Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. will answer questions from members of the Senate’s health committee.
Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is slated to testify to the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee on May 14, the panel said on May 2.
Kennedy
is scheduled to answer questions from panel members on the proposed fiscal year 2026 budget for the agency he heads, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).
Kennedy has not sat before the committee since he was approved by the Senate and sworn in as HHS secretary in February.
President Donald Trump’s proposed budget for the next fiscal year, which starts in October,
includes $500 million to further the Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) agenda that Trump has tasked Kennedy with enacting.
The money “would allow the Secretary to tackle nutrition, physical activity, healthy lifestyles, over-reliance on medication and treatments, the effects of new technological habits, environmental impacts, and food and drug quality and safety across HHS,” the White House
said in its budget request.
Trump has also asked for reductions in funding for a range of health programs, including a program that assists poorer families with paying energy bills, because they are duplicative or just unnecessary, the White House said.
Kennedy, in a post on social media platform X,
thanked Trump for the investment in MAHA, calling it “a critical step toward ending the childhood chronic disease epidemic.”
“For decades, we’ve watched rates of autism, asthma, allergies, autoimmune disorders, and obesity skyrocket while our health institutions looked the other way. That ends now. Together, we will restore integrity to public health, protect our most vulnerable, and Make America Healthy Again,” he said.
Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.), a doctor and the chairman of the Senate Health Committee, delivered a crucial vote for Kennedy that advanced his confirmation to the full Senate, which later confirmed the nominee.
Cassidy
said in a speech on the Senate floor that he was supporting Kennedy because they aligned on removing ultra-processed foods from the food supply, among other issues. Cassidy also said Kennedy had promised him that he would “work within the current vaccine approval and safety monitoring systems, and not establish parallel systems,” and would “maintain the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices recommendations without changes.”
Kennedy
has said recently he’s considering removing COVID-19 vaccines from the CDC’s vaccine schedule for children, while HHS
has said that it is building new safety monitoring systems because the current ones are deficient.
Cassidy also said that Kennedy would testify to the Senate Health Committee on a quarterly basis and that Kennedy would keep in close contact with him.
When HHS later announced it was firing 10,000 workers on top of 10,000 others who had already been terminated or accepted buyouts, with the aim of streamlining the agency, Cassidy
said that he supported improvements to HHS and looked forward to hearing how the reorganization would work. Cassidy has also offered support for HHS banning some artificial dyes while repeatedly urging vaccination amid outbreaks of measles.
Kennedy has said HHS supports measles vaccination but has emphasized that the shot can cause side effects and that some people will decline to take the vaccine. HHS also
said on Friday that it is looking into treatments for measles.
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), the ranking member of the Senate Health Committee, voted against Kennedy. Sanders
said he supports Kennedy’s positions on certain issues, such as ultra-processed foods, but said Kennedy would “oversee massive cuts to health care programs for low-income people, nursing home care for seniors, and long-term care for people with disabilities.”
Sanders more recently decried cuts to the Head Start program, which provides child care and schooling to young children from poorer families, and to the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program. He has not commented on Kennedy’s upcoming appearance before the panel.
