we are trying to solve, and your
recommendations would be very much appreciated.
Mr. Kennedy. We already have liaisons with the USDA, with
Brooke Rollins, with whom I have a very good relationship, so
that we can work collaboratively to reduce the chronic disease
and the exposures that are causing them.
Senator Husted. Thank you.
The Chair. Senator Hickenlooper.
Senator Hickenlooper. Thank you Mr. Chair, and thank you,
Mr. Kennedy. Bobby, we share a mutual oldest best friend and I
respect that affection that you have for him very much. You did
talk a little longer in your introduction, so I am going to try
to urge concision because I have got three or four questions.
As I said, when we met, I am still very concerned about the
issues around vaccination, but I thought I'd start with the
ability of Medicare to negotiate drug prices, which was finally
Okayed in 2022. It will save Medicare plan $100 billion in the
next 10 years, probably $1.5 billion out of consumers' pockets,
Medicare patients, in just 2026 alone.
Yesterday, you said that the Trump administration had
issued a statement to lowering the cost of prescription drugs
and continuing the negotiation program. I went back and looked
at that and it was a statement that mentioned increasing
transparency and then said they would solicit feedback on the
Medicare drug price. But nowhere did it say in the statement
that the Administration was actually going to commit to
lowering prices. So is that something you still feel that
negotiation program and lowering those prices is important?
Mr. Kennedy. I have spoken to President Trump about
negotiations. He is absolutely committed to negotiating lower
drug prices.
Senator Hickenlooper. Great, I appreciate that. You have
also spoken much on the need to focus on prevention of chronic
disease, which I think everyone shares. The MAHA movement is
alive in Colorado as well as everywhere else. People are
frustrated by the fact that for every dollar we spend on health
care in this country, and as has been previously said, often
double any other country, only a nickel goes to prevention.
When you look at that $100 billion that is going to be
saved over the next 10 years through the negotiation of
pharmaceuticals, do you have any ideas of how we could put that
toward prevention, that revenue?
Mr. Kennedy. Well, that is a really good question, Senator
Hickenlooper. There are two things, there are two areas----
Senator Hickenlooper. I am going to give you 40 seconds
because I have got two more questions.
Mr. Kennedy. Okay. Medicaid, Medicare, and Obamacare
should, we should be moving to value-based care, which includes
prevention. And then the other arm is that NIH, CDC and FDA,
which should identify the toxins that are contributing chronic
disease and eliminating them.
Senator Hickenlooper. Great. Another short question with
mifepristone, which has been described and discussed a lot
already, and I understand your commitment to follow the policy
of the President, but he has other tools at his behest. If
there needs to be another study or looking at the other
existing studies, will you make sure that there is no bias, to
the best of our human ability, to twist those results in any
way to support that policy? And I am speaking now just about
the defense of science to make sure that those reviews are
fair.
Mr. Kennedy. Senator, I will commit to you here today to
review prior to approving any study at NIH to allow you to
approve the protocols and the researchers and help us choose
the research. All I want is good science, and I would love
input from this Committee on any study that we do. There are
many ways that studies are flawed, and you can correct those at
the outset in a lot of ways. So absolutely, I will work with
you to make sure that it is science that you are satisfied with
and I am satisfied with.
Senator Hickenlooper. That shows that this is the first
time you are being considered for a Cabinet position because no
other person would ever solicit and willingly approve our
participation.
Mr. Kennedy. I am going to make that commitment. I know the
hazard of it, but I am going to do it anyway.
Senator Hickenlooper. I will hold you to it.
[Applause.]
Senator Hickenlooper. Now let me get to the vaccines, and I
think this is crucial because I think there is widespread
distrust and increasing destruction in the scientific
community. I am a scientist, some have argued that I am the
only scientist in the Senate left that actually, I have written
research papers and peer-reviewed journals, I think I
understand how it works. And that is, a healthy skepticism is
useful, but we want to make sure that is a healthy skepticism.
Yesterday in the discussion about Lyme disease you said in
your discussion that it was formulated to be a militaristic
bioweapon, that you had heard that in three books but you had
not read through. And I think at a certain point, if you are
going to be an activist or some people would say a prophet,
that what you say becomes promoting something, promoting an
idea. And I think when you have only read three books, or
little bits of the three books, not the whole three books,
isn't that reckless? I mean, aren't you then promoting this
anti-science, the conspiracy about Lyme disease in this case,
but the same thing about some of these vaccine issues?
Mr. Kennedy. Like I said, I never endorsed the issue. I
said it is out there. For me not to acknowledge that is a form
of manipulation. For me to say there is no question here, the
government-proclaimed orthodoxy is true, anybody who believes
it is a dissident.
Senator Hickenlooper. I am out of time. And I appreciate
the things. I just leave it that just because we do have 1 out
of----
Mr. Kennedy. I understand.
Senator Hickenlooper [continuing]. Wait, 1 out of 36 kids,
that, again, we cannot explain what it was. It is not fair to
put that blame onto all kinds of things, but focus on
vaccinations. I yield back.
The Chair. Dr. Moody. Senator Moody, I am sorry.
Senator Moody. Good morning, thank you for joining us, and
thank you for sitting down with me and spending so much time
with me. In my office, it has been an overwhelming week. I am
the junior-most Senator on this Committee and certainly you
treated me no differently than the Chairman, and I am grateful
to you for that.
One of the topics we spent a long time talking about was
your assurance and knowledge and understanding that it was the
states that in fact gave limited power to the Federal
Government and not the other way around, and your assurance
that you will not use your agency or any organization that
falls under your leadership to interfere with the state's
ability to set policy or any autonomy of the state to enact or
enforce laws that protect the lives of the unborn. I think that
is a concern of many. It was certainly one of mine. And you
allayed those concerns and I appreciated you spending so much
time with your assurances.
I want to turn to some of the discussions regarding many,
which would say the government and health professionals did
great harm to science and medicine in the wake of COVID-19.
America, I believe, is at a crossroads where unfortunately
things that used to not be particularly political like science
and medicine, are now politicized to the point where reality is
distorted, what you believe has little to do with truth or
facts and everything to do with your party. My hope is that
you, Mr. Kennedy, and President Trump's other appointees will
break this cycle that is threatening America and destroying its
promise.
Certainly while I was the Attorney General of Florida, I
had the responsibility in numerous areas to seek the truth and
bring justice. Working with Governor DeSantis and other
leaders, we launched grand jury investigations. And I want to
bring your attention to one of those grand jury investigations
that dealt with COVID-19 and the actions of government
officials and Big Pharma. And remember that a grand jury
investigation is made up of laypeople, 18 in this instance that
were brought from different communities in Florida, and I just
want to read into the record one paragraph for your
consideration.
``Much of the goodwill by the COVID-19 vaccines was
squandered in the following years as sponsors and Federal
regulators collaborated to push out booster after booster based
on shallow and accurate safety and efficacy data, sidelining
their own ombudsman to get doses of these vaccines into the
arms of every American, regardless of their underlying risk
from the SARS COVID-2 virus.
``Erstwhile gatekeepers became cheerleaders, as Federal
regulators with the trust of the American people dragged their
feet and publicly confirming important safety signals and then
sanctioned long delays and mandatory post-marketing studies
involving those very same signals. Sponsors abused the
scientific journal system and regulatory reporting requirements
delaying public disclosure of serious adverse events from their
clinical trials for years,'' and I could go on.
Mr. Kennedy, as Secretary of Health and Human Services,
will you use your position to squelch medical or scientific
views with which you disagree?
Mr. Kennedy. Never. And this is relevant to what Senator
Hickenlooper was asking me. We have tried this system where
government lies to Americans or where they tell them about it,
that they have it with a level of assurance they do not feel
themselves, and it is not working.
The initial COVID vaccine, Americans flocked to get it. I
think 90, 95 percent of Americans went and got it. CDC has now
recommended an eighth booster and only 23 percent of Americans
at most are taking it. It is because 77 percent of Americans no
longer trust CDC. That is not a good thing.
If we want uptake of vaccines, we need a trustworthy
government. In other nations where they do not have mandates
like Japan and a few years ago in Germany, they had the same
uptake as we did or without any mandates because people trust
their government. That is what I want to restore to the
American people and the vaccine program. I want people to know
if the government says something, it is true. It is not
manipulative.
Senator Moody. I do not----
Mr. Kennedy. It is not a noble truth, which is what a
certain doctor called his lies.
Senator Moody. Certainly, I do not have a lot of time, but
I would like to bring your attention to another grand jury
investigation that we did in Florida, and I would ask Mr.
Chairman to enter into the hearing record, two grand jury
reports related to human trafficking and COVID-19, to have your
commitment that any organization under your purview will work
with the states, not impede our investigations, to ensure that
children that are in this country, that are minors, that are
under your purview, that you will communicate with us so that
we can have the information to make sure that they are safe,
unlike in an investigation where Biden blocked us in this
Administration at every turn to keep us from getting
information showing that they trafficked children that were
brought into this country and lost dozens. Tens of thousands of
children, lost track of them and never gave us in DCF, in
Florida the information so that we could protect them, to have
your word that you will protect children if you are given that
responsibility.
Mr. Kennedy. Absolutely. And President Trump is determined
to find the 300,000 children who were lost over the past 4
years and to return them to their parents.
Senator Moody. Thank you.
The Chair. Without objection, it can be entered into the
record.
[The following information can be found on page 147 in
Additional Material:]
The Chair. Senator Markey.
Senator Markey. Thank you. Yesterday under oath, you told
my colleagues on the Senate Finance Committee that when you
went to Samoa in June 2019, it, quote, ``had nothing to do with
vaccines.'' Will you confirm again today that the trip had
nothing to do with vaccines?
Mr. Kennedy. My purpose in going down there had nothing to
do with vaccines.
Senator Markey. Well, I have in my hand a blog post in
2021, in which you say the anti-vaccine group Children's Health
Defense, which you ran, offered to fund the purpose of the trip
to Samoa. And in the same post you state that the trip was
ultimately arranged by an anti-vaccine activist. And during the
trip you met with an activist who later compared vaccine
mandates to Nazi Germany. And during that trip you also
discussed vaccines with the Prime Minister and the director
general of health of Samoa. The Director General of Health said
you specifically discussed your views on vaccine safety fears.
And with unanimous consent, I will submit those blog posts, Mr.
Chairman, into the record.
The Chair. Without objection.
[The following information can be found on page 131 in
Additional Material:]
Senator Markey. I am going to ask you--I will ask you
again. Did the trip have nothing to do with vaccines as you
told my colleagues [inaudible]?
Mr. Kennedy. Nothing to do with vaccines. And if you want
me to explain, I will.
Senator Markey. Did it have anything to do with vaccines?
Mr. Kennedy. No, it did not.
Senator Markey. It did not.
Mr. Kennedy. Well, my purpose in the trip was not to--I
ended up having conversations with people, some of whom I never
intended to meet.
Senator Markey. Again, an anti-vaxxer helped finance your
trip?
Mr. Kennedy. Well, you call them an anti-vaxxer. That is
not what they would call themselves. They call themselves safe
vaccine advocates. I went down there, CHD, that group, offered
$6 million--obtained a grant for $6 million to install aid to
digitalize the health records of Samoa.
Senator Markey. Let me just go on here.
Mr. Kennedy. It is state-of-the-art medical informatic
system. That was the purpose of my trip, Senator.
Senator Markey. Thank you, Mr. Kennedy. I got it. Thank
you.
Let me just follow through now, 2019. So now, in October
2019, the CDC declared a measles outbreak in Samoa. In
November, Samoa started a mass vaccination campaign to stop the
outbreak. That same month, November 2019, after 16 people had
already died from the outbreak and Samoa was trying to respond
to the crisis, you sent a letter to the Prime Minister of Samoa
stating that, quote, ``It is a regrettable possibility that
these children are causalities of the vaccine.'' By unanimous
consent, I will introduce that letter into the record.
The Chair. Without objection.
[The following information can be found on page 137 in
Additional Material:]
Senator Markey. As Samoa was trying to contain the
outbreak, you were saying that it was the fault of the vaccine
rather than the absence of vaccinations that caused the
outbreak in Samoa in the same year you visited Samoa.
Mr. Kennedy. I replied to that, Senator----
Senator Markey. Well, hold on, let me just finish. The
death count in Samoa grew to 83, and ultimately volunteers in
New Zealand sent tiny coffins to help bury the dozens of
children who died.
The Samoan Director General of Health later said, with his
last name and the status attached to it, ``People will believe
him. People will believe Robert Kennedy.'' And a New Zealand
vaccinologist later said the impact of your role was
devastating.
Your name and your profile helped fuel a measles outbreak.
You scared people from taking a vaccine. It slowed the public
health response, and children died. You have taken no
responsibility thus far. And if an outbreak occurs in the
United States, I have no evidence that you would not use your
role as Secretary to spread dangerous misinformation.
That one incident, from my perspective, disqualifies you
from holding any position in health care, much less the No. 1
health official in the United States. And 75 Nobel Prize
winners in science have said very clearly that you should not
be confirmed, that it would be dangerous for you to have----
Mr. Kennedy. You should look at their conflicts, Senator.
You should look at their conflicts of those individuals.
Senator Markey. Well, 75 Nobel----
Mr. Kennedy. You should look at who financed that letter.
Senator Markey [continuing]. 75 Nobel Prize winners. And by
the way, of a high percentage of the medical community in
Boston, the health capital of the United States and the world,
have said the same thing about your qualifications. They are
saying to me they do not want tiny coffins, as well. Neither do
I.
That is the basis of my reservations about you and the
reason why I am going to vote no on your candidacy, because I
just think it is too dangerous to run the threat that
misinformation is spread in our Country in the same way it was
in Samoa.
The Chair. Senator Murkowski. And let me compliment Mullin
and Murkowski. They have stayed here the entire conference and
they are not obligated to, like the two of us, not that we
would not have otherwise. But Senator Murkowski, you please.
Senator Murkowski. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And I think
these are exactly the types of forums that we all need to be
engaged in from start to finish because----
Mr. Kennedy. Can you speak up, Senator Murkowski.
Senator Murkowski. There has been considerable discussion
here about many issues, certainly, a lot about vaccines. I care
deeply about making sure that our vaccines are safe. The
efficacy of them, the availability of them, how we disseminate
them is particularly important in a very, very rural state like
mine. You have experience there. You understand that.
I am particularly attracted by the focus on chronic
diseases. We know that if we can do a better job with chronic
diseases, maybe some of the other things that we are
susceptible to in the infectious diseases area, we are able to
perhaps pull back a little bit on that.
But our reality is in order to make this country healthy
again, it is a focus on everything. It is the prevention. It is
the necessity of coming up with these lifesaving vaccines that
are going to be so critically important. It is personal care.
It is food. It is exercise. It is all of the above. And we have
got to figure it together. We do need to shake some things up,
but we also need to give a level of confidence.
This is what I am hearing from so many of my colleagues who
have raised the issue of vaccines. We have made some
considerable gains in my State of Alaska with vaccinating the
many people in very rural areas where one disease outbreak can
wipe out an entire village. We saw this in 1918, with the
Spanish flu, and that is why everyone was rattled to the core.
Villages were shut down entirely, entirely during COVID because
of the fear of transmission. And so they are looking for these
lifesaving ways and means.
When there is a lack of confidence, when there is a doubt,
it is like, ``Well, what do I do?'' And so we are pulling back
then on, again, these areas where we can work to prevent some
of these deadly diseases that we thought we had wiped out years
ago.
We have dramatically reduced diseases in my state like Hep
A and B and meningitis. We are just now getting through a tough
bout of whooping cough that came around to the state. Now there
is a scare in the peninsula in Alaska about a measles outbreak.
So we cannot be going backward with our vaccinations that will
allow for this level of prevention and protection.
I am asking you, you are clearly an influencer. You would
not be in this position today. But you can see how your podium,
your platform, your voice can influence so many. So I am asking
you on the issue of vaccines specifically to please convey,
convey with a level of authority and science, but also with a
level of conviction and free of conflict and free of political
bias that these are measures that we should be proud of as a
country, proud of as a country.
Look to what President Trump was able to do with the COVID
vaccine. It was extraordinary, and it did save lives.
I need time for a question. I am asking you to focus on how
you can use your position to provide for greater levels of
confidence to the public when it comes to these lifesaving
areas. So I am going to pivot to a question that you can
answer. This relates----
Mr. Kennedy. I can answer that one too.
Senator Murkowski. I know, but I have 43 seconds and no one
has talked about our Native populations. When you look at our
health statistics, whether it is Alaska Natives or whether it
is American Indians, our health statistics in this country, you
know very well, because we talked about them, are not where
they need to be. And it is in all categories. It is infectious
disease. It is tuberculosis. It is Hep C. It is mental health.
It is depression. It is substance use. It is sexually
transmitted diseases. It is hypertension, stroke. It is so deep
and it is so challenging and it is so hard.
You have received support from Native American tribes. You
have been in these areas. You have been quoted. And I would
like for your comment on this as quoted saying, ``As far as
budgeting for Indian country,'' you said you would immediately
triple the budget to support tribes. Can you expand on this
pledge and the commitment? Because this is an area where we
have truly left our Native people behind when it comes to their
health and their health outcomes.
Mr. Kennedy. Thank you, Senator. And this is an issue, as
you and I talked about, that is very important. It has always
been a priority for me. I spent 20 percent of my career working
on Native issues. I was one of the founding editors of Indian
Country Today, which is the biggest Indian newspaper. My father
and uncle, Ted Kennedy, my father, were deeply, deeply critical
of the functioning of the Indian Health Service back in 1968 to
1980. And nothing has changed. Nothing has gotten better.
I am going to bring in a Native at the Assistant Secretary
level. I would like to get them actually designated as an
Assistant Secretary for the first time in American history,
make sure that all of the decisions that we make in our agency
are conscious of their impacts on the First Nations.
I have spent a lot of time in your state. It is my favorite
place to go. I have been up with a Gwich'in representing the
Gwich'in people up in Arctic Village and been all over the
state in the remote areas. I understand Alaska, the unique
needs of Alaska because of remote health care, because some of
these areas are not even accessible except for airplane. They
do not have ambulance services that the Federal Government
needs to pay attention to financing, transportation, the
unusual ways that are required there, and that we really need
to focus on telemedicine and AI, make sure that even in remote
places in Alaska, native people can get high quality health
care. And we can do that today, and I look forward to working
with you on those issues and others.
Senator Murkowski. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
The Chair. Senator Murkowski sets the record for going
over.
Senator Alsobrooks.
Senator Alsobrooks. Sorry. Good morning. Thank you, Mr.
Chair.
Mr. Kennedy, I was struck by your comments during our
meeting last week.
Mr. Kennedy. The what?
Senator Alsobrooks. I was struck by your comments in our
meeting last week where you made it abundantly clear to me that
you intended to clean house of the professional scientists at
the National Institutes of Health, which you know is
headquartered in the State of Maryland and employs thousands of
hardworking Marylanders. I, for the record, believe in
scientists and I believe in doctors, and I trust them over
politicians without medical degrees.
You talked about bad science and bad scientists and in
fact, you specifically said to me in response to my question
that you intend to replace the bad scientists with the good
scientists. And so I want to ask you, in your opinion, what
makes a scientist or a doctor qualified to serve at the
National Institutes of Health?
Mr. Kennedy. A scientist who is devoted to empirical
methodology, to evidence-based science, scientists who
understand the importance of replication, importance of
publishing raw data and being open and transparent about it,
the importance of publishing peer review. NIH has overseen,
over the past several years, the precipitous decline in
American health. There are 91,000 people at HHS. And are you
suggesting that some of them should not be held responsible for
that decline? They were in charge of protecting our health----
Senator Alsobrooks. Let me just insert here.
Mr. Kennedy. Let me just finish.
Senator Alsobrooks. Let me just say this because I only
have 3 minutes left. I do not set the rules here, but I ask the
questions. And the question is really whether you intend, as
you said, to substitute essentially your judgment for the
judgment of these professional scientists and doctors.
Mr. Kennedy. Well, I am not going to substitute my judgment
for science. Of course, I am not going to do that. What I am
going to do, listen, the New York Times just did an article
last week talking about the fraud, the 20-year fraud, 800
fraudulent studies produced by NIH on amyloid Blacks and not
allowing any other hypothesis about the cause of Alzheimer's to
be explored.
Senator Alsobrooks. Well, how would you decide, Mr.
Kennedy, which scientists are bad scientists? Are they the ones
who disagree with you?
Mr. Kennedy. The ones who are corrupt, the ones who have
been doing science like the amyloid Black studies that were
fraudulent. We should not----
Senator Alsobrooks. Let me ask you a question. Do you have
a medical degree?
Mr. Kennedy. Do I? No.
Senator Alsobrooks. Okay, let me go to the next question.
The Heritage Fund has compiled a watch list of Federal
employees to go after Federal staff. Is there a watch list for
Federal staff at HHS?
Mr. Kennedy. Not that I know of.
Senator Alsobrooks. Have you or has anyone in the
Administration developed a list of career scientists or Federal
staff that you would target for termination?
Mr. Kennedy. Not that I know of.
Senator Alsobrooks. Let me just ask you another question.
Now, your failed Presidential campaign has been raising money
to try and cover your debts, and you were questioned about this
yesterday and failed to answer a question that Senator Warren
asked you. And so I want to ask you again regarding these e-
mails that you have sent to raise money. How much has your
Presidential campaign made fundraising off of this
Administration's complete disregard for the workforce at HHS?
Mr. Kennedy. Excuse me, I did not hear the question. The
last part.
Senator Alsobrooks. How much money has your Presidential
campaign made off of fundraising off of this Administration's
complete disregard for the workforce at HHS?
Mr. Kennedy. Zero.
Senator Alsobrooks. Okay. Mr. Chair, I would like to ask
unanimous consent to enter into the record two e-mails from
this week and the week before regarding fundraising that you
are currently doing through your Presidential campaign.
The Chair. Without objection.
[The following information can be found on page 362 in
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Senator Alsobrooks. Finally, I want to ask you, you said
to--you were on a show on February 26, 2021, an interview with
Dr. Judy Mikovits where you said the following, and I quote,
``We should not be giving Black people the same vaccine
schedule that is given to whites because their immune system is
better than ours.'' Can you please explain what you meant?
Mr. Kennedy. There is a series of studies, I think most of
them by Poland, that show that to particular antigens that
Blacks have a much stronger reaction. There are differences in
reaction to different products by different races.
Senator Alsobrooks. I have 17 seconds left. Let me just ask
you then. So what different vaccine schedule would you say I
should have received? What different vaccine schedule should I
have received?
Mr. Kennedy. I mean, the Poland article suggests that
Blacks need fewer antigens than----
Senator Alsobrooks. This is so dangerous.
Mr. Kennedy. You get the same measles vaccine----
Senator Alsobrooks. Mr. Kennedy, with all due respect, that
is so dangerous. Your voice would be a voice that parents would
listen to. That is so dangerous. I will be voting against your
nomination because your views are dangerous to our state and to
our Country.
Mr. Kennedy. That is the truth of science. I mean, do you
think science is dangerous, Senator? This is published peer-
reviewed studies.
Senator Alsobrooks. I yield.
The Chair. Senator Collins, who would've been here the
whole time, but she was in an Intel Committee.
Senator Collins. Thank you.
The Chair. Senator Collins.
Senator Collins. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Kennedy,
welcome, first of all.
I agree with you that there needs to be more focus on
chronic diseases like diabetes, like Alzheimer's. But it
concerns me when I read a quote from you that says, ``I am
going to say to NIH scientists, `God bless you all. Thank you
for your public service. We are going to give infectious
disease diseases a break for about 8 years.' Don't we need to
do both? Don't we?
Mr. Kennedy. Yes. Absolutely, Senator. The problem is
there's been an imbalance. We have devoted all of these dollars
to infectious disease and to drug development to make NIH an
incubator for the pharmaceutical industry and very little to
chronic disease. But chronic disease is 92 percent of deaths in
our Country. It is 9 out of every $10 we spend on our budget.
Why are we not devoting at least equivalent studies to
determining the etiology of our chronic disease? It just seems
like common sense to me.
Senator Collins. I would point out that in many cases, it
is Congress rather than HHS who sets the funding levels for
various diseases.
Mr. Kennedy. But NIH has panels that decide who gets
funding, not Congress, Senator.
Senator Collins. I want to share with you a discussion that
I had with a Maine pediatric nurse practitioner. She raised the
concern that if people are discouraged from getting their
children vaccinated, we will lose the herd immunity in a
classroom. And that means that a child who may be
immunosuppressed and cannot get a vaccine are at risk of being
in a classroom with an unvaccinated child and thus at risk of
getting the infectious disease because we have lost the herd
immunity. What would be your response to that?
Mr. Kennedy. My response is that vaccine uptake for the
COVID vaccine, for example, is down to 23 percent and all
vaccines are dropping, and they are doing that because people
do not believe the government anymore. We need good science and
I am going to bring that in. I am going to restore trust and
that will restore vaccine uptake.
Senator Collins. Well, you are certainly correct about what
happened with the COVID vaccine, but let me switch to the polio
vaccine. Do you think that the polio vaccine is safe and
effective?
Mr. Kennedy. Yes, I do.
Senator Collins. Would you seek to reduce its availability
in any way?
Mr. Kennedy. No, not at all.
Senator Collins. The State of Maine has seen a steady and
disturbing increase in Lyme disease cases over the past decade.
We talked a little bit about this in my office. In 2023, Maine
had a record number of Lyme disease cases, nearly 3,000
reported cases. Fortunately, there is a promising vaccine trial
for Lyme disease that is underway at Maine Health in Portland.
Access to a Lyme disease would be a monumental step forward in
reducing the burden of this disease, which can have lifelong
effects. I have seen it in members of my own family.
As HHS Secretary, if confirmed, what influence would you
exercise over new vaccine approvals such as one for Lyme
disease?
Mr. Kennedy. Senator, you and I have talked about this
issue. I have had Lyme disease. I lived in the epicenter of
Lyme disease. Every member of my family at my immediate family
has had Lyme disease. I had a son whose face was paralyzed for
a year. I have a son today who has been suffering with
devastating effects from Lyme disease for 2 years. There is
nobody who will fight harder to find a vaccine or a treatment
for Lyme disease than me.
Senator Collins. I very much appreciate that assurance, and
I am sorry that your own family has been so adversely affected.
In Maine, we have a lot of people who work outside and work in
the woods, and ticks are everywhere, so this is a very
important issue to me. Thank you.
Mr. Kennedy. To me too, Senator.
The Chair. We are almost to the end. Let me acknowledge,
Senator Moody has also been here the whole time, and so thank
you, Senator Moody.
Senator Moody. I have to go to the Sheriff. But thank you
for the recognition.
The Chair. Yes, just incredible diligence. Thank you.
Both Senator Sanders and I will have a couple questions and
then we will each have a closing statement and then your long
national nightmare will be over. So anyway.
First a couple more of commit-type questions. If you are
confirmed, do you commit that you will not work to impound,
divert, or otherwise reduce any funding appropriated by
Congress for the purpose of vaccination programs?
Mr. Kennedy. Yes.
The Chair. Do you commit that you will not impose new grant
conditions outside of congressional direction for state, local,
or global entities that in any way limits restricts or rescinds
access to vaccines or vaccine promotion programs?
Mr. Kennedy. Yes.
The Chair. Then, the nice thing about listening to all of
this, let me ask this. I have been impressed. One, you have
handled yourself very well. I have been impressed that on many
things you are familiar with recent medical data, but on other
things you have not been.
Let me bring up two things that are very pertinent now.
While sitting here, I went up to look at the medical literature
on these issues and here's a title, ``Why Parents Say No to
Having Their Children Vaccinated against Measles: A Systematic
Review of the Social Determinants of Parental Perceptions on
MMR Vaccine Hesitancy.'' And they found that fear of autism is
a major driver for vaccine hesitancy among those with a college
education or higher, influenced by internet, social media
narratives over physician-based vaccine information.
I will go back to something I said earlier. You have got a
following, man. There are a lot of people that look to you for
do I get vaccinated or not, people that I kind of know. But
here it says, it is not just my anecdote, it is actually out
there. But when I raised and you said, well, if I show you the
data, you will change your--because I asked, will you
unequivocally, without qualification, say that measles vaccine
does not cause autism. And you said if I show you the data.
Mr. Kennedy. I will publicly apologize for that, Senator. I
was wrong.
The Chair. Here is a meta-analysis from 2014, and you
quoted Cochrane on several occasions, which for people watching
is a meta-analysis, a meta meaning they look at everything and
then they come to a conclusion based upon as much facts as they
can get. And here is such a study. And the title tells it all.
``Vaccines are not associated with autism: An evidence-based
meta-analysis of case-control and cohort studies.'' And they
ended up looking at five cohort studies with roughly 1.2
million children. Now, this is from 2014, and it has a whole
bunch of articles it references.
Then I got a text from a former employee of the NIH, I
emphasize the former, who says that in early in the President
Trump's term, you and colleagues sent 90 papers for review by
people at NIH. They felt like these, the NIH folks felt that
without exception, they were severely lacking methodologically
and/or found that they indeed showed the safety of these
vaccines.
``We tried to engage Mr. Kennedy, but his colleagues
refused to acknowledge the expertise of dozens of NIH
scientists we made about those papers.''
Now you are a smart guy. You are reading the medical
literature, and you are coming up with recent medical
literature on certain issues. But here is both an older article
summarizing lots of older articles that have come out since the
original refuted Wakefield article in The Lancet regarding
measles and autism.
Here is somebody who--you know, it's he said, he said--but
somebody who said that previously you have had this presented
to you.
Back to me, I am a doc trying to understand. Convince me
that you will become the public health advocate, but not just
churn old information so that there is never a conclusion, as
Senator Hassan suggested, but that will become the influencer
for people to believe no, there's 1.25 million kids studied and
there is no autism associated with measles. You tell me. You
see what my question is in there.
Mr. Kennedy. Senator, I am going to be an advocate for
strong science. You show me those scientific studies and you
and I can meet about it. And there are other studies as well,
and I would love to show those to you. There was a study that
came out last week of 47,000 9-year-olds in the Medicaid system
in Florida, by I think a Louisiana scientist called Mohsen that
shows the opposite. Oh, there are other studies out there. I
just want to follow the science. And I will do, if the science
says, and I am wrong about what I have said in the past, as I
said, I will publicly apologize.
There are many times I have been wrong about science. If
you look at my Instagram account, when I am wrong, I apologize
for it. And I say ``I was wrong.'' I do not have any problems.
Science is a process of challenging hypotheses with new
evidence, and scientists have to be able to admit when they are
wrong. Epidemiological studies the Institute of Medicine has
had repeatedly in 2013, 2017, when they investigated this, has
asked CDC to do certain studies, animal studies, bench studies,
observational studies, studies of the vaccine safety data link.
CDC has not done that. I want them to do that and I want the
best science. I can guarantee you, on my word of honor, that if
you show me science that says that I am wrong, I am going to
say I was wrong. I do not have any problem. There is nothing
that would make me happier. We need to be able to look at the
science and get IOM involved, the National Academy of Sciences.
They are the ultimate arbiter of safety.
The Chair. What was that?
Mr. Kennedy. One of the things we need to do, I think, is a
subject that we have not talked about here. Why do not we know
what is causing this epidemic? Why has the CDC not been looking
at other hypotheses to determine the etiology of why we have
had this dramatic 1000 percent increase in this disease that is
destroying our kids, is probably the biggest issue? Why do not
we know the answer after 30 years of steady rises in autism
rates? Why do not we know the answer to that? We should know
the answer.
The Chair. What was that last article that you mentioned?
Mr. Kennedy. That article is by Mawson, M-A-W-S-O-N.
The Chair. It is regarding measles and what?
Mr. Kennedy. No, it looks at the entire schedule and it
says--it is a study of 9-year-old boys, 47,000 9-year-old boys
from the Florida health care data.
The Chair. Okay, let me--Senator Sanders.
Senator Sanders. Thank you. And I find myself in the
unusual and uncomfortable position of having to agree with
Senator Cassidy's line of questioning.
Mr. Kennedy, in an interview in July 2023, you stated,
quote, ``I do believe autism does come from vaccines,'' end of
quote, and you have praised a gentleman named Andrew Wakefield
for his research. When you talk about the need to be science-
based to get our information, good information, to make
decisions, what studies have you utilized to come to the
conclusion that vaccines cause autism?
Mr. Kennedy. I am happy to sit down with you.
Senator Sanders. No, no, please just answer me that.
Mr. Kennedy. Look at the Mawson study, Senator.
Senator Sanders. The what?
Mr. Kennedy. Mawson. Just look at that study.
Senator Sanders. Yes, I will. And that was published----
Mr. Kennedy. But I would not rest on a single study, and
all studies can be----
[inaudible].
Senator Sanders. Okay. I do not mean to be rude. I do not
have a lot of time.
Mr. Kennedy. Just saying----
Senator Sanders. You would not be, I just heard you say you
could not be happier if you were proved wrong. Mr. Chairman, I
ask to put into the record 16 studies done by scientists and
doctors all over the world saying that vaccines do not cause
autism. Are you happy with that?
The Chair. Without objection.
[The following information can be found on page 364 in
Additional Material:]
Mr. Kennedy. Look at the IOM assessment of those 16
studies, Senator. Because the IOM has assessed them.
Senator Sanders. Let me get to it. I do not have a lot of
time. I apologize.
Mr. Kennedy. I understand.
Senator Sanders. I am happy to talk to you at another time.
I do not have a lot of time. Let's talk about COVID. And I just
want clarity on the issue. And again, I apologize. You have to
be brief. We do not have a lot of time.
Scientists have estimated that the COVID vaccine saved 3
million lives. President Trump said COVID vaccine was what,
quote, ``One of the great miracles of the ages,'' end quote.
You have said, ``The COVID vaccine was the deadliest vaccine
ever made,'' end of quote. Was the COVID vaccine the deadliest
vaccine ever made?
Mr. Kennedy. The reason I said that, Senator Sanders, is
because there were more reports on the VAERS system on the
Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System, which is the only
surveillance system. That and V-safe. And there were more
reports of injuries and deaths than all other vaccines
combined.
Senator Sanders. But was it that--scientists said it saved
3 million.
Mr. Kennedy. According to VAERS? I do not know because we
do not have a good surveillance system. Nobody----
[inaudible].
Senator Sanders. You disagree with the scientific community
that----
Mr. Kennedy. Oh, I am agnostic because we do not have the
science to make that determination really.
Senator Sanders. Okay. Prescription drug prices in America,
as you know----
Mr. Kennedy. By the way, I think President Trump did an
extraordinary job on Warp Speed because he was not just
focusing on that one intervention he was focusing----
[inaudible].
Senator Sanders. He called it a miracle. But you have cast
doubts on its efficacy.
All right, prescription drugs. We are going to make America
healthy. I agree with you that we need a revolution in the
nature of food in America, physical exercise, ET cetera. Very,
very important. But there are people who are going to get sick,
and they have to go to the doctor and find out why.
One out of four Americans today cannot afford the
prescription drugs their doctors prescribe because we pay by
far the highest prices in the world for prescription drugs. We
made some progress under the Biden administration of
negotiating prescription drug prices with pharma. First time
that has ever happened.
Now, yesterday, you told me that the White House was going
to issue something affirming their support for continuing those
Medicare negotiations. Turned out not to be quite accurate.
They came up with some bland statement, could be written by
pharma.
Very specific questions. Do you believe, and will you
insist, that Medicare continue to negotiate prices with the
pharmaceutical industry so we can substantially lower
prescription drug costs in America?
Mr. Kennedy. President Trump has made it very clear to me
that he wants to negotiate prices.
Senator Sanders. Negotiate is a big word, Bobby. It is a
big word.
Mr. Kennedy. That is the word you just used, Senator.
Senator Sanders. Yes, but no, I used defend a particular
law. Will you defend the law in the Inflation Reduction Act,
which already is negotiating prescription drug prices?
Mr. Kennedy. President Trump wants us to negotiate drug
prices. He wants the lower drug prices.
Senator Sanders. You are not telling me that you will
defend the law that we passed, which has already had
significant success.
Mr. Kennedy. Well, look, I am going to comply with the law,
Senator. Congress passed the law. I am swearing an oath to the
Constitution. I am going to comply with the laws.
Senator Sanders. You are going to have a significant
influence on health care policy if you are confirmed.
Mr. Kennedy. I am going to comply with the laws.
Senator Sanders. Let me just say this in conclusion,
Chairman Cassidy. President Trump and Mr. Kennedy are quite
right when they say that our system is broken. They are right.
Our economic system today is broken. Three people own more
wealth than the bottom half of American society. Wages have
been stagnant for American workers for 50 years. The economy is
broken.
You know what? Our political system is broken and corrupt.
You have a handful of billionaires in both political parties
who contribute huge amounts of money to elect candidates in
this room throughout the U.S. Congress. That is a broken
political system and a real threat to democracy.
Our health care system is broken, and it is broken for some
of the reasons that Mr. Kennedy indicated. We have not paid
attention to the fact that we have massive amounts of chronic
disease. We have not answered the question why, in the richest
country in the history of the world, our life expectancy is
lower than it is in countries far poorer than we are.
I think in many ways, President Trump and Mr. Kennedy have
asked some of the right questions. Problem is their answers
will only make a bad situation worse. So let me ask Mr. Kennedy
again. If we want to make America healthy, will you assure the
American people that you will fight to do what every other
major country on Earth does, guarantee health care to every
single American?
Mr. Kennedy. I am going to make America healthier than
other countries in the world right now.
Senator Sanders. Do you guarantee, do what every other
major country does? It is a simple question.
Mr. Kennedy. By the way, Bernie, the problem of corruption
is not just in the Federal agencies. It is in Congress too.
Almost all the Members of this panel are accepting, including
yourself, are accepting millions of dollars from the
pharmaceutical industry.
[Applause.]
Senator Sanders. Oh no. No, no, no, no, no.
Mr. Kennedy. Protecting their interests.
Senator Sanders. No, I thought that would--No, no, no. I
ran for president like you. I got millions of millions of
contributions. They did not come from the executives. Not one
nickel of PAC money from the pharmaceutical industry. They came
from workers.
Mr. Kennedy. In 2020, you were the single largest----
[inaudible].
Senator Sanders. Because I had contributions from workers
all over this country. Workers.
Mr. Kennedy. You were the single----
Senator Sanders. Not a nickel from corporate PACs.
Mr. Kennedy. You were the single largest acceptor of
pharmaceutical dollars.
Senator Sanders. No, from workers in the industry.
Mr. Kennedy. 1.5 million.
Senator Sanders. Yes, out of 200 million. All right, but
you have not answered--last question. You have not answered my
question.
Unidentified Voice. Mr. Chairman.
Senator Sanders. How do we make America healthy if you do
not guarantee health care?
Senator Mullen. We are literally 3 minutes over here now.
How long does it keep going? At some time, you are just
battering the witness.
Senator Sanders. I am not battering the witnesses.
Senator Mullen. Yes, you are.
Senator Sanders. I am trying to get an answer.
Senator Mullen. You are getting upset at him. You are going
at him just like anybody else would.
The Chair. We will come to order. We will come to order.
Bernie, you have gone over.
Before I ever entered politics, before I was ever thinking
about running for office, I practiced medicine for 30 years. I
worked in public hospitals in California, Louisiana,
specialized in liver disease, caring for those who otherwise
would not have had a specialist, if you will dedicating my life
to saving lives. That is being a doctor. That ethic guides me
now.
In my opening statement, I told the story of my patient, an
18-year-old girl with acute liver failure from hepatitis B,
being air-ambulanced to LSU Shreveport Hospital for a liver
transplant. Now, let me finish the story. Her mother was not
allowed to fly in the helicopter, so her mother drove the 3
hours from Baton Rouge to Shreveport. Now, when she arrived,
they let her visit her daughter before she went back to the OR.
And the mom goes in to say a prayer, squeezes the daughter's
hand, the daughter's eyes open. And she said, ``Mama,'' and the
daughter began to recover. Powerful story, powerful story with
a happy ending.
But as a doctor, I saw endings not so happy. I just had a
friend text me two children died in an intensive care unit in a
Baton Rouge hospital from vaccine-preventable diseases this
past month. So my concern is that if there is any false hope,
any undermining of a mama's trust in vaccines, another person
will die from a vaccine-preventable disease.
Now, you have got a megaphone. Maybe you and Bernie, Bobby
and Bernie. Of everybody in this room, the two of you have the
biggest followings, tremendous credibility. And with that
influence comes a great responsibility. Now, my responsibility
is to learn, try and determine if you can be trusted to support
the best public health, a worthy movement called MAHA, to
improve the health of Americans, or to undermine it, always
asking for more evidence and never accepting the evidence that
is there.
I looked at the article from Dr. Mawson and it seems to
have some issues. I will just put that to the side.
That is why I have been struggling with your nomination.
There are issues. Man, ultra-processed food, obesity, we are
simpatico. We are completely aligned. And as someone who has
discussed immunizations with thousands of people, I understand
that mothers want reassurance that the vaccine their child is
receiving is necessary, safe, and effective. We agree on that
point, the two of us. But we have approached it differently.
And I think I can say that I have approached it using the
preponderance of evidence to reassure, and you have approached
using selected evidence to cast doubt.
Now, put differently, we are about the same age. Does a 70-
year-old man, 71-year-old man who spent decades criticizing
vaccines and who is financially vested in finding fault with
vaccines, can he change his attitudes and approach now that he
will have the most important position influencing vaccine
policy in the United States? Will you continue what you have
been or will you overturn a new leaf at age 70?
I recognize, man, if you come out unequivocally, ``Vaccines
are safe, it does not cause autism,'' that would have an
incredible impact. That is your power.
What is it going to be? Will it be using the credibility to
support lots of articles or will it be using credibility to
undermine? And I got to figure that out for my vote. You have
the power to help rebuild, to help public health institutions
re-earn the trust of the American people.
Now, let's be political. I am a Republican. I represent the
amazing State of Louisiana. And as a patriotic American, I want
President Trump's policies to succeed in making America and
Americans more secure, more prosperous, healthier. But if there
is someone that is not vaccinated because of policies or
attitudes you bring to the Department, and there is another 18-
year-old who dies of a vaccine-preventable disease,
helicoptered away, God forbid dies, it will be blown up in the
press. The greatest tragedy will be her death, but I can also
tell you an associated tragedy, well, that will cast a shadow
over President Trump's legacy, which I want to be the absolute
best legacy it can be.
That is my dilemma, man. And you may be hearing from me
over the weekend. I, once again, thank you for your time, and I
yield to my Ranking Member.
Senator Sanders. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you
very much for your job today in conducting this very, very
important hearing.
Let me reiterate my concerns. Every person on this panel,
and I would hope everybody in America, wants to make us the
healthiest country on Earth. And I applaud Mr. Kennedy for
raising the issues and talking about some very important
truths.
But what I am not hearing from him are some very specific
policy issues that we absolutely need if we are going to make
America healthy. It is unquestionable that when 68,000
Americans die because they cannot afford to go to a doctor, we
have got to deal with that. And I have not heard one word about
the need for universal health care that exists in every country
on Earth. When one out of four people cannot afford
prescription drugs because the pharmaceutical industry is
ripping us off and charging us 10 times more, in some cases,
than the people in other countries. I have not heard the
definitive answer I need that we are not going to pay the
highest prices in the world for prescription drugs.
One of the points I think that Mr. Kennedy made, which is
right, health care is not just medical care. It is a lot more.
Talk about the food industry. We have held a hearing. Mr.
Cassidy and I held a hearing a couple of months ago where we
made the point that the food industry is in fact poisoning our
kids with addictive food that is leading to obesity, diabetes,
heart conditions, ET cetera.
I hope, I hope, that our Congress and the White House will
have the courage to take on a very powerful food industry and
demand that the products that they sell our kids are in fact
healthy and non-addictive. In many ways what the food industry
is doing today is what the tobacco industry did 50 or 60 years
ago.
We talk about making America healthy today. Again, it is
not just doctor care, medical care. We have millions of people
working for starvation wages. You cannot be healthy if you are
working 50 or 60 hours a week and you cannot afford the rent
that your landlord is charging you. Stress kills. Stress makes
us sick.
Mr. Chairman, let me just say this. I think the issues that
have been raised in this hearing today are of enormous
importance. I look forward to working with you and other
Members of this Committee to make sure that we develop the
policies that have the courage to take on very powerful and
wealthy special interests, so in fact, that we can make America
healthy. Thank you.
The Chair. This concludes our hearing. For any Senators who
wish to ask additional questions, questions for the record will
be due tomorrow on Friday, January 31st at 5 p.m.
ADDITIONAL MATERIAL
[GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
[Whereupon at 1 p.m. the hearing was adjourned.]
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