▶ 0:18:13Thank everybody for being here. Bobby, I see your family behind you. I like your family except for your nephew who is a florida gator. We will let that go. Bobby kennedy, thank you for appearing before the committee and your willingness to serve our country as your family has served our country.
▶ 0:18:40These have been candid conversations and I very much appreciate your willingness to engage. There are many things the human diet agree on. We are in total agreement on the need to address altar processed food, to reduce obesity. Obesity, of course, is the leading cause of chronic disease and therefore shorter lifespans. This will be a priority of this committee and I look forward to collaborating with you if you are confirmed.
▶ 0:19:06It is no secret that I have some reservations about your past positions on vaccines and a couple of other issues. We know a lot about you. I will tell you a little about myself. Before I entered politics or thought about running for office I practice 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.
▶ 0:19:34If you will, dedicating my life to saving lives. That is, being a doctor. There is a moment in my career that really informs me now. In the early to thousand's, I was loading a patient onto an air ambulance, an 18-year-old young woman, to go get a liver transplant for acute liver failure due to hepatitis b.
▶ 0:20:03Barely an adult, all of her life ahead of her, all of her hopes and dreams, children, grandchildren, wiped away if she didn't get to the lsu hospital in shreveport for an emergency transplant. The transplant, an invasive quarter of the million-dollar surgery that had a 5% to 10% mortality rate. Even if she survived it would leave her with a liver transplant and hospital bills every year a 50,000 dollars.
▶ 0:20:35As she took off, it was the worst day of my medical career. I thought, $50 worth of vaccines could have prevented this. That was an inflection point in my career. Since then, I try to do everything that I can to make sure that I never have to speak to another parent about their child dying due to a vaccine-preventable disease.
▶ 0:21:00I work with community and business leaders to form a public-private partnership in louisiana. We vaccinated 36 thousand children for hepatitis b. Since the cdc and acip recommended universal vaccination, hepatitis b and our country have declined by almost 90%. As a physician who has been involved in programs, I see the benefits of vaccinations. I know they save lives.
▶ 0:21:31I know they are a crucial part of keeping our nation healthy. Bobby, I have learned, you have a tremendous following. My phone blows up with people who really follow you. There are many who trust you more than they trust their own physician. So, the question I need to have answered is, what will you do with that trust?
▶ 0:21:59Whether 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. That's a real conversation. I'm hearing from them. They want you confirmed. You are going to tell us this week, I think you will tell us today as you did in the finance committee yesterday, that you are pro-vaccine.
▶ 0:22:29What will you tell the american mother? Will you tell her to vaccinate her child or not? Or to have a conversation with her doctor? For many, that would 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 that is now in the past?
▶ 0:23:02Can data and information change your opinion or will you only look for data supporting a predetermined position? This is imperative. You will have the responsibility to restore trust in our public health institutions in this position you have. Let's turn a little political. I want president trump to be successful. It is important for our country.
▶ 0:23:28Any action that you take as as hhs secretary will shape his legacy. We both want that legacy to be positive. Thank you for coming before the committee, being willing to serve, and I look forward to today's conversation. With that, I yield to my ranking member, senator sanders.
▶ 0:23:45Sen. Sanders: Thank you, senator cassidy, chairman. Thank you for being with us. I will discuss the issue of vaccines, which senator cassidy raised concerns. Before I go there, I wanted to congratulate you, in a sense, for the phrase make america healthy again.
▶ 0:24:12Sen. Sanders: I think that that's a cry that all of us, a goal that all of us share. As you've indicated, we are a very unhealthy society. We are the richest country in the history of the world yet we rank far below every other major country in terms of our life expectancy. That is outrageous. To me, equally outrageous is if you are working class in this country you will live six or seven years shorter lives than if you are rich.
▶ 0:24:39Sen. Sanders: In america today, 68,000 people die every year because they cannot get to a doctor. They cannot afford to get to a doctor. The outrageous cost of health care in america. Two to 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?
▶ 0:25:09Sen. Sanders: They go bankrupt. They deplete their life savings. In other words, when we talk about making america healthy, you've got to talk about a broken, corrupt health care system. Your uncle, president kennedy, your father bobby kennedy, a great senator from new york, your uncle sat now where senator cassidy is sitting as chairman
▶ 0:25:40Sen. Sanders: Of this committee, and all of them did what I think is the right thing. They said health care is a human right. They looked all over the world. They saw every other major country guaranteeing health care, rich or poor, young or old. Some aren't sure how we can move to making america healthy again unless we have the guts to take on the insurance companies, and drug companies and guarantee health care to all people. I will ask you a question about that. Lowering the cost of prescription drugs.
▶ 0:26:08Sen. Sanders: 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 american than any other country on earth? Under president biden we made some progress, and this committee played an active role, and having medicare began for the first time negotiating the price of drugs that we are paying.
▶ 0:26:31Sen. Sanders: I will ask you whether or not you will demand that president trump follow what we accomplished here. We are the only major country on earth to not guarantee paid family and medical leave. Mr.
▶ 0:26:47Sen. Sanders: Kennedy, there are women today who are having babies and they are going to go back to work in a week or two because they have no guarantee paid family and medical leave.how do you have a healthy country when women are forced to go back to work, women and men get fired because they stay home taking care of their sick kids? Let's start making america healthy again.
▶ 0:27:13Sen. Sanders: I would go a little beyond the jurisdiction of health and human services, but I think it's important. If you're working 50 or 60 hours a week making $13, $14 an hour, can you be healthy? Can you join those of us who think in the united states, the wealthiest country on earth, people work 40 hours a week they should not live in poverty?
▶ 0:27:40Sen. Sanders: We have to raise the living wage -- the minimum wage to a living wage. We discussed priestley that president trump believes climate change is a hoax. I happen to believe, and most americans believe, virtually the entire scientific community believes this is an existential threat to this planet. I don't know how you will make america healthy again or keep the world healthy when you have massive heat waves, droughts, floods, extreme weather.
▶ 0:28:11Sen. Sanders: Louisiana had them, vermont have the -- had them. That is not the jurisdiction of hhs, but I surely hope that if you are confirmed, demanded that president trump changed his position and work with those of us who are trying to transform our energy system. Keep america healthy by addressing the crisis of climate change. Thank you, Mr. chairman.
▶ 0:28:33Chair Cassidy: Thank you, senator sanders. I would like to welcome our nominee, Mr. robert f. Kennedy, jr.. He has had a long career as championing 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 restore trust in our federal health agencies.
▶ 0:29:01Chair Cassidy: I look forward to hearing more about his policy priorities and his plans to address president trump's agenda to make america healthy again. Thank you for joining us today. I will now turn over to Mr. kennedy to introduce himself. Is your microphone on? Is your microphone on?
▶ 0:29:19Mr. Kennedy: Thank you, chairman cassidy. Thank you, senator sanders. Ranking members -- senator sanders, and members of this distinguished committee, cheryl and I were heartbroken last night to learn of the tragic accident that took so many of our fellow americans, including our service members.
▶ 0:29:44Mr. Kennedy: We were 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 that called your state home, as well as senators kaine and
▶ 0:30:16Mr. Kennedy: Alsobrooks. We appreciate the first responders who are working so hard. May god continue to be with us and all who are impacted in those who continue to help with our 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'm grateful to have my family here once more with me.
▶ 0:30:48Mr. Kennedy: I want to introduce my wife, cheryl, my daughter, my son bobby, my daughter-in-law, and my nephew jackson. I want to thank them as well as the many members of my large, extended family for the love they have so generously shared. I want to particularly thank you, Mr.
▶ 0:31:13Mr. Kennedy: Chairman, for the time you spent with me and the times that we've talked, in person or by phone. I greatly admire your passion for public health and your commitment to science. This committee is blessed to have a medical doctor at the home and two other medical doctors, Dr. marshall and Dr. rand, on the committee.
▶ 0:31:39Mr. Kennedy: I explained in the finance committee that my journey into the issue of health began in my career as an environmental lawyer working with hunters, fishermen, and others 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 grievous condition.
▶ 0:32:09Mr. Kennedy: Over 70% of adults and one third of children are overweight or obese. Diabetes is 10 times more prevalent than in 1960. Cancer among young people is rising by 1% or 2% per year. Autoimmune diseases, neurodevelopmental disorders, asthma, adhd, and mental health conditions are on the rise.
▶ 0:32:38Mr. Kennedy: The united states has worse health than any other developed nation, yet we spend more on health care, sometimes double and sometimes triple, as other comparable nations. Last year, we spent $4.8 trillion not counting the indirect cost from missed work. That is almost 1/5 of gdp, tantamount to a 20% tax on the entire economy.
▶ 0:33:03Mr. Kennedy: No wonder america has trouble competing with countries who pay one third of what we do for their health care and yet have a healthier workforce. I don't want to make this too much about money. It is a human tragedy that moves us to care. President trump has promised to resurrect america's global strength in our leadership and restore the american dream.
▶ 0:33:27Mr. Kennedy: He understands that we cannot be a strong nation unless we have healthy people. A healthy person has 1000 dreams and 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 a concern for this tragic situation but genuine care.
▶ 0:34:01Mr. Kennedy: President trump has committed to restoring the american dream and 77 million americans delivered a mandate to do that, due in part to his embrace and elevation of the make america healthy again movement. That movement, led largely from every state, many of whom have traveled to be here yesterday and today, senators, this is one of the most powerful and transcendent movements I've ever seen.
▶ 0:34:30Mr. Kennedy: The nation is ready for change and recognizes that this is a unique inflection moment. I promised president trump that if confirmed I will do everything in my power to put the health of america back on track. I've been greatly heartened to discover a great level of care on this committee, democrats and republicans. I came away from our conversations hopeful that we can put aside our divisions for the sake of a healthy america.
▶ 0:35:02Mr. Kennedy: For a long time the nation has been locked in a divisive health care debate about who pays. When health care costs reach 20% of gdp there are no good options, only bad ones. Shifting the burden around between government and industry and corporations is like changing deck chairs on the titanic.
▶ 0:35:24Mr. Kennedy: Our country will sink beneath a sea of desperation and debt if we don't 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% of health care spending goes towards managing chronic disease, which hits lower income americans the hardest.
▶ 0:35:54Mr. Kennedy: The president pledges not to make some americans healthy again, but make all americans healthy again. There is no single culprit for chronic disease. As much as I have criticized certain industries and agencies, president trump and I know that most of the scientists and experts genuinely care about american health. Therefore, we will bring together all stakeholders in pursuit of this unifying goal.
▶ 0:36:21Mr. Kennedy: Before I conclude, I want to make sure that this committee is clear about a few things. News reports and many in the hearing yesterday claimed I am anti-vaccine and anti-industry.
▶ 0:37:04Mr. Kennedy: American farms are the bedrock of our culture and 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 on genuity. We cannot succeed if we don't have the partnership of american farmers. My advocacy has often disturb the status quo by asking uncomfortable questions. I'm not going to apologize for that.
▶ 0:37:35Mr. Kennedy: We have massive health problems in our country that we must face honestly. The first thing that I've done every morning for the past 20 years is to pray to god that he would put me in a position where I can and do chronic disease epidemic and protect our children. That is why I'm so grateful to president trump for the opportunity to sit here before you today and seek your support and your partnership in this endeavor.
▶ 0:38:04Mr. Kennedy: I will conclude with a promise to you, Mr. chairman, 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.
▶ 0:38:31Mr. Kennedy: We will remove the financial conflicts of interest from the 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.
▶ 0:38:52Chair Cassidy: Thank you, Mr. kennedy. I will start. For everyone's information, yesterday finance went long. This is where I think most people can get their questions out in five minutes. I will let it go a little over five, but out of deference for our witness who has already testified for three hours, I will be a little tight.
▶ 0:39:20Chair Cassidy: Taking the chairman and ranking member privilege, we will have a chance to ask a little more. That is what you get for being a chair. Let's begin. Bobby, if I may, you said I could, you once described yourself as pro-vaccine to me. The context of what I'm about to ask is that there are multiple studies establishing the safety of measles and hepatitis b vaccine, specifically that they are not the cause of autism.
▶ 0:39:46Chair Cassidy: In this position, and you have previously said yes, but if you are approved to this decision, to this position will you say unequivocably, will you reassure mothers unequivocably without qualification that the measles and hepatitis b vaccine's do not cause autism?
▶ 0:40:09Mr. Kennedy: I am not going into the agency with any --
▶ 0:40:13Chair Cassidy: It is a yes or no question. The data is there, and that is a yes or no. I don't mean to cut you off, but that is a yes or no.
▶ 0:40:25Mr. Kennedy: If the data is there I will absolutely do that.
▶ 0:40:28Chair Cassidy: There is the data. I used to do hepatitis b, as I said. I know the data is there.
▶ 0:40:36Mr. 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.
▶ 0:40:46Chair Cassidy: What concerns me is you have cast doubt on some of these vaccines recently, in 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, and congress for 16 years, and this data was in large member generated before I came to congress.
▶ 0:41:09Chair Cassidy: My concern is, if you are making those claims and being so influential, your bully pulpit is incredible, with that responsibility you never acquainted yourself with anything might contradict what you are previously saying? Let me ask once more.
▶ 0:41:28Chair Cassidy: If the data is brought to you, and the studies that have been out there for sometime time and have been that misled otherwise.
▶ 0:41:57Chair Cassidy: I just want to pledge to you, and I will never stick on a point if someone shows me data that I am wrong. I know that that is an interpretation that people have, but it is absolutely wrong. I am evidence driven.
▶ 0:42:14Chair Cassidy: The concern is how persuadable people are. I will hold myself to the same five minutes. Yesterday senator bennet in finance asked you if you once previously made statements that lyme disease was created as a military bioweapon and you said that you may have said that wants. Do you still believe that lyme disease was created as a military bioweapon?
▶ 0:42:35Mr. Kennedy: I have never believed that, senator. I said that we should always follow the evidence. There were three books suggesting that. I have not read them through. I said we should always follow evidence, no matter what it says. I have never said that definitively lyme disease was created in a bio lab.
▶ 0:42:58Chair Cassidy: This will be a kind of a yes or no. Do you commit that you will revise any cdc recommendations only based on peer review, consensus-based, widely accepted science and in other words not personal beliefs or the beliefs of any single person that you or your department may identify?
▶ 0:43:18Mr. Kennedy: Absolutely, senator. I will not go into hhs and impose my preordained opinions on anybody at hhs. Job and make sure that we have good science that is evidence-based that is replicateable, that the raw data --
▶ 0:43:43Chair Cassidy: I am almost out of time. You promise the fda will not reprioritize or delay the approval of new vaccines and that vaccine review standards won't change from historical norms?
▶ 0:43:56Mr. Kennedy: We will have the best vaccine standards with safety studies.
▶ 0:44:00Chair Cassidy: That is a little bit of a different answer than the question that I asked. What is the best could be in the eyes of the beholder. Let me read again. Promise the fda will not do you prioritize or delay review and/or approval of new vaccines, and that vaccine review standards will not change from historical norms?
▶ 0:44:21Mr. Kennedy: Yes.
▶ 0:44:22Chair Cassidy: With that I will set a good example and yield my time.
▶ 0:44:33Sen. Sanders: Thank you, chairman cassidy. I will do what I rarely do and follow up on a question from senator cassidy. There have been, as I understand, dozens of studies done all over the world that make it very clear that vaccines do not cause autism. You just said that if the evidence is there. The evidence is there. That's it. Vaccines do not cause autism. Do you agree with that?
▶ 0:45:04Mr. Kennedy: As I said, I won't go into hhs with any preordained --
▶ 0:45:09Sen. Sanders: I asked you a simple question, bobby. Studies all over the world say it does not. What do you think?
▶ 0:45:16Mr. Kennedy: If you show me though studies I will, as I promised chairman cassidy --
▶ 0:45:22Sen. Sanders: That is a very troubling response. The studies are there. Your job was to have looked at those studies as an applicant for this job. Let me ask another question. This one about covid. Scientists with the yale school of public health and university of maryland estimated the covid vaccine saved 3 million lives and prevented 18 million hospitalizations.
▶ 0:45:48Sen. Sanders: President trump, someone who I do not often agree with, said the covid vaccine was "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 of 2021. You petitioned the food and drug administration to revoke the emergency use of covid vaccines.
▶ 0:46:14Sen. Sanders: So, my question to you is, where 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?
▶ 0:46:36Mr. Kennedy: Senator, I filed that lawsuit after the 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. That was my reason for filing that lawsuit.
▶ 0:46:53Sen. Sanders: Was the covid vaccine successful in saving millions of lives?
▶ 0:46:58Mr. Kennedy: I don't know. We don't have a good surveillance system, unfortunately.
▶ 0:47:03Sen. Sanders: You don't know?
▶ 0:47:05Mr. Kennedy: I don't think anyone can say that.
▶ 0:47:07Sen. Sanders: If I show you -- you are applying for the job. You should know this. That is the scientific community has established that. The covid vaccine saved millions of lives. You are casting doubt. That is really problematic. Let me ask you another question on another subject.
▶ 0:47:34Sen. Sanders: 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 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, provides 43% of the revenue for community health centers -- something I feel strongly about, and it is so
▶ 0:48:04Sen. Sanders: 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?
▶ 0:48:26Mr. Kennedy: President trump 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. The health care system is broken. It is not working. You have been working on it your entire career as americans get less and less healthier.
▶ 0:48:48Sen. Sanders: The health care system is broken. But my colleagues here, certainly in the house of representatives, are prepared to make massive cuts in medicaid. I happen to believe in a medicare for all system that guarantees health care to all people. That is not what we are talking about, but there is serious discussion of cuts to medicaid that will have a devastating effect on children and people in nursing homes.
▶ 0:49:18Sen. Sanders: I'm asking you, if that proposal goes through will you say you are not keeping america healthy by throwing children off of health care?
▶ 0:49:24Mr. Kennedy: I haven't seen any congressional proposals. I can only tell you what president trump has told me. He wants me to make medicaid, medicare, and obamacare better.
▶ 0:49:35Sen. Sanders: If you haven't seen those proposals I suggest you go to any newspaper. Thank you, Mr. chairman.
▶ 0:49:44Chair Cassidy: Senator paul.
▶ 0:49:44Sen. Paul: The discussion over vaccines is so oversimplified and falling we never get to any real truths which is why people appear are so separated from people at home. Hepatitis b is a terrible disease that can lead to liver failure as the chairman said.
▶ 0:50:03Sen. Paul: The reason you have distress from people at home, they don't believe what you say come they don't believe government at all, you tell my kids to take a hepatitis b vaccine at one years old you get it through drug use and sexually-transmitted. You are telling that my kid has to take it at one-day-old? That is not science.
▶ 0:50:24Sen. Paul: Every person with a bit of common sense, even people who don't resist vaccines -- I believe vaccines are one of the modern miracles beyond pale. The introduction of the smallpox vaccine in 1720. All miracles. I am not a one-size-fits-all. It is not all or nothing. I chose to wait on my hepatitis b vaccine when they went to school.
▶ 0:50:52Sen. Paul: Does that make me an offer -- an all full person -- an awful person? Let's have an honest debate about these things. The covid vaccine. If you asked my opinion, reporters are saying are you still anti-vaccine? No, I am pro-vaccine. On the covid vaccine and the covid illness there was a thousandfold difference between the elderly and children. If you don't acknowledge that then you are committing malpractice. You're showing your ignorance.
▶ 0:51:22Sen. Paul: If you are saying that a six-month-old must be mandated to get it then the science is not there. The blabber about the science is this, the science is that, no it doesn't. This science shows that no healthy child in america died from covid. No healthy child died from covid. The thing is, it is one thousandfold greater. If you ask my advice as a physician, 65 or older, overweight, other conditions, yes, I would take the covid vaccine.
▶ 0:51:52Sen. Paul: The risks of the disease were real and greater than the vaccine. Should my healthy six -month-old get it? 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. You won't let him have the debate because you will criticize and say that it is this, admit to it, or we will not appoint you. It is more complicated than that here this is why people distrust government.
▶ 0:52:19Sen. Paul: You are not willing to have these conversations. Ask your democrat and republican young mothers if they are vaccinating their kid for hepatitis b. Do I have to do it on day one? It is a precious little baby. Is there science to say that you shouldn't? Probably not, but it is my kid. There is not clear-cut science saying not to. On autism, there is no good science on anything to show what causes autism. It is a profound disease. I know many moms and dads who have kids with autism.
▶ 0:52:50Sen. Paul: I have met their kids. The thing is, they saw their kids developing completely normally. Maybe speaking 100 words and go to no words at 15 months of age. There is not proof that the vaccines caused it, that's true. But we don't know what causes it yet. Shouldn't we be open-minded? We take 72 vaccines. Could it be? I don't know, but we shouldn't close the door and say no longer because we believe so much in submission we won't have an open mind to study these things.
▶ 0:53:21Sen. Paul: It is a crazy notion. Schizophrenia I would put in the same notion. You have a kid that is completely normal 18 to 19 and then their brain goes haywire. How does that happen? It is the most bizarre disease. Could it be our food? It might be vaccines, it might be our food, but autism is more common. I don't know about schizophrenia, but autism is more common. Shouldn't we be more open-minded?
▶ 0:53:48Sen. Paul: Instead we are so consensus driven that the science says this. Science is in dispute and 100 years from now we can all be wrong. We were told 20 years ago that there is an enormous study and they said everyone over 50 should take an aspirin. I thought, that makes sense. 20 years later they measured it and they found that if you had no heart disease and were taking aspirin your chance of dying from a brain or stomach bleed were greater than the risk of heart disease. If you have heart disease, they still say to take an aspirin.
▶ 0:54:19Sen. Paul: If you don't come they changed their mind 20 years ago. Would you have said I was crazy and shouldn't been in public discourse if I said I don't take an aspirin because I ride my bike all the time and time afraid I might hit my head? Look at the larger picture and give the guy a break who says I just want to follow the signs where it leads without presupposition.
▶ 0:54:48Sen. Paul: I think what we will vaccinate those people and nothing is against that. That is a very small percentage. That is not what we are talking about.
▶ 0:55:18Sen. Paul: 99.9% of kids don't have a hepatitis b mom. Could they wait a while, get vaccinated in three months to a year? Yes. For the record if the mother's hepatitis b status is no, then that can be delayed. The problem is, often, a significant percentage of the time the mother's status isn't known. If she is hepatitis b positive then a vaccine on day one of life prevents chronic hepatitis b 95% of the time.
▶ 0:55:46Sen. Paul: It really depends upon the mother's, the knowledge of stat. When they used to do, we know the mother's status or not, there are mothers who snuck through. The status was unknown. We can blame the obese, but for the record there is an absolute rationale for that. You are right. If the mother's status is definitively known then it could be safely delayed. Senator murray.
▶ 0:56:15Sen. Murray: Thank you, Mr. chairman. Hhs has broad and critical responsibilities to protect 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 want to express my thoughts and prayers. I think it is a painful reminder to all of us that we need competent people running our federal agencies to respond when crisis strikes.
▶ 0:56:46Sen. Murray: Mr. kennedy, let me start talking about vaccines. I think that we all agree that cancer is particularly a nefarious chronic disease. 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.
▶ 0:57:15Sen. Murray: You have called the hpv vaccine "dangerous and defective" and said that it increases the risk of cervical cancer. Do you stand by those statements? Yes or no?
▶ 0:57:29Mr. Kennedy: Hpv vaccine, I brought litigation --
▶ 0:57:34Sen. Murray: Yes or no?
▶ 0:57:36Mr. Kennedy: Let me answer, senator.
▶ 0:57:39Sen. Murray: It is a simple yes or no. And by your previous statements.
▶ 0:57:50Mr. 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. Those questions will be answered by a jury in that trial.
▶ 0:58:00Sen. Murray: You said no loving parents would allow their daughter to receive that vaccine. If confirmed as hhs secretary would you recommend that parents get their child vaccinated against hpv?
▶ 0:58:11Mr. Kennedy: I recommend children follow the cdc, and I will support the cdc schedule when I get in there if I am fortunate enough to be confirmed.
▶ 0:58:22Sen. Murray: Would you recommend that parents get their children vaccinated against measles?
▶ 0:58:29Mr. Kennedy: Against the measles? Yes.
▶ 0:58:37Sen. Murray: I would remind everyone that parents look to our health leaders for advice on these decisions. You would be a health leader. I would like to put into the record his previous statements on these vaccines. I do want to ask a question about character. I still believe that character matters, and I want to let you respond to this. You were accused of sexual harassment and assault by a liza cooney who was first hired as a part-time babysitter for your family.
▶ 0:59:00Sen. Murray: When you are confronted you said that you were "not a church boy" and you have "so many skeletons in my closet." you then texted Mrs. clooney an apology indicating you had no memory of what she described. I'm asking you to respond to those accusations seriously in front of this committee. Did you make sexual advances without her consent?
▶ 0:59:21Mr. Kennedy: I did not hear that story has been debunked.
▶ 0:59:25Sen. Murray: Why did you apologize?
▶ 0:59:27Mr. Kennedy: I apologized for something else.
▶ 0:59:31Sen. Murray: That is not my understanding.
▶ 0:59:34Mr. Kennedy: All you have to read is the text she published. It is not for that.
▶ 0:59:40Sen. Murray: That is not how I read it. Are there other instances where you made sexual advances towards an individual without their consent? Yes or no?
▶ 0:59:49Mr. Kennedy: No.
▶ 0:59:51Sen. Murray: Mr. kennedy, you said that you are going to say to nih scientists, god bless you all, thank you for your service, we will give infectious disease a break for eight years? You 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?
▶ 1:00:18Mr. Kennedy: For the avian flu? Yes.
▶ 1:00:21Sen. Murray: My time is almost up. Having read a lot and listen to a lot I want to remind all of my colleagues that voting to confirm Mr. kennedy we would be telling our constituents that he is worth listening to. That could get people killed before he even lifts a finger because he doesn't need the levers of power to influence people, as we saw in samoa. All he needs is a megaphone.
▶ 1:00:49Sen. Murray: To affirm his views by voting to confirm him as our highest health official, we shouldn't mince words about what that would mean. When babies die from warping cough because the parents were not sure if the vaccine was safe, we will have to look them in the eye. When measles sweeps through schools, hospitals, and nursing wards, will this be worth it?
▶ 1:01:10Sen. Murray: There are political realities, we get that, but there is right and wrong, fact and fiction, and people staying healthy or dying pointlessly from diseases we can prevent because congress did not take their job vetting the health care secretary seriously.
▶ 1:01:28Chair Cassidy: We will go to senator marshall.
▶ 1:01:34Sen. Marshall: Thank you, Mr. chairman and Mr. kennedy for your kind words this morning, your caring texts last night, and I'm grateful for my colleagues, almost everyone reaching out to us. It is certainly a tough day for kansans and many who lost loved ones.
▶ 1:01:54Sen. Marshall: We will look forward to meeting with the president later today and loved ones and we want everyone back home to know that we are wrapping our arms around them, mourning with them, and we will get through this together. Thank you. Mr. kennedy, take a second and describe why fighting chronic disease is so important to you. Who are we fighting for?
▶ 1:02:22Sen. Marshall: What is your role as hhs secretary? Is there anything that is a higher priority to you than this?
▶ 1:02:29Mr. Kennedy: When I was a 10-year-old boy my uncle was in the white house. The chronic disease among american children was 2%. Today, it is 66%. The cause of chronic disease -- the cost of chronic disease when my uncle was president was 0% or was not even treatments to chronic disease at that time.
▶ 1:02:52Mr. Kennedy: Today, the cost is 4 trillion to $5 trillion. It is bankrupting our country. 77% of american kids cannot qualify for military service. 38% of teenagers according to nih's last report, three weeks ago, 38% are diabetic or prediabetic.
▶ 1:03:17Mr. Kennedy: When my uncle was president the typical pediatrician had 102 cases of diabetes in his lifetime, juvenile diabetes. Today it is more than one third of the kids who walk through his or her door is diabetic or prediabetic. Autism rates have gone from one in 10,000, or one in 1500 to one in 10,000 depending on what study.
▶ 1:03:44Mr. Kennedy: As a 70-year-old man, in our children it is one in 34. I had 11 siblings. I had dozens of first cousins.
▶ 1:03:53Sen. Marshall: I'm sorry, who -- what is your role as hhs secretary to fight this disease?
▶ 1:04:03Mr. Kennedy: There has never been an hhs secretary that came in to do this. It was all about the typical partisan debate about how we allocate the costs, whether insurers pay at or hospital providers or families pay it. The costs continue to rise. All of the things we are debating on, our kids are getting sicker and sicker.
▶ 1:04:29Sen. Marshall: To quote you from yesterday, it is like we are moving the chairs on the titanic.
▶ 1:04:31Mr. Kennedy: Yeah, the ship is sinking and no one is paying attention to it. Yesterday, I got question after question from the democrats about measles. In 1963, the year before the measles epidemic -- the measles vaccine was introduced, 500 american kids died from measles, almost all of them extremely poor and malnourished.
▶ 1:04:57Mr. Kennedy: We have 252 million americans suffering from chronic disease and none of them -- I mentioned diabetes, I mentioned heart disease, I didn't 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. It will be destroyed if we get this issue wrong. I am in an unique position to be able to stop this epidemic.
▶ 1:05:28Sen. Marshall: Esther kennedy, I will -- Mr. kennedy, I want to contribute one of the three positions. As I listen to my friends across the aisle, my conclusion is that we have to guard the physician-patient relationship and if the parents of these kids the information. All three of us will disagree exactly who and who should not get a particular vaccine. We all recognize the incredible successes of different vaccines as well.
▶ 1:05:58Sen. Marshall: But we have to give the american public the best information, nonbiased information. 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 spoken and written have been so exaggerated and sensationalized and taken out of context.
▶ 1:06:18Sen. Marshall: Will you speak to my farmers and ranchers back home and tell me about -- where do they fit in the role and how we will work with them and your compassion to these farmers and ranchers.
▶ 1:06:30Mr. Kennedy: It will not succeed without the cooperation and partnership of agricultural producers, farmers and ranchers across the country. I was a 4-h kid and I grew up working on ranches. I worked for kids representing farmers. Various forms of litigation.
▶ 1:06:52Mr. Kennedy: Thomas jefferson said, american democracy is rooted in tens of thousands of freehold owned by farmers. We are losing farmers and we cannot afford to lose a single farmer. On my watch, I don't want to lose a single farmer. We have to offer warmers an offramp from chemically-intensive agriculture, which they don't want to do. Even the chemical industry is ready to change.
▶ 1:07:20Mr. Kennedy: Into -- so that they can grow crops that they can sell in europe. Senator hawley told me during our meeting that four out of five of his brother-in-laws have parkinson's. There is illness all over the farm community and it is undoubtably related to the intensity of chemical pesticides. We need to reduce that.
▶ 1:07:44Mr. Kennedy: I'm not going to do anything -- president trump was the best president in modern american history for the american farmer. The first one to see farm prices go up. He instructed me to take care of the farmers and make sure that they are full partners.
▶ 1:07:59Chair Cassidy: Senator baldwin.
▶ 1:08:03Sen. Baldwin: Mr. kennedy, I have been listening to the back-and-forth of questions.
▶ 1:08:12Mr. Kennedy: Can you speak up, senator baldwin?
▶ 1:08:16Sen. Baldwin: I have been listening to the back-and-forth of questions and when people try to pin you down you say, show me the data or bring me the studies . I want to suggest that the data and studies are out there. If you are going to review all of the studies and the data, you are going to be doing that, if confirmed, for your first year of being secretary. When we talked, we were talking abed about vaccines at the end of our meeting.
▶ 1:08:44Sen. Baldwin: You said to me, there is no post-approval safety monitoring. 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. Are you aware of the measures in place throughout health and human services to ensure vaccine safety after approval? Yes or no?
▶ 1:09:13Mr. Kennedy: I am aware there is a system that the cdc admits captures fewer than 1% of vaccine injuries.
▶ 1:09:20Sen. Baldwin: You are aware of cdc monitoring. Are you aware of the fda postapproval monitoring?
▶ 1:09:26Mr. Kennedy: I am aware of only two systems.
▶ 1:09:29Sen. Baldwin: Are you aware of the vaccine safety data link.
▶ 1:09:34Mr. Kennedy: I am very aware of that. I am aware of the vaccine safety data link the cdc keeps under lock box and won't let independent scientists look at it.
▶ 1:09:49Sen. Baldwin: Are you aware of the clinical immunization safety assessment project?
▶ 1:09:51Mr. Kennedy: I am aware that they are broken, and I can explain to you how each one of those is broken if you're interested. What I want to do is make sure that we have gold-standard science. We get the conflicts off the panels.
▶ 1:10:08Sen. Baldwin: What I listed are just some of the guardrails that are in place to ensure that life-saving vaccines are safe and effective. 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.
▶ 1:10:32Sen. Baldwin: If you want to take a second look at the science, like you said, it is here, it is available, and it is conclusive. Saying anything else is undermining vaccines.
▶ 1:10:44Mr. Kennedy: By the way, I'm repeating what congress in the 2003 investigation --
▶ 1:10:50Sen. Baldwin: I want to move to what I think will be pretty simple stuff in general. In general, for a drug to be considered safe would you say that 97%, 98% of people taking the drug and having no complications is generally safe?
▶ 1:11:06Mr. Kennedy: It would completely depend on what the drug is. If it is given to a healthy population, that would not be acceptable.
▶ 1:11:14Sen. Baldwin: This is as high of a level as it gets. When 99 people out of 100 experience minimal or no complications, that drug is safe?
▶ 1:11:23Mr. Kennedy: It depends on what the risk is from the disease, what the benefit from the drug is. If you are dying from cancer, you will take a drug with that kind of risk profile. If you are a healthy individual with zero reason --
▶ 1:11:40Sen. Baldwin: Talking about mifepristone. P-reviewed replicable studies of the medication, would you say that you needed 10 trusted studies to get the same conclusion? 20 trusted studies? What is your number?
▶ 1:12:03Mr. Kennedy: It completely depends on the kind of study you are talking about. Randomized or observational?
▶ 1:12:05Sen. Baldwin: Is it safe that 100 studies that are peer-reviewed and replicable are enough?
▶ 1:12:11Mr. Kennedy: It could be one if it was a powerful enough study.
▶ 1:12:14Sen. Baldwin: Mifepristone has been fda approved for nearly 25 years. Or than 100 studies have confirmed that 99% of patients who took the abortion pill had no complications. 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, correct?
▶ 1:12:40Mr. Kennedy: With mifepristone, president trump has not chosen a policy. I will implement his policy.
▶ 1:12:51Sen. Baldwin: So, regardless of the studies, regardless of the data, regardless of the science -- you have been talking about show me the data and show me the studies. You would have that policy regardless of what the science says?
▶ 1:13:08Mr. Kennedy: The devil is in the details. 99% of women did ok but 1% died, that is not a beneficial risk profile. I need those details from the study before I give my opinion. Show me what the studies says.
▶ 1:13:28Chair Cassidy: Next would be senator mullin.
▶ 1:13:33Sen. Mullin: Thank you, Mr. kennedy, for being here. We have been able to form quite a friendship over the last year and I appreciate the in-depth conversations that we've had. I want to point out, I don't understand why my colleagues say all of a sudden we cannot question science.
▶ 1:13:56Sen. Mullin: It absolutely blows my mind that all of a sudden it is such shame that bobby says to question science. I guarantee if he was sitting here and would be the secretary of hhs under the former president biden, I enjoy saying former president, I bet you would have his back 100% and enjoy the fact that he is questioning science and would probably support his positions
▶ 1:14:29Sen. Mullin: 100%.because he is on the republican side, how dare he question science. If we didn't question science, where would we be today? Have a glass of wine a day, it is healthy for you. Don't have a glass c1 where would we be if we didn't question signs? As a father of six, when their kids come out from getting their vaccines they look like a freaking pincushion.
▶ 1:15:01Sen. Mullin: 72 vaccinations? When we look at the rise of autism, who wouldn't want to look at everything? Give me anyone in this room that doesn't know somebody, that one of their children doesn't suffer from some severity of autism? Give me one. You are saying bobby cannot question it?
▶ 1:15:27Sen. Mullin: I don't get it guys.I don't understand your point other than that he supports a president you don't like. I applaud him for saying let's question. The definition of insanity is doing the same thing, expecting different results. Is it not true you are supposed to question science? Is anybody going to question that is not true?
▶ 1:15:58Sen. Mullin: Share the numbers of autism, from when you were a child to today.
▶ 1:16:02Mr. Kennedy: There were not a lot of studies when I was a kid but the best and only studies out there, two studies, one shows a rate of one in 10,000, another is one in 1500 and there are other estimates in between. Today it is one and 36 according to cdc. -- one in 36.
▶ 1:16:36Mr. Kennedy: In 1963, my uncle, john f. Kennedy awarded the highest civilian honor to a young scientist at nih, francis, who objected to the panel having approved something for american children. They greenlighted thalidomide.
▶ 1:17:08Mr. Kennedy: She risked her job and reputation and blocked it in our country. Three years later, everyone recognized she was a hero and savior of our children because we were not getting the terrible diabolical deformities they were experiencing in europe. She questioned science and was courageous enough to say I don't care what happens to me. This cannot happen.
▶ 1:17:40Mr. Kennedy: >> she was a democrat and questioned science. If you are for republicans, you're not allowed to question science. You look great for your age. One in 36, if that is not a pandemic, what is? It used to be one in 10,000.
▶ 1:18:16Mr. Kennedy: Should we not look at every aspect to what we are putting in our kids, food to vaccines? One in 36 scares the daylights out of me. Six kids, I could have 36 grandkids. Doing the math. My family seems active in that area. I'm not trying to be funny.
▶ 1:18:45Mr. Kennedy: We should support the fact that bobby is questioning. He's not saying he's against it, he is saying let the studies follow where they will. >> senator kaine. >> congratulations on your nomination.
▶ 1:19:08Mr. Kennedy: Thank you for acknowledging the pain felt by people in this region by the horrible air tragedy last night. A lot of folks from kansas, virginia, D.C., maryland. When that passenger list comes out and the three soldiers names are revealed, every officer will have some connection to him. You have your staff that lives here and you dread seeing that list of names.
▶ 1:19:38Mr. Kennedy: I drove to the airport at 6:30 a.m. And across the potomac saw the recovery operation underway in daylight hours and I thought about the last big aviation disaster in richmond. 9/11, a plane slammed into the pentagon. Virginia and the nation got hurt that day. A couple months ago you posted this on x.
▶ 1:20:06Mr. Kennedy: On 9/11, it's hard to tell what is conspiracy theory and what isn't -- introduce that for the record Mr. chair -- we take that personally. Virginians know what happened on 9/11. We don't need folks giving oxygen to conspiracy theories about 9/11.
▶ 1:20:33Mr. Kennedy: One thing I noticed about this post, it was july '24, 23 years after 9/11. You were running for president then. What made you decide in the midst of everything going on in july '24, during your candidacy for president, now was the time to say it's hard to tell what is conspiracy and what isn't about 9/11? What was so important about making this point in july?
▶ 1:21:03Mr. Kennedy: The dramatic drop in trust in our government, one of the templates of that is what happened at cdc.
▶ 1:21:14Sen. Kaine: I want to move aside from that. You go on to say I won't take sides, as president, on 9/11. Wow. I won't take sides on 9/11. As a general matter, do you find it hard to tell what is a conspiracy theory and what isn't?
▶ 1:21:46Sen. Kaine: Is that a general deficit you find in your own analytical abilities?
▶ 1:21:49Mr. Kennedy: My father told me when I was 13, he said people in authority lie. The job of a citizen --
▶ 1:22:01Sen. Kaine: You are in authority. You wouldn't take sides on 9/11? I have a hard time telling what is conspiracy theory?
▶ 1:22:18Mr. Kennedy: Things I investigate I take sides on. People are allowed to hold that opinion. I will not tell them they are crazy. What is your evidence? If I hear evidence, I will say that doesn't make sense.
▶ 1:22:33Sen. Kaine: You won't take sides on 9/11? Senator murray asked you questions about cartersville, a vaccine manufactured in virginia. There are other hpv vaccines. I will enter into the record the series of studies from many nations that talk about the positive effects.
▶ 1:22:57Chair Crapo: Without objection.
▶ 1:22:59Sen. Kaine: Let me ask a question. These are studies from scotland, sweden, u.k., australia, U.S., multiple studies and then I will introduce to the record a blog post of yours, the verdict is now inescapable, gardisil is killing girls. You have a significant financial interest in litigation against gardisil.
▶ 1:23:30Sen. Kaine: You have received payments for referring people to lawyers suing the manufacturer.
▶ 1:23:34Mr. Kennedy: I never received any money from any other vaccine.
▶ 1:23:39Sen. Kaine: Your words, and your ethics vetting for this nomination you said "pursuant to referral agreement I am entitled to receive 10% fees awarded in contingency cases rewarded to the firm." how can folks who need confidence in federal vaccine programs trust you would be independent and science-based when you stand to gain significant funding if lawsuits against vaccine manufacturers are successful?
▶ 1:24:09Mr. Kennedy: I have given away all my rights to any fees in that lawsuit.
▶ 1:24:14Sen. Kaine: Yield back.
▶ 1:24:18Chair Cassidy: Senator scott.
▶ 1:24:20Sen. Scott: One of the beauties of our country is we have foundational documents. The declaration of independence represents life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness as inalienable rights. You assured me your deputies would be pro-life?
▶ 1:24:47Mr. Kennedy: I will implement president trump's policies. I serve at his pleasure but every abortion is a tragedy.
▶ 1:24:58Sen. Kaine: Are you having deputies within hhs that will be pro-life?
▶ 1:25:04Mr. Kennedy: I can tell you what I will do so there is no mistake. I will implement president trump's polities.
▶ 1:25:16Sen. Scott: Are you hiring people who are pro-life?
▶ 1:25:19Mr. Kennedy: Yes.
▶ 1:25:20Sen. Scott: Thank you. During the first trump administration, hhs begin investing in policies to support individuals with sickle cell anemia. This has continued. A career staff person has coordinated these activities across hhs and other agencies. Will you commit to continuing to have an individual served in this coordinated role for sickle cell?
▶ 1:25:45Mr. Kennedy: Yes. I've worked on sickle-cell for many years. I have many friends who have sickle-cell, several of them I have seen the suffering of they under. One out of every 365 blocks in our country has sickle-cell. There are promising gene therapies that are expensive. It is something nih should be enthusiastically supporting that resource.
▶ 1:26:14Sen. Scott: You answered my second question. Gene therapies are breakthroughs in evolution in science that are one-time cures. You support the continuation of the research?
▶ 1:26:28Mr. Kennedy: Absolutely.
▶ 1:26:30Sen. Scott: Great news. This past fall due to one facility making a majority of our iv drugs in the U.S. was devastated by hurricane helene. Hospitals faced iv shortages. Columbia, south carolina, a company tried to shore up support in hospitals by creating the palmetto line to help make ivs for hospitals across the state.
▶ 1:27:00Sen. Scott: We must do more to address shortages and risks as well as provide and promote production of medical products in the U.S.. If confirmed, how will you prioritize efforts to prevent and reduce drug shortages? Including essential medicines?
▶ 1:27:19Mr. Kennedy: President trump has told me it is his priority to bring essential medicine manufacturing back to this country. It's a national security threat. So much of it has been exported abroad particularly china. It's priority for him so for me as well.
▶ 1:27:40Sen. Scott: Will you commit to fostering public-private partnerships and provide the government on pharmaceutical supply chains, correct shortages and prove resiliency in the U.S. drug supply?
▶ 1:27:55Mr. Kennedy: Absolutely.
▶ 1:27:57Sen. Scott: I had two opportunities to question you, one yesterday in the finance committee, I opted to just see you one time and spend my time doing other things. It's important for us to recognize we are in a critical place as a nation, so dependent on other countries for essentials, health care and beyond.
▶ 1:28:23Sen. Scott: We ought to work on a strategy of resilience across this nation in all the essential areas. We need to become less dependent on the rest of the world and more dependent on ourselves. I hope you will spend time thinking through the layers and complexity under hhs, how we become more resilient as a nation.
▶ 1:28:48Mr. Kennedy: That's critical for national security and our economy. President trump is doing that through hhs, more importantly through the commerce department. Meeting directly with pharmaceutical industry leaders to figure out what kind of incentives they need to bring manufacturing home.
▶ 1:29:10Sen. Scott: Yield back eight seconds.
▶ 1:29:14Chair Cassidy: Senator murphy.
▶ 1:29:17Sen. Murphy: Thank you. Credibility matters when you lead the most important health agency in the world. Secretary of hhs has to be trusted to tell the truth, has no political agenda and cares about science.
▶ 1:29:39Sen. Murphy: Your testimony yesterday before the finance committee, you either feigned ignorance about clear statements you made in the past or outright denied saying things about the vaccine program you undoubtedly said. With hindsight I want to give you another chance to be honest about the things you said.
▶ 1:30:07Sen. Murphy: Senator warnock asked you yesterday if you have compared america's vaccine programs to the catholic church's pedophilia scandal. You said you never said that. I am not asking you to explain that.
▶ 1:30:22Mr. Kennedy: I did not say I have not said that.
▶ 1:30:26Sen. Murphy: That's fine, you are doubling down. Senator warnock also asked you if you compared america's vaccine campaign to the nazi death camps and the holocaust.
▶ 1:30:41Mr. Kennedy: I did not say that.
▶ 1:30:43Sen. Murphy: Senator bennet asked you yesterday if you have made an allegation that aids is a different disease in africa than it is in america. You said you didn't recall. Having had a day, do you recall saying aids is a different disease in africa than it is in the united states?
▶ 1:31:07Mr. Kennedy: I have looked up that passage in my book and found indeed diagnostics for aids are different in africa than in the united states, that the list of symptoms is almost completely different.
▶ 1:31:24Sen. Murphy: I will submit for the record. Having denied the first two statements, let me read what you said. You sa in 2013 "is it hyperbole to say 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.
▶ 1:31:54Sen. Murphy: I cannot tell you why ordinary germans participated in the holocaust. I cannot 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 U.S.
▶ 1:32:16Sen. Murphy: Vaccine program, it's the same reason we have a pedophilia scandal in the catholic church because people were able to convince themselves the institution was more important than the boys and girls being raped." I don't want and hhs secretary who is not going to question science. It's important to question science. You are not questioning science. You have made up your mind. You have spent your career undermining america's vaccine program.
▶ 1:32:48Sen. Murphy: You make purposeful comparisons to those that are administering the vaccine program to the nazi executioners and the people who covered up the catholic church pedophilia scandal because you made a decision there is a comparison. That there is evil in the vaccine program as there was people in the pedophilia scandal and the death camps. You are not exploring science. You have made up your mind.
▶ 1:33:19Sen. Murphy: You have spent your career trying to undermine programs. These incredibly aggressive over-the-top statements matter to us. It 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 campaigns you have run don't all of a sudden change their stripes. Mr. chairman, submit these.
▶ 1:33:51Mr. Kennedy: Can I respond to that? My statement about the catholic church was almost identical to the findings of a government oversight investigation committee that investigated the cdc vaccine program and 2003.
▶ 1:34:10Mr. Kennedy: Senator burton was chairman of that committee and he said certain individuals in that program had written off a generation of kids because of "misplaced institutional loyalty to the cdc." and because of entanglements with the drug companies. Let me finish.
▶ 1:34:30Sen. Murphy: [indiscernible] pedophilia to the administration of vaccines?
▶ 1:34:36Mr. Kennedy: It wasn't pedophilia.
▶ 1:34:39Sen. Murphy: You said it was a perfect metaphor.
▶ 1:34:41Mr. Kennedy: One in 36 kids have neurological injuries. If that is linked --
▶ 1:34:49Sen. Murphy: Is it a perfect metaphor?
▶ 1:34:51Mr. Kennedy: It is not. There is no metaphor that is perfect. I am pro vaccine. I want kids to be healthy. I am coming here to get rid of the conflicts of interest in the agency and make sure we have gold standard, evidence-based science. Show me a single statement I made about science that is erroneous.
▶ 1:35:16Chair Cassidy: Senator hawley.
▶ 1:35:18Sen. Hawley: Thank you. Welcome, I enjoyed our conversation last month. Thank you for remembering my uncles who have recently passed away from parkinson's. Grew up in a farm family. Kind of you to remember that. Children and the safety of children.
▶ 1:35:43Sen. Hawley: President biden's administration, hhs issued a rule, finding, binding, requiring every doctor in america including pediatricians who receive any federal funding, aca funding, chip funding, almost every provider in america, requiring them to conduct gender transition, gender affirming procedures. That means hormones, puberty blockers, surgeries in some cases.
▶ 1:36:13Sen. Hawley: They imposed that rule on doctors across the country. This has been litigated and stopped by a couple courts who found it was outside hhs jurisdiction. Will you resend this rule -- risi riscind this rule and radical policy on every pediatrician in the U.S.?
▶ 1:36:36Mr. Kennedy: Yes I will. By the way, the most thorough medical review on gender affirming care has come out in the cast report, which reports catastrophic impact on children. That is science. It's a medical review of all existing scientific studies.
▶ 1:37:02Mr. Kennedy: 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 sense. We need to embrace diversity in this country. I respect them. We should hear them out. We should debate. We should have a congenial conversation. There are people who believe it is an atrocity.
▶ 1:37:32Mr. Kennedy: They need to be listened to too. We need to make room for diversity in this country and embrace it and not force people to do things against their conscience. >> we are talking about gender transition surgery, care on minor children, to preempt all state law so in states like mine and many others where the voters said we don't want gender transition procedures performed on minors, the biden
▶ 1:38:05Mr. Kennedy: Administration attempted to use federal money and force pediatricians to do it anyway.
▶ 1:38:10Mr. Kennedy: We don't let children drink. We don't let them drive automobiles. They have bad judgment. They are flooded with hormones. Their brains are in formation, their sexuality is still in formation.
▶ 1:38:28Mr. Kennedy: Allowing 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 cast report.
▶ 1:38:43Sen. Hawley: Nih research. This is something you care about.
▶ 1:38:48Mr. Kennedy: I want to add, the people who have gender differences should be respected and loved. Loving them, sometimes love means saying no to people.
▶ 1:39:01Sen. Hawley: Nih, under the first trump presidency, hhs stopped new nih research that involved human fetal tissue from elective portions. You were asked yesterday by senator cantwell and you said "stem cell research today can be done on umbilical cords, you don't need fetal tissue." which is correct.
▶ 1:39:29Sen. Hawley: Will you reinstate policy that insures no federal research and tax dollars is conducted on fetal tissue?
▶ 1:39:35Mr. Kennedy: Yes.
▶ 1:39:37Sen. Hawley: Title x. You were asked yesterday. Title x prohibits the funding, the use of federal taxpayer funding for abortions or to flow into entities like planned parenthood who refer people to abortions. You were asked if you would support the rule that says no title x funding for those who perform abortions. I think your answer was yes you would reinstate that rule.
▶ 1:40:05Mr. Kennedy: Yes.
▶ 1:40:06Sen. Hawley: Fantastic. On the chemical abortion drug, you said you would study its safety. That's good. I want to make an additional point here about how the biden administration changed the rules. You pointed out, I'm almost done that we need to honor the wishes of voters in states and their right to set life policy.
▶ 1:40:33Sen. Hawley: The biden administration's rule, which they did after the dobbs decision means in any state including mine, where voters say we don't want abortion performed after a certain point, if the biden administration rule on chemical abortion stance and you can mailing drugs without a doctor visit or referral, that means no state ban, decision, no voter decision will matter. We will have a one-size-fits-all policy save in washington.
▶ 1:41:01Mr. Kennedy: I will implement president trump's policies.
▶ 1:41:05Chair Cassidy: Senator hassan.
▶ 1:41:07Sen. Hassan: Thank you. Good morning. I want to take a moment. I sit on finance as well as health. Most disturbing about yesterday's hearing was a suggestion from my friends on the other side of the dais, our intense questioning and concerns about Mr.
▶ 1:41:35Sen. Hassan: Kennedy were driven by partisanship. I have voted for five of president trump's nominees to date in the last couple weeks, one of them, the new secretary of transportation was on the scene last night at dca. Like all of us, I take seriously our obligation for advice and consent.
▶ 1:41:59Sen. Hassan: I am concerned as senator mullin expressed his concern about the need for science to help us move forward on critical issues. Some of you are new to this committee.
▶ 1:42:12Sen. Hassan: You may not know 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 don't think about what did I do when I was pregnant with him that might have caused the hydrocephalus that has so impacted his life.
▶ 1:42:36Sen. Hassan: So please do not suggest that anybody in this body of either political party doesn't want to know what the cause of autism is. Do you know how many friends I have with children who have autism?
▶ 1:42:53Sen. Hassan: The problem with this witnesses response on the autism because and the relationship to vaccines is because he is relitigating 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.
▶ 1:43:22Sen. Hassan: Like every mother, I worried about whether the vaccine had done something to my son. You know what? It was a tiny study of 12 kids. Over time the scientific community studied and studied and studied and found it was wrong. The journal retracted the study. Sometimes science is wrong. We make progress.
▶ 1:43:52Sen. Hassan: We build on the work and we become more successful and when you continue to so doubt about settled science, it makes it impossible to move forward. That is what the problem is here. It is the relitigating, rehashing and continuing to sow doubt so we cannot move forward and it freezes us in place. My other concerns from yesterday's hearing.
▶ 1:44:25Sen. Hassan: You showed a lack of knowledge about medicare/medicaid. What is medicare part a?
▶ 1:44:33Mr. Kennedy: Medicare part a is mainly for primary care, physicians.
▶ 1:44:44Sen. Hassan: Medicare part a is seniors coverage for inpatient hospital care. What is medicare part b?
▶ 1:44:53Mr. Kennedy: Physicians and doctors--
▶ 1:44:56Sen. Hassan: Outpatient care and home health. Medicare part c?
▶ 1:45:01Mr. Kennedy: A program where, it is the full menu of all the services.
▶ 1:45:09Sen. Hassan: It is medicare advantage, the private insurance procedures on medicare. You want us to confirm you to be in charge of medicare but it appears you don't know the basics of this program.
▶ 1:45:25Mr. Kennedy: I just explained the basics.
▶ 1:45:27Sen. Hassan: I had to correct you on several things.
▶ 1:45:30Mr. Kennedy: You didn't correct me.
▶ 1:45:33Sen. Hassan: My time is limited and I hope the chair will give me a couple more minutes.
▶ 1:45:40Mr. Kennedy: You are giving me very little time to answer.
▶ 1:45:43Sen. Hassan: 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 is false. Do you now understand that is false?
▶ 1:45:59Mr. Kennedy: Medicaid is paid for by the federal government.
▶ 1:46:02Sen. Hassan: You said it is fully paid for. Medicaid in fact sir is a federal-state partnership. You were wrong yesterday. That statement was false.
▶ 1:46:14Mr. Kennedy: I misstated something.
▶ 1:46:17Sen. Hassan: When you are questioned about medicaid you dodged questions by saying you want to make it better. Republicans are circulating a proposal that would end medicaid expansion in some states including new hampshire. I will continue to submit this for the record but it is important to me to understand whether you believe taking medicaid away from 60,000 people in new hampshire would make medicaid better? Would it make new hampshire healthy again?
▶ 1:46:47Sen. Hassan: I will submit that for the record. >> thank you for being here. For being a few months older than me, I will be respectful to my elder. Thank you. Look at this room. We haven't had a full room since I have been here in four years. Thank you for bringing the light to what this is all about, the health and our country.
▶ 1:47:19Sen. Hassan: In the last hhs. Might have been a half a dozen people, nobody was interested. A lawyer who worked from home in california, didn't do a damn thing in terms of what we needed when covid was full steam. Thank you for getting our young people involved. My boys, 28 and 30, a year or so ago they were going to vote for you for president. You are trying to save their group of people.
▶ 1:47:50Sen. Hassan: From the chemicals and the things we have an rfid. They are fired up. You brought light to that and thank god. You have brought importance to what we are doing. I coached for 40 years. The last five years, I had never seen the run-on on drugs our young people are being given by doctors across the country. We have an attention deficit problem in this country. When we were growing up, our parents didn't use a drug.
▶ 1:48:20Sen. Hassan: They used a belt to whip our butt. Nowadays we give them adderall and ritalin like candy across college campuses and high school campuses. What are we going to do about that?
▶ 1:48:34Mr. Kennedy: Today, 15% of american kids are on adderall. There is clearly a problem with over prescription, not just with children, with our entire population. 4.2% of the world population, we take 50% of the pharmaceutical drugs.
▶ 1:48:58Mr. Kennedy: A recent study by peter ghosh, one of the founders of the cochrane collaboration, that showed prescription drugs are the third-largest largest cause of death in our country after cardiac arrest in cancer. We are not getting healthier. Americans are getting less healthy. 70% of promising occult -- 70% of pharmaceutical products come from our country, which has 4% of the world population.
▶ 1:49:26Mr. Kennedy: We are the only country that allows full-scale pharmaceutical ads on tv. You can eat, smoke, do anything you want and there will be a drug to fix even the end. It is not a good formula. Our kids are getting sicker. They are not getting better.
▶ 1:49:49Mr. Kennedy: All the people here defending this current system and these pharmaceutical industry profits, many of whom are taking huge amounts of money from the pharmaceutical industry, millions, from many of the senators, this is not making our country healthier. It's making us sicker. We need to get rid of these conflicts.
▶ 1:50:14Mr. Kennedy: We need good science and leadership that is able to stand up to these industries and not bend over for them.
▶ 1:50:22Sen. Hassan: You brought to light the vaccines the last couple years. I will have my first granddaughter in a couple weeks. My son and his wife have done the research about vaccines. She is not going to be a pincushion. We are not going to allow that to happen. You brought that up. We talked about vaccines. Let's empower scientists to do their job. Let's go by what they do.
▶ 1:50:51Sen. Hassan: Let's don't just do something for the pharmaceutical companies. You are talking about red dye 3. We have the fda director in this room, and I asked him why do we use it in cosmetics? That causes cancer. What in the heck is going on?
▶ 1:51:15Sen. Hassan: A few weeks later -- tell me about dyes and things you are concerned about.
▶ 1:51:23Mr. Kennedy: We have 10,000 ingredients in our food in this country because fda employs a standard called the grass standard which looks at any new chemical is innocent until proven guilty. Kellogg's makes froot loops for the U.S. that is loaded with red dye,, blue dye, yellow dye.
▶ 1:51:51Mr. Kennedy: They make the same product for canada, it is all vegetable dies, and for europe. If you eat mcdonald's hamburger, it has 11 ingredients. The same product in europe has three. We are allowing this to mass poison american children. That is wrong. It needs to end. I believe I am the one person who is able to end it.
▶ 1:52:22Chair Cassidy: Senator kim.
▶ 1:52:25Sen. Kim: I want to start by asking you if you support medically assisted treatment to help people get off opiate addiction?
▶ 1:52:36Mr. Kennedy: Yes.
▶ 1:52:37Sen. Kim: Would you consider it the gold standard?
▶ 1:52:42Mr. Kennedy: The cochrane collaboration, the most prestigious scientific research organization has said the gold standard, has found in studies, a gold standard is 12 step programs, but you need an entire retinue of treatments because many addicts will not respond immediately to twelve-step programs, for many of them
▶ 1:53:13Mr. Kennedy: Methadone and suboxone are critical interventions that save lives and get addicts off the street and they should be available as a treatment option. I would not describe them as gold standard but medically necessary.
▶ 1:53:28Sen. Kim: We all take this seriously in light of the opioid addiction in our country. We need to lift that up more and more. Nih said not enough people are doing it. An nih study called it the gold standard. You are on a mission against chronic disease. You talk about obesity.
▶ 1:53:54Sen. Kim: Your thoughts, if you support hose and pick, other types of those drugs to fight obesity?
▶ 1:54:03Mr. Kennedy: The gop drugs, the class of miracle drugs, I do not think they should be the front line intervention for six-year-old kids, for whom they are currently -- that is the standard practice now.
▶ 1:54:25Mr. Kennedy: If every american who qualifies for a glp by being overweight, 74% of the population will last for them and the federal government was paying for, it would cost over $1 trillion per year. It would double the insurance cost for employers in this country and it would be a tsunami.
▶ 1:54:50Sen. Kim: You said you support it but you don't see it being the tool of choice for young kids?
▶ 1:54:59Mr. Kennedy: For people with morbid obesity, diabetes, absolutely. And they shouldn't be prescribed alone without also prescriptions for exercise because otherwise they eat away muscle and they are counterproductive. They go after muscle first. They have bad side effects.
▶ 1:55:28Mr. Kennedy: Half the people on glp's get off them after two years and then there are problems when you get off them.
▶ 1:55:34Sen. Kim: I want to move on to clarify statements you made in the past. You said "wi-fi radiation does all kinds of bad things including causing cancer."
▶ 1:55:47Mr. Kennedy: I won a case against the fcc on that issue.
▶ 1:55:53Sen. Kim: Do you feel the same way about 5g?
▶ 1:55:57Mr. Kennedy: I'm just saying electromagnetic radiation.
▶ 1:56:02Sen. Kim: Another issue that comes before your work --
▶ 1:56:08Mr. Kennedy: Let me clarify that. It changes dna. There are scientific studies that have linked it to cancer, many of them. It does other things including neurological engineering, the frontline injuries that were most concerning, that are best documented.
▶ 1:56:28Sen. Kim: One other issue that comes before your work if confirmed, would you support, continue and expand cdc's role in collecting and disseminating data on firearm mortality in the U.S.?
▶ 1:56:41Mr. Kennedy: We need to study the causes of mass shootings. All the causes.
▶ 1:56:50Sen. Kim: You said earlier in response on avian flu, you would continue the investments, you would support vaccine development. Does that mean you support investments in mrna vaccine research and development?
▶ 1:57:06Mr. Kennedy: I am not going to pick a vaccine right now. I need to look at the data. Safety and efficacy data. I will continue research on every vaccine.
▶ 1:57:20Sen. Kim: Yield back.
▶ 1:57:22Chair Cassidy: Thank you. Senator banks.
▶ 1:57:27Sen. Vance: President trump won a historic election victory and you were a big part of it. You talked about the coalition you led 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, a man of his word.
▶ 1:57:56Sen. Vance: He always follows through on what he says. He said he would put you front and center in this administration to make america healthy again. At the end of the day, a lot of those moms had been there from indiana and this movement and you have my full support. Anything other than voting for you to confirm you would be thumbing my nose at that movement, millions of people in this country who want us to focus on making america healthy again.
▶ 1:58:29Sen. Vance: I serve on the armed services committee. I just spoke with a nominee. The national security risk of an obese nation, 70% of our kids are not eligible today to serve in the U.S. military. The army two years ago was 25% off recruitment goals and obesity among kids is one of the reasons why.
▶ 1:58:56Sen. Vance: This epidemic, as much of a public health risk as it is a national security risk?
▶ 1:59:03Mr. Kennedy: Absolutely. When my uncle was president, 3% of americans were obese. Today 74% are obese or overweight. In japan 3% are obese so what we're seeing here is not happening elsewhere. American kids did not suddenly get gluttonous and lazy. Something is poisoning them.
▶ 1:59:34Mr. Kennedy: We need to figure that out. Then we need to end those exposures. We need gold standard science and all of these maha moms recognize we have a unique opportunity in history, and inflection point, to reverse this epidemic. We know what we have to do.
▶ 1:59:58Mr. Kennedy: We have to study the evidence, end conflicts of interest on nutrition and drug panels that are loaded with people who have corrupt entanglements with the industries they are supposed to regulate, who have turned these agencies into puppets for the industries they are supposed to regulate. We need somebody to break that inertia.
▶ 2:00:24Mr. Kennedy: We are attracting the most talented group of people who work in nih, cdc, fda in modern history. People who are not coming here for jobs, their innovators, disruptors, entrepreneurs coming here not because they want position but they actually want to change things. Give us gold standard science and make america healthy.
▶ 2:00:47Sen. Banks: You agree that fitness is a major part of that.
▶ 2:00:52Mr. Kennedy: The presidential council on physical fitness, I won a contest when I was in school, I got an award for and it was pride for me and for many in my generation, I'm sure coach won his.
▶ 2:01:10Sen. Banks: Another national security threat. The biggest existential threat to america is the ccp. We are importing one third of medicines from china, even more of our generic drugs come from china, it's a public health and a national security risk. What can you do to reduce our reliance on china?
▶ 2:01:33Mr. Kennedy: This is a huge priority for president trump. Perhaps our greatest national security vulnerability. Over the past few years, so much of our critical, essential medicines, the production of and the supply chain's have been exported to china and it is a crisis in our country.
▶ 2:02:01Mr. Kennedy: If there is a pandemic or any conflicts, china will be able to ransom american health. That's not a good situation. We need to bring that production home and president trump is committed to doing that.
▶ 2:02:15Sen. Banks: You will have a tough job. You have my support. You got lawmakers against you. Bureaucrats against you. You will be working within the limits of the administrative state department. I will have your back and I want to work with you. I yield back.
▶ 2:02:33Chair Cassidy: Senator blunt rochester.
▶ 2:02:39Sen. Braun: Rochester thank you. During our meeting you shared your vision for the department and we discussed priorities important to my home state delaware but as a former cabinet secretary and health official in my state, in listening to your answers today, I am deeply concerned and shocked by your apparent lack of understanding
▶ 2:03:10Sen. Braun: Of some of the basic responsibilities of the department. It's one of the largest most complex, and vitally important. Yesterday during your finance hearing and today, you confused details about medicare and medicaid. You didn't know what authorities you have under the emergence you have under the emergency medical act and you made false claims about the safety of mifepristone.
▶ 2:03:42Sen. Braun: What concerns me is a mom and first-time grandmother is your decades long track record of promoting vaccine misinformation and profiting from it despite the harms it may cause american children. In yesterday's hearing, you did not seem to know anything about imtala even though I raised it with you last week.
▶ 2:04:06Sen. Braun: Yes or no, do you believe a person presenting to an emergency room with severe illness should have any type of emergency care needed to save their life?
▶ 2:04:18Mr. Kennedy: Anti-american --
▶ 2:04:22Sen. Blunt Rochester: Yes or no?
▶ 2:04:25Mr. Kennedy: Under the law, every american who presents to emergency room must be treated and I would enforce that law and believe that is the right thing to do.
▶ 2:04:36Sen. Blunt Rochester: A person experiencing severe pregnancy complications should be able to receive emergency care to save their life if that care is an abortion?
▶ 2:04:47Mr. Kennedy: My understanding of president trump's policy is --
▶ 2:04:51Sen. Blunt Rochester: I am asking you what do you believe?
▶ 2:04:55Mr. Kennedy: If it is necessary to save the life of the mother, of course.
▶ 2:05:00Sen. Blunt Rochester: Do you commit to ensuring pregnant women will have access to all necessary emergency care including abortion if required to save their life?
▶ 2:05:10Mr. Kennedy: If it is required to save their life.
▶ 2:05:13Sen. Blunt Rochester: Would you agree that the ability to provide this care is essential to preventing maternal mortality?
▶ 2:05:23Mr. Kennedy: We should be providing care for pregnant women. President trump wants to do that.
▶ 2:05:29Sen. Blunt Rochester: Women should not be forced to rely on emergency airlift's to other states for lifesaving care and to be blunt, and are meeting your lack of understanding was very concerning. 2023 interview you describe yourself saying "I am a kennedy democrat. I believe in labor unions, a strong robust middle-class.
▶ 2:05:57Sen. Blunt Rochester: I believe in racial justice." yesterday and today you said "we need to respect the diversity." 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 and inclusion accessibility.
▶ 2:06:24Sen. Blunt Rochester: This has already created confusion for public health professionals and service providers across the country. You said in our meeting you understand health disparities exist. In your view, do the following programs count as health d.e.I. Programs -- programs that target black women to address the maternal mortality crisis? Yes or no?
▶ 2:06:51Mr. Kennedy: I will not answer that yes or no. If you want an answer, I am happy to give it to you.
▶ 2:06:57Sen. Blunt Rochester: Yes or no?
▶ 2:06:59Mr. Kennedy: It is not susceptible to yes or no.
▶ 2:07:02Sen. Blunt Rochester: Let me shift this. I have 36, now 33 seconds and there are people who want to understand if they are at a pride parade, can they give out a brochure? They want to know if they have time to have a program in a black church on mlk day, can they have that program? Will it be funded? Will they be fired? That is the cause and concerned.
▶ 2:07:31Sen. Blunt Rochester: We know we have a healthy country and that is important. I think I got my answer. I yield back.
▶ 2:07:43Chair Cassidy: I will allow the witness to answer.
▶ 2:07:46Mr. Kennedy: There are seven departments at nih that protect minority health and that seek to eliminate -- shocking and unacceptable disparities in minority health. I believe in helping all people that are vulnerable. The d.e.I.
▶ 2:08:11Mr. Kennedy: Programs president trump eliminated has spent $63 million with no discernible impact, positive impact on human health in this country. There are institutions already that exist, existed before president biden, whose job it is to do that.
▶ 2:08:32Sen. Blunt Rochester: Will you cut those programs?
▶ 2:08:35Mr. Kennedy: That decision is up to congress.
▶ 2:08:38Sen. Blunt Rochester: I yield back.
▶ 2:08:40Chair Cassidy: For the record, treating a miscarriage or ectopic pregnancy is not an abortion. Just false. I would ask, since I am not misinformation, I asked that not be repeated.
▶ 2:09:02Chair Cassidy: >> [no audio] thank you for the work you've done to create awareness about the food we eat and how it affects health, particularly with children. You have helped put that on the american agenda, rightfully so. I appreciate that. I want to share stats.
▶ 2:09:31Chair Cassidy: According to cdc, obesity prevalence is 42% among adults with lower incomes compared to 31% among higher income individuals. The relationship is strong among women, 45% of low income women are obese compared to 29% of higher income women. I have had this conversation over the course of my public service career many times. We run the medicaid program.
▶ 2:10:04Chair Cassidy: It impacts those health stats, 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?
▶ 2:10:28Chair Cassidy: Why do we operate programs in the way we do like with snap that pays for fruits that we know are causing people to be unhealthy -- that pays for foods that we know are causing people to be unhealthy? Could you share, shed some light on how you see your role in trying to impact that?
▶ 2:10:55Chair Cassidy: We see these policies are disproportionately affecting poor people, the inability to change them and make america healthy again is having a disproportionate effect on them and the cost of all these programs we are trying to maintain.
▶ 2:11:08Mr. Kennedy: Thank you. Nih has been diverted away from studying chronic disease. Almost nothing at nih, very low percentage of the budget, $42 billion budget, devoted to finding out why we are having this obesity epidemic.
▶ 2:11:42Mr. Kennedy: Epidemics are not caused by genes. Genes may provide vulnerability. You need an environmental toxin. Why are we eliminating them? -- why aren't we eliminating them?
▶ 2:11:59Mr. Kennedy: This focus on infectious disease, when almost we altogether ignore chronic disease which cause 92% of the deaths in this country, during covi, 16% of the covid deaths, we have 4.2% of the world population. No country did as poorly as us. You asked cdc why is that? They say because we have the sickest people on earth. The average person who died from earth had 3.8 chronic diseases.
▶ 2:12:34Mr. Kennedy: We are dying from covid greater than any population in the world, over 3000 deaths per million population. The only people worse our indian reservations which have an even higher rate, and the only worse globally were samoans. American blacks were disproportionately impacted because they disproportionately have diabetes, cardiac illnesses and other chronic disease.
▶ 2:13:05Mr. Kennedy: We need to start studying those and we need to get rid of the conflicts at the agency that obstructs those studies. That are focused on advancing mercantile interests of the pharmaceutical and flu industry rather than the health of the american people.
▶ 2:13:24Mr. Kennedy: >> I would ask you, if confirmed, to take a leadership role across agencies to advise us on what policy changes we must make to not make it worse but to make it better because we subsidize, literally we have policies of the government, that encourages the production of foods and the sale of foods, particularly to the poorest americans, that lead to these problems. We are literally creating the problem we are trying to solve.
▶ 2:13:57Mr. Kennedy: Your recommendations would be appreciated.
▶ 2:13:59Mr. Kennedy: We have liaisons with the usda, brooke rollins, with whom I have a good relationship, so we can work collaboratively to reduce the chronic disease and exposures causing them. >> thank you.
▶ 2:14:19Chair Cassidy: Senator hickenlooper.
▶ 2:14:23Sen. Hickenlooper: Thank you bobby. We share a mutual oldest best friend and I respect that affection you have for him very much. You did talk longer in your introduction so I will try to urge concision.
▶ 2:14:47Sen. Hickenlooper: I thought I would start with the ability of medicare to negotiate ability of medicare to negotiat1 okayed in 2022. One hundred billion dollars in the next 10 years, 1.5 billion dollars out of consumers' pockets, medicare patients, in 2026 alone. Yesterday you said that the trump administration issued a statement to lowering the cost of prescription drugs, continuing the negotiation program.
▶ 2:15:15Sen. Hickenlooper: I went back and I looked at that. It was a statement that mentioned increasing transparency and then said that they would solicit feedback on the medicare drug price. Nowhere did it say in the statement that the administration was actually going to commit to lowering prices. Is that something that you still feel that that negotiation program into lowering those prices is important?
▶ 2:15:37Mr. Kennedy: I've spoken to president trump about negotiations. He is absolutely committed to negotiating lower drug prices.
▶ 2:15:45Sen. Hickenlooper: I appreciate that. You have spoken much on the need to focus on the prevention of chronic disease, which I think everyone shares. The maha movement is alive in colorado went everywhere else. People are frustrated that for every dollar that we spend on health care in this country, as has been previously said, often double any other country, only a nickel goes towards prevention.
▶ 2:16:12Sen. Hickenlooper: When you look at the $100 billion saved over 10 years through the negotiation of pharmaceuticals, you have any ideas of how we can put that towards prevention, that revenue?
▶ 2:16:26Mr. Kennedy: That is a really good question, senator hickenlooper. There are two things --
▶ 2:16:35Sen. Hickenlooper: 40 seconds, because I have two more questions.
▶ 2:16:40Mr. Kennedy: We can do medicare and obamacare, we should be moving to value-based care, which includes prevention. The other arm is nih, cdc, fda should identify the toxins that are contributing to chronic disease, eliminating them.
▶ 2:16:58Sen. Hickenlooper: With mifepristone, which has been described and discussed a lot, I understand your commitment to follow the policy of the president. But he has other tools studies,l but he has other tools studies,e sure that there is no bias to the best of our human ability to twist those results in any way
▶ 2:17:29Sen. Hickenlooper: To support that policy? I'm speaking about the defensive science.
▶ 2:17:33Mr. Kennedy: I will commit to you here today they review prior to approving any study at nih to allow you to approve the protocols and the researchers, help us choose the researchers. All I want is good science. I would love the input from this committee on any study we do. There are many ways that studies are flawed. You can correct those at the outset in a lot of ways.
▶ 2:18:02Mr. Kennedy: I will absolutely work with you to make sure that it is science that you and I are satisfied with.
▶ 2:18:06Sen. Hickenlooper: This is the first time you are being considered for a cabinet position because no other time would solicit or willingly approve our participation.
▶ 2:18:15Mr. Kennedy: I know the hazard of it, but I will do it anyway.
▶ 2:18:19Sen. Hickenlooper: I will hold you to it. [applause] let me get to the vaccines. This is crucial because there is widespread distressed and increasing distrust in the scientific community. Some have argued that I am the only scientist in the senate left. I have written research papers in peer-reviewed journals. I understand how it looks.
▶ 2:18:45Sen. Hickenlooper: A healthy skepticism is useful, but we want to make sure that is a healthy skepticism. Yesterday, 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 bucks but you had not -- three books but you had not read through.
▶ 2:19:09Sen. Hickenlooper: At certain points if you are going to be an activist, some would say a prophet, what you say becomes promoting something. Promoting an idea. I think that when you've only read three books, little bits of the three books not the whole three books, isn't that reckless? Aren't you then promoting this anti-science, anti--- the conspiracy about lyme disease in this case, but the same thing about some of these vaccine issues?
▶ 2:19:39Mr. Kennedy: I never endorsed at the issue. I said it was out there. Me not to acknowledge that is a form of manipulation. For me to say that there is no question, the government proclaimed orthodoxy is true, anyone --
▶ 2:19:57Sen. Hickenlooper: I appreciate the things. Just because we do have -- one out of 36 kids, again, we can't explain what it was. It is not fair to put that blame onto all kinds of things but focus on vaccinations. I yield back.
▶ 2:20:17Chair Cassidy: Dr. moody -- senator moody, I'm sorry.
▶ 2:20:23Sen. Moody: Thank you for spending so much time with me in my office. 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 that we spent a long time talking about was your assurance, knowledge, and understanding that it was the states that in fact gave limited power to the federal government and not the other way around.
▶ 2:20:51Sen. Moody: 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 of ptolemy of the state to enact or enforce laws that protect the lives of the unborn. I think that that's a concern of many. It was one of mine and you allay those concerns. I appreciate you spending so much time with your assurances.
▶ 2:21:22Sen. Moody: Some of the discussions regarding many would say that government and health professionals did great harm in the wake of covid-19. America, I believe, are at a crossroads where things that didn't used to be particularly political like science and medicine are politicized to the point where reality is distorted. What you believe has little to do with truth or fax and everything to do with your party. My hope is you, Mr.
▶ 2:21:51Sen. Moody: Kennedy, and the rest of president trump's appointees will break the cycle that is destroying america's promise. In florida I had the responsibility in numerous areas to seek the truth and bring justice. Working with governor desantis and other leaders, we launched a grand jury investigations. I want to bring your attention to one involving covid-19 and the actions of government officials and big pharma.
▶ 2:22:23Sen. Moody: Remember, a grand jury investigation is made up of laypeople, 18 in this instance, brought from communities in florida. I want to read one paragraph for your consideration.
▶ 2:22:37Sen. Moody: 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 efficacy data sidelining their own ombudsman to get doses of vaccines into the arms of every american regardless of their underlying risk from the sars-covid-two virus.
▶ 2:23:05Sen. Moody: The trust of the american people dragging their feet confirming a cornet signals and sanctioned long delays and mandatory post marketing studies involving those very same signals.sponsors abuse the scientific journal system and regulatory reporting requirements, delaying public disclosure of events from trials for years. I could go on. Mr.
▶ 2:23:30Sen. Moody: Kennedy, as the secretary of health and human services, will you use your position to squelch medical or scientific views with which you disagree?
▶ 2:23:41Mr. Kennedy: Never. This is relevant to what senator hickenlooper was asking me. We have tried the system where the government lies to americans, where they tell them with a level of assurance they don't feel themselves. It isn't working. The initial covid vaccine, americans flocked to get it. 95% of americans got it.
▶ 2:24:10Mr. Kennedy: The cdc has now recommended an eighth booster, and only 23% of americans at most are taking it because 77% of americans no longer trust the cdc. That is not a good thing. If we want the uptake of vaccines we need a trustworthy government. In nations where they don't have mandates, like japan and a few years ago in germany, they had the same uptake that we did without mandates because people trusted their government.
▶ 2:24:41Mr. Kennedy: That is what I want to restore to the american people and the vaccine program. I want people to know that if the government says something it's true, not manipulative. It is not a noble truth, which is what a certain doctor called his lies.
▶ 2:24:56Sen. Moody: I would like to bring your attention to another grand jury investigation that we did in florida. I would ask Mr. chairman to enter two grand jury reports related to human trafficking and covid-19.
▶ 2:25:08Sen. Moody: Do I have your commitment that any organization under your purview will work with the states and not impede our investigations to ensure that children who are in this country who are minors under your purview, you will communicate with us so that we can have the information to make sure that they are safe, unlike an investigation whereby biden blocked us from seeing information that they trafficked children brought into this country and lost dozens, tens of
▶ 2:25:42Sen. Moody: Thousands of children? Lost track of them and never gave us in florida the information that we could protect them?
▶ 2:25:48Mr. Kennedy: Absolutely. President trump is determined to find the 300,000 children who were lost over the past four years and returned them to their parents.
▶ 2:26:01Chair Cassidy: Without objection it can be entered into the record. Senator markey.
▶ 2:26:05Sen. Markey: Yesterday, under oath, you told my colleagues on the senate finance committee that when you went to samoa in june of 2019 it "had nothing to do with vaccines." will you confirm today that the trip had nothing to do with vaccines?
▶ 2:26:23Mr. Kennedy: My purpose in going there had nothing to do with vaccines.
▶ 2:26:28Sen. Markey: I have in my hand a blog post in 2021 in which you say the anti-vaccine group children's help defense, which you run, offered to fund the trip to samoa. In the same post you state that the trip was ultimately arranged by an anti-vaccine activist. During the trip, you met with an activist who later compared to vaccine mandates to nazi germany.
▶ 2:26:58Sen. Markey: During that trip you discussed vaccines with the prime minister and director general of health of samoa, the director general of health said that you specifically discussed your views on vaccine safety fears. With unanimous consent, I will submit those blog posts, Mr. chairman, into the record.
▶ 2:27:19Chair Cassidy: Without objection.
▶ 2:27:20Sen. Markey: I will ask you again. Did the trip have nothing to do with vaccines as you told my colleagues?
▶ 2:27:27Mr. Kennedy: If you want me to explain, I will.
▶ 2:27:31Sen. Markey: Did it have anything to do with vaccines?
▶ 2:27:35Mr. Kennedy: No, it did not. My purpose of the trip was not too. I ended up having conversations with people, some of whom I never intended to meet.
▶ 2:27:46Sen. Markey: An anti-vaccine are helped fund your trip.
▶ 2:27:51Mr. Kennedy: You call them anti-vaxxers, that is not what they would call themselves. I went down there, that group offered $6 million to obtain a grant for $6 million to install, to digitize the health records of samoa. [overlapping conversation]
▶ 2:28:14Sen. Markey: I got it, thank you. Let me follow through, october 2019. The cdc declared a measles outbreak in samoa. In november, samoa started a mass vaccination campaign to stop the outbreak.
▶ 2:28:35Sen. Markey: That same month, november of 2019, after 16 people had died from the outbreak and samoa was trying to respond to the crisis, you sent a letter to the prime minister of samoa stating, "it is a regrettable possibility that these children are causalities of the vaccine." by unanimous consent I will introduce that into the record.
▶ 2:28:58Chair Cassidy: Without objection.
▶ 2:28:59Sen. 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 that you visited samoa? Let me just finish.
▶ 2:29:18Sen. Markey: The death count in samoa grew to 83, and ultimately volunteers in new zealand sent tiny coffins to bury the 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.
▶ 2:29:44Sen. Markey: In new zealand a fax and I'll just -- a vaccinologist said your influence was devastating. You scared people from taking a vaccine, it slowed the public health response, and children died. You've taken no responsibility so far. If an outbreak occurs in the united states I have no evidence he would not use your role to spread dangerous information.
▶ 2:30:20Sen. Markey: That from my perspective disqualifies you from any position in health care, let alone the number one health official in the united states. 75 nobel prize winners in science have said very clearly that you should not be confirmed. That it would be dangerous --
▶ 2:30:38Mr. Kennedy: You should look at their conflicts of those individuals. You should look at who financed that letter.
▶ 2:30:46Sen. Markey: 75 nobel prize winners. By the way, 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 they don't want tiny coffins as well. Neither do I.
▶ 2:31:12Sen. Markey: That is the basis of my reservations about you, and the reason why I will vote no on your candidacy, because I think it is too dangerous to run the threat that that misinformation is spread in our country the same way that it wasn't in samoa.
▶ 2:31:27Chair Cassidy: Senator murkowski. Mullin and murkowski stayed for the entire conference, and they are not obligated like us, not that we wouldn't otherwise.
▶ 2:31:42Sen. Murkowski: I think that these are exactly the types of forms that we all need -- forums we need to be engaged in from start to finish.
▶ 2:31:51Mr. Kennedy: Can you speak up?
▶ 2:31:53Sen. Murkowski: There has been discussion about issues, certainly a lot about vaccines. I deeply care 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 rural state like mine. You have experience there and you understand that. I am particularly attracted by the focus on chronic disease.
▶ 2:32:21Sen. Murkowski: 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 chronic disease area, we are able to, perhaps, pull back a little bit on that. 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 life-saving vaccines that are going to be so critically important.
▶ 2:32:52Sen. Murkowski: It is a personal care. It is food. It is exercise. It is all of the above. We have to figure it out together. We do need to shake some things up. We also need to give a level of confidence. This is what I'm hearing from so many of my colleagues who raised the issue of vaccines.
▶ 2:33:14Sen. Murkowski: 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. That is why everyone was rattled to the core. Villages were entirely shut down during covid because of the fear of transmission. They are looking for these life-saving ways and means.
▶ 2:33:46Sen. Murkowski: When there is a lack of confidence, when there is a doubt, what do I do? We are pulling back then on these areas where we can work to prevent some of these deadly diseases that we thought we had wiped out years ago.
▶ 2:34:04Sen. Murkowski: We have dramatically reduced diseases in my state, like hepatitis a and b and meningitis, which is now getting through a tough bout of whooping cough that came to the state. Now there is a scare in the peninsula in alaska about a measles outbreak.
▶ 2:34:28Sen. Murkowski: We can't be going backwards with our vaccinations that will allow for this level of prevention and protection. I'm asking you. You are clearly an influencer. You are clearly an influencer. You would not be in this position today. You can see how your podium, your platform, your voice can influence so many.
▶ 2:34:59Sen. Murkowski: I am asking you on the issue of vaccines specifically to please 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.
▶ 2:35:30Sen. Murkowski: 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 life-saving areas. So, I will pivot to a question that you can answer.
▶ 2:35:55Mr. Kennedy: I can answer that one.
▶ 2:35:58Sen. Murkowski: I have 43 seconds and no one has talked about our native populations. When you look at health statistics, alaska natives or american indians, our health statistics you know very well, we talked about it, are not where they need to be in all categories.
▶ 2:36:22Sen. Murkowski: Infectious disease, tuberculosis, hep c, mental health, substance abuse, sexually transmitted hypertension, stroke -- it is so deep, so challenging, so hard. You have received support from native american tribes. You have been in these areas.
▶ 2:36:43Sen. Murkowski: You have been quoted, I would like for your comment on this, as saying, as far as budgeting for indian country you said you would triple the budget for tribes. Can you expand on this and the commitment? This is an area where we have truly left our native people behind when it comes to their health and health outcomes.
▶ 2:37:06Mr. Kennedy: Thank you, senator. This is an issue that you and I talked about that is very important. It has always been a priority for me. I spent 20% of my career working on native issues. I was one of the founding editors of indian country today.
▶ 2:37:27Mr. Kennedy: My father and uncle, ted kennedy and my father, were deeply critical of the functioning of the health service in 1968 and 1980 and nothing has changed. Nothing has gotten better. I will bring in an native at the assistant secretary level.
▶ 2:37:47Mr. Kennedy: I would like to get them designated as an assistant secretary for the first time in american history to make sure that all of the decisions that we make in our agency our conscience of the impacts on first nations.
▶ 2:38:03Mr. Kennedy: I have represented arctic village, and I have been all over the remote areas, and I understand alaska's unique needs because of remote health care. Some of these areas are not accessible except by airplanes. They don't have ambulance services. The federal government needs to pay attention to financing transportation.
▶ 2:38:35Mr. Kennedy: The unusual ways that are required there. We need to focus on telemedicine and ai to make sure that even in remote places in alaska that native people can get high-quality health care. We can do that today. I look forward to working with you on those issues and others.
▶ 2:38:54Chair Cassidy: Senator murkowski sets the record for going over. Senator also brooks.
▶ 2:39:03Sen. Alsobrooks: I was struck by your comments during our meeting last week.
▶ 2:39:10Mr. Kennedy: What?
▶ 2:39:15Sen. Alsobrooks: I was struck by your comments where you made it clear to me that you intended to clean house of the professional scientists at the national institute of health, headquarted in maryland employing thousands of hard-working marylanders. I believe in scientists and doctors, and I trust them over politicians without medical degrees.
▶ 2:39:40Sen. Alsobrooks: You talked about bad sci ence and bad scientists and you said to me that you intend to replace the bad scientists with the good scientists. In your opinion, what makes a scientist or doctor qualified to serve at the national institutes of health?
▶ 2:39:59Mr. Kennedy: Who is devoted to empirical methodology, evidence-based science. Scientists who understand the importance of replication. The importance of publishing raw data and being transparent about it. The importance of publishing-review. Nih has overseen the past several years the precipitous decline in american health. There are 91,000 people at hhs.
▶ 2:40:30Mr. Kennedy: Are you suggesting that some of them should not be held responsible for that decline? They were in charge of protecting our health. Let me finish.
▶ 2:40:38Sen. Alsobrooks: I only have three minutes left. I don't set the rules but I asked the questions. The question is if you intend, as you said, to substitute essentially your judgment for the judgment of these professional scientists?
▶ 2:40:54Mr. Kennedy: I will not substitute my judgment for science. Of course I'm not going to do that. The new york times did an article last week talking about the fraud, the 20-your fraud, 800 fraudulent studies produced by nih. Not allowing any other hypotheses about the causes of alzheimer's.
▶ 2:41:19Sen. Alsobrooks: How will you decide which scientists are the bad scientists? The ones who disagree with you?
▶ 2:41:26Mr. Kennedy: The ones who are corrupt. The ones who are doing studies like the plaque studies that are fraudulent.
▶ 2:41:34Sen. Alsobrooks: Do you have a medical degree?
▶ 2:41:37Mr. Kennedy: No.
▶ 2:41:38Sen. Alsobrooks: The heritage fund compiled a watchlist to go after federal staff. Is there a watchlist for federal staff at hhs?
▶ 2:41:48Mr. Kennedy: Not that I know of.
▶ 2:41:50Sen. Alsobrooks: Has you or anyone in the administration developed a list you would target for termination?
▶ 2:41:58Mr. Kennedy: Not that I know of.
▶ 2:42:01Sen. Alsobrooks: Let me ask you another question. Now, your failed presidential campaign has been raising money to try to cover your debts. You were questioned about this yesterday and failed to answer a question that senator warren asked you. I will ask you again.
▶ 2:42:25Sen. Alsobrooks: Regarding these emails that you have sent to raise money, how much is your presidential campaign made fundraising over this administration's disregard for hhs? How much money has your presidential campaign made awful fundraising off of this administration's complete disregard for the workforce at hhs?
▶ 2:42:45Mr. Kennedy: Zero.
▶ 2:42:48Sen. Alsobrooks: Mr. chair, I would like to ask unanimous consent to enter into the record two emails from this week and the week before regarding fundraising that you are currently doing for your presidential campaign.
▶ 2:43:00Chair Cassidy: Without objection.
▶ 2:43:02Sen. Alsobrooks: I want to ask you, you said that you were on a show on february 26, 2021 and were interviewed where you said the following. 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?
▶ 2:43:28Mr. Kennedy: There is a series of studies that show that the particular antigens that blacks have a much stronger reaction. There is a difference in reaction of different products to different races.
▶ 2:43:47Sen. Alsobrooks: What different vaccine schedule would you say I should have received? What different vaccine schedule should I have received?
▶ 2:43:57Mr. Kennedy: The article suggests that blacks need fewer antigens.
▶ 2:44:05Sen. 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 would vote against your nomination because your views are dangerous to our state and to our country.
▶ 2:44:23Mr. Kennedy: Do you think that science is dangerous, senator? This is published, peer-reviewed studies.
▶ 2:44:30Sen. Alsobrooks: I yield.
▶ 2:44:32Chair Cassidy: Senator collins who would have been here the whole time but was in an intel committee.
▶ 2:44:39Sen. Collins: Mr. kennedy, first of all, welcome. 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'm going to say to nih scientists, god bless you all, thank you for your public service, we are going to
▶ 2:45:09Sen. Collins: Give infectious diseases a break for about eight years. Don't we need to do both?
▶ 2:45:16Mr. Kennedy: Absolutely, senator. The problem is, there has been an imbalance. We have devoted all of these dollars to infectious disease and drug development. Nih is an incubator for the infectious disease industry.
▶ 2:45:39Mr. Kennedy: Chronic disease, why aren't we devoting equivalent studies to determining the ideology of our chronic disease? It seems like common sense to me.
▶ 2:45:53Sen. Collins: I would point out that in many cases it is congress rather than hhs who sets the funding levels for various diseases.
▶ 2:46:02Mr. Kennedy: Nih decides, they have panels that decide who gets funding. Not congress, senator.
▶ 2:46:11Sen. Collins: I want to share a discussion that I had with the main pediatric nurse practitioner. She raised the concern that if people are discouraged from getting their children vaccinated we will lose the herd immunity in the classroom.
▶ 2:46:36Sen. Collins: That means that a child who may be immunosuppressed and cannot get a vaccine are at risk of being in the classroom with an unvaccinated child. That is at risk of getting the infectious disease because we have lost the herd immunity. What would be your response?
▶ 2:47:01Mr. Kennedy: My response is that vaccine uptake for the covid vaccine, for example, is 23%. All the vaccines are dropping. They are doing that because people do not believe the government anymore. We need good science. I will bring that in and I will restore our vaccine uptake.
▶ 2:47:23Sen. Collins: You are correct about what happened with the covid vaccine. Let me switch to the polio vaccine. Do you think that the polio vaccine is safe and effective?
▶ 2:47:37Mr. Kennedy: Yes, I do.
▶ 2:47:40Sen. Collins: Would you seek to reduce its availability in any way?
▶ 2:47:45Mr. Kennedy: No, not at all.
▶ 2:47:47Sen. Collins: The state of maine has seen a steady and disturbing increase in lyme disease cases over the past decade. We talked a little about this in my office. In 2023, maine had a record number of lyme disease cases, nearly 3000 reported cases.
▶ 2:48:14Sen. Collins: Fortunately, there is a promising vaccine trial for lyme disease 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 life-long effects. I have seen it and members of my own family.
▶ 2:48:40Sen. Collins: As hhs secretary, if confirmed, what influence would you exercise over new vaccine approvals, such as one for lyme disease?
▶ 2:48:52Mr. 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 immediate family has had lyme disease. I had a son whose face was paralyzed for a year. Today I have a son who has been suffering with devastating effects from lyme disease for two years.
▶ 2:49:19Mr. Kennedy: There is nobody who will fight harder to find a vaccine or treatment for lyme disease than me.
▶ 2:49:25Sen. Collins: I very much appreciate that assurance. 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. Ticks are everywhere. This is a very important issue to me.
▶ 2:49:47Mr. Kennedy: And to me too, senator.
▶ 2:49:50Chair Cassidy: We are almost to the end. Senator moody has also been here the whole time. Thank you, senator moody. [indiscernible] incredible diligence, thank you. Senator sanders and I will have a couple of questions, and then we will each have a closing statement, and then your long, national nightmare will be over. [laughter] a couple more commit-type questions.
▶ 2:50:22Chair Cassidy: 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?
▶ 2:50:32Mr. Kennedy: Yes.
▶ 2:50:33Chair Cassidy: Do you commit you will not impose new grant conditions outside of congressional direction for state, local, or global entities that in any way restrict or resends access to vaccines or vaccine promotion programs?
▶ 2:50:47Mr. Kennedy: Yes.
▶ 2:50:48Chair Cassidy: This is the nice thing about listening to all of this. Let me ask this. I have been impressed. You handled yourself very well. I have been impressed that on many things you are familiar with recent medical data. But on other things, you haven't been. Let me bring up two things that are pertinent now.
▶ 2:51:15Chair Cassidy: While sitting here I went up to look at the medical literature on these issues. Here is a title, why parents say no to having their children vaccinated against measles. A systemic review of the social determinants of parental perceptions of mmr vaccine. They found that fear of autism is a major driver for vaccine hesitancy among those with a college education or higher.
▶ 2:51:43Chair Cassidy: Influenced by internet social media narratives over physician-based vaccine information. I will go back to something I said earlier. You have a following, man. There are a lot of people who look to you for, do I get vaccinated or not? People I know. Here it says it is not just my anecdote, it is out there. When I raised, you said show me the data.
▶ 2:52:13Chair Cassidy: I asked will you without qualification say the measles vaccine doesn't cause autism? You said, if I show you the data.
▶ 2:52:19Mr. Kennedy: I will publicly apologize and say that I was wrong.
▶ 2:52:23Chair Cassidy: Medical analysis from 2014. You quoted cochran on several occasions which is a meta-analysis that looks at everything and then comes to a conclusion based upon us much facts as they can get. Here is such a study. The title tells it all. Vaccines are not associated with autism, and evidence-based meta-analysis of case-control and covert studies. They ended up looking at five cohort studies with 1.2 million children.
▶ 2:52:54Chair Cassidy: This is from 2014. It has a whole bunch of articles that it references. I got a text from a former employee of nih, I emphasize former, who says that early in president trump's term, you and colleagues sent 90 papers for review by people at nih.
▶ 2:53:15Chair Cassidy: They felt like these nih folks felt without exception they were severely lacking methodologically and that they do indeed show the safety of these vaccines. We tried to engage Mr. kennedy, but his colleagues refused to acknowledge the expertise that dozens of scientists made about the papers. You are a smart guy.
▶ 2:53:43Chair Cassidy: You are reading the medical literature and you are coming up with the 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 in autism. And here is somebody who said he said, but somebody who said that previously you had this presented to you.
▶ 2:54:13Chair Cassidy: Back to me. I am a doc trying to understand. Convince me that you will become the public health advocate. Not just churn old information so that there is never a conclusion as senator hassan suggested. Will become the influencer for people to believe. There are 1.2 million kids studied and there is no autism associated with measles.
▶ 2:54:44Chair Cassidy: You tell me. You see what my question is in there?
▶ 2:54:48Mr. Kennedy: I will be an advocate for strong science. You show me those scientific studies, and you and I can meet about it. There are other studies as well that I would love to show to you. There is a study that came out last week of 47,000 nine-year-olds in the medicaid system in florida. I think a louisiana scientist shows the opposite.
▶ 2:55:20Mr. Kennedy: There are other studies out there. I just want to follow the science. I will do -- if the science says I am wrong about what I've 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 and I say that I'm wrong. I don't have any problem. Science is a process of challenging hypotheses with new evidence.
▶ 2:55:52Mr. Kennedy: A scientist has to be able to admit when they are wrong. The institute of medicine has repeatedly, 2013 and 2017 when they investigated this, asked at the cdc to do certain animal studies and observational studies of the vaccine safety datalink. I want them to do that. I want the best science.
▶ 2:56:23Mr. Kennedy: I can guarantee you on my word of honor if use show -- if you show me science that says I was wrong I will say that I am wrong. There is nothing that would make me happier. We need to be able to look at the science, get the national academy of sciences involved, they are the arbiter of safety.
▶ 2:56:47Mr. Kennedy: One of the things that we need to do, I think, this is a subject we haven't talked about, why don't we know what is causing this epidemic? Why hasn't cdc been looking at other hypotheses to determine the ideology of why we have had this dramatic 1000% increase in this disease that is destroying our kids?
▶ 2:57:11Mr. Kennedy: I -- why don't we know the answer after 30 years of steady rises? We should know the answer.
▶ 2:57:24Chair Cassidy: What was the last article that you mentioned?
▶ 2:57:29Mr. Kennedy: It is by mawson.
▶ 2:57:36Chair Cassidy: Regarding measles and what?
▶ 2:57:39Mr. Kennedy: It looks at the entire schedule and it says it is the study of 9-year-old boys, 47 thousand 9-year-old boys from florida health care data.
▶ 2:57:51Chair Cassidy: Senator sanders.
▶ 2:57:53Sen. Sanders: Thank you. I find myself in the unusual and uncomfortable position of having to agree with senator cassidy's line of questioning. Mr.
▶ 2:58:06Sen. Sanders: Kennedy, in an interview in july of 2023, you stated, "I do believe autism does come from vaccines." you praised a gentleman named andrew wakefield for his research.
▶ 2:58:27Sen. Sanders: Where -- what studies, you talk about the need to be science-based, get good information to make decisions, what studies have you utilized to come to the conclusion that vaccines cause autism?
▶ 2:58:42Mr. Kennedy: I am happy to sit down with you.
▶ 2:58:45Sen. Sanders: No, please. Just answer.
▶ 2:58:48Mr. Kennedy: Look at the mawson study.
▶ 2:58:52Sen. Sanders: I will.
▶ 2:58:54Mr. Kennedy: I wouldn't rest on a single study.
▶ 2:58:59Sen. Sanders: I don't mean to be rude. I don't have a lot of time. I heard you say that you could not be happier if you were proved wrong. Mr. chairman, I ask to be 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?
▶ 2:59:27Mr. Kennedy: The iom --
▶ 2:59:32Sen. Sanders: I don't have a lot of time. I am happy to talk to you another time. I don't have a lot of time. Let's talk about covid. I want clarity on the issue. I apologize, you have to be brief, we don't have a lot of time. Scientists have estimated that the covid vaccine saved 3 million lives.
▶ 2:59:53Sen. Sanders: President trump said the covid vaccine was "one of the great miracles of the ages." you have said the covid vaccine was the deadliest vaccine ever made. Was the covid vaccine the deadliest vaccine ever made?
▶ 3:00:09Mr. Kennedy: The reason I said that, senator sanders, is because there were more reports in the vaccine adverse reporting system, more reports of injuries and deaths than all other vaccines combined.
▶ 3:00:31Sen. Sanders: Scientists said it saved 3 million lives.
▶ 3:00:34Mr. Kennedy: I don't know. We don't have a good surveillance system.
▶ 3:00:39Sen. Sanders: You disagree with the scientific community?
▶ 3:00:42Mr. Kennedy: I am agnostic because we don't have the science to make that determination.
▶ 3:00:47Sen. Sanders: Prescription drug prices in america, as you know --
▶ 3:00:52Mr. Kennedy: By the way, I think president trump did an extraordinary job on warp speed.
▶ 3:00:59Sen. Sanders: Called it a miracle, but you have cast doubt on its efficacy. We will make america healthy. I agree with you that we need a revolution in the nature of food in america, physical exercise, etc. Very, very important. People are going to get sick and they have to go to the doctor to find out why.
▶ 3:01:25Sen. Sanders: One out of four americans today cannot afford the prescription drugs that 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. The first time that ever happened. Yesterday you told me that the white house would issue something confirming their support of continuing those medicare negotiations.
▶ 3:01:54Sen. Sanders: That turned out to be not quite accurate. They came out with a statement that could have been written by pharma. Very specific question. 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?
▶ 3:02:13Mr. Kennedy: President trump has made it clear to me that he wants to negotiate --
▶ 3:02:18Sen. Sanders: Negotiate is a big word, bobby.
▶ 3:02:21Mr. Kennedy: It is the word you used, senator.
▶ 3:02:25Sen. Sanders: Defend. Will you defend the law in the inflation reduction act that is already negotiating drug prices?
▶ 3:02:33Mr. Kennedy: President trump wants to negotiate drug prices.
▶ 3:02:37Sen. Sanders: You are telling me that you will defend the law that we passed which has already had significant success?
▶ 3:02:43Mr. Kennedy: I will comply with the law. Congress passed the law and I'm swearing an oath to the constitution.
▶ 3:02:51Sen. Sanders: You will have influence on health care policy if -- 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.
▶ 3:03:21Sen. Sanders: Wages have been stagnant for american workers for 50 years. The economy is broken. 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 united states congress. That is a broken political system and a real threat to democracy. Our health care system is broken.
▶ 3:03:51Sen. Sanders: 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 asked the question why in the richest country in the history of the world our life expectancy is lower than in countries of poorer than we are. I think in many ways president trump and Mr. kennedy have asked some of the right questions.
▶ 3:04:19Sen. Sanders: The problem is, their answers will only make a bad situation worse. 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 in the world does? Guarantee health care to every single american?
▶ 3:04:41Mr. Kennedy: I am going to make america healthier than other countries in the world --
▶ 3:04:46Sen. Sanders: Will you guarantee to do it at the other major countries do?
▶ 3:04:52Mr. Kennedy: By the way, bernie, the problem of corruption is not only in the federal agencies, it is in congress too. Almost all the members of this panel, including yourself, are accepting millions of dollars from the pharmaceutical industry. [applause]
▶ 3:05:10Sen. Sanders: No. No, no, no. I ran for president like you. I got millions of contributions. They did not come from the executives. Not one nickel of pac money from the pharmaceuticals.
▶ 3:05:27Mr. Kennedy: In 2020 you were the single largest
▶ 3:05:31Sen. Sanders: Because I had contributions from workers all over this country. Workers. Not a nickel from corporate pacs.
▶ 3:05:40Mr. Kennedy: The single largest in pharmaceutical dollars. $5 million.
▶ 3:05:47Sen. Sanders: Out of $200 million. You have not answered -- last question. You have not answered my question. How will you make america healthy if you don't guarantee --
▶ 3:06:01Chair Cassidy: We are three minutes over. How long does it keep going? At some point you are battering the witness.
▶ 3:06:09Sen. Sanders: I am not battering the witness.
▶ 3:06:23Chair Cassidy: Before I entered politics, before I was thinking of running for office, I practiced medicine for 30 years. I worked 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 come dedicating my life to saving lives. That is, being a doctor. That ethic guides me now.
▶ 3:06:49Chair Cassidy: In my opening statement I told the story of my patient, an 18-year-old girl with acute liver failure being air-ambulance to shreveport hospital for liver transplant. Let me finish the story. Her mother was not allowed to fly in the helicopter. Her mother drove three hours from baton rouge to shreveport. When she arrived she was able to visit her daughter before she went to the or.
▶ 3:07:19Chair Cassidy: The mom goes in to say a prayer, squeezes the daughter's hand, the daughter's eyes open and she says, "mama?" and the daughter began to recover. A powerful story with a happy ending. As a doctor I saw endings not so happy.
▶ 3:07:42Chair Cassidy: 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. My concern is, if there is any false note, any undermining of a mama's trust in vaccines, another person will die from a vaccine-preventable disease. You have a megaphone. Maybe you and bernie.
▶ 3:08:13Chair Cassidy: Bobby and bernie. Everybody in this room, the two of you have the biggest followings. Tremendous credibility. With that influence comes a great responsibility. My responsibility is to learn, to try to determine, if you can be trusted to support the best public health.
▶ 3:08:39Chair Cassidy: A where the movement called ma ha 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 put that to the side. That is why I've been struggling with your nomination. Ultra processed food, obesity?
▶ 3:09:09Chair Cassidy: We are simpatico, completely aligned. I understand that mothers want reassurance that the vaccine that their child is receiving is necessary, safe, and effective. We agree on that point, the two of us, but we approach it differently. I have approached it using the preponderance of evidence to reassure, and you have approached using selected evidence to cast doubt.
▶ 3:09:36Chair Cassidy: Put it differently, we are about the same age, does a seven-year-old or 71-year-old man who spent decades criticizing vaccines and 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?
▶ 3:10:01Chair Cassidy: Will you continue what you have been or will you turn over a new leaf at age 70? I recognize, man, if you come out unequivocably that vaccines are safe and it doesn't cause autism, that would have an impact. That is your power. What is it going to be? Will it be using the credibility to support? Or will it be using the credibility to undermine?
▶ 3:10:30Chair Cassidy: I have 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.
▶ 3:10:53Chair Cassidy: As a patriotic american, I want president trumps policies to succeed and make america and americans more secure, prosperous, healthier. If there is someone who is not vaccinated because of policies or attitude that you bring to the department, and there is another 18-year-old who dies because of a vaccine-preventable disease, it will be blown up in the press.
▶ 3:11:22Chair Cassidy: The tragedy will be her death but an associated tragedy is that will cast a shadow over president trump's legacy, which I want to be the best legacy it can be. You may be hearing from me over the weekend. You may be hearing from me over the weekend. Once again, thank you for your time and I yield to my ranking member.
▶ 3:11:47Sen. Sanders: Thank, Mr. chairman. Thank you very much for your job today conducting this very, very important hearing. Let me reiterate my concerns. Every person on this panel, and I hope everyone in america, wants to make us the healthiest country on earth. I applaud Mr.
▶ 3:12:14Sen. Sanders: Kennedy for raising the issues and talking about some 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.
▶ 3:12:34Sen. Sanders: It is unquestionable that when 68,000 americans die because they cannot afford to go to a doctor, you have to deal with it. I haven't heard one word about the need for universal health care that exists in every country on earth.
▶ 3:12:54Sen. Sanders: When one out of four people cannot afford prescription drugs because the pharmaceutical industry is ripping us off and charging 10 times more in some cases than people in other countries. I have not heard the definitive answer that I need that we won't pay the highest prices in the world for prescription drugs. One of the points that Mr. kennedy made, health care is not just medical care. It is a lot more. Talk about the food industry.
▶ 3:13:22Sen. Sanders: We have held a hearing, senator cassidy, we held a hearing a few 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, etc.
▶ 3:13:39Sen. Sanders: 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 nonaddictive. In many ways what the food industry is doing today is what the tobacco industry did 15 to 20 years ago. We talk about making america healthy today. It is not just Dr.
▶ 3:14:07Sen. Sanders: Care, medical care. We have millions of people working for starvation wages. You cannot be healthy if you're working 50 to 60 hours a week and you cannot afford the rent that your landlord is charging you. Stress kills. Stress makes us sick. Mr. chairman, I think the issues that have been raised in this hearing today are of a normative importance.
▶ 3:14:36Sen. Sanders: I look forward to working with you and 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. In fact so we can make america healthy. Thank you.
▶ 3:14:52Chair Cassidy: This concludes our hearing. Questions for the record will be due tomorrow, friday, january 31 at 5:00 p.m.