Kennedy, defending downsizing, clashes with Democrats in tense hearings

WASHINGTON — Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. delivered a defiant defense Wednesday of his drastic overhaul of federal health agencies, insisting to members of Congress that he had “not fired any working scientists” and was “not withholding money for lifesaving research” despite evidence to the contrary.

In back-to-back appearances before House and Senate committees, Kennedy, a longtime critic of vaccination, also made clear that he did not think the health secretary should be in the business of making vaccine recommendations. He ducked questions about whether, if he had young children today, they would be inoculated against measles, chickenpox or polio.

“I don’t think people should be taking advice, medical advice from me,” the health secretary said.

After weeks of controversy about his plans for autism research, Kennedy also testified that federally funded studies should focus solely on identifying “environmental toxins” — a term Kennedy’s critics say is code for vaccines.

Kennedy had come to Capitol Hill, his first appearance there since becoming health secretary, to promote President Donald Trump’s budget for the next fiscal year. But his testimony devolved into a series of fiery exchanges with Democrats, who wanted to talk about the mass layoffs and cuts to research funding he has already imposed.

Engineered in part by Elon Musk and his team at the Department of Government Efficiency, the remake of the health department includes cutting 20,000 jobs — one-fourth of the health workforce. It also collapses entire agencies, including those devoted to mental health and addiction treatment, and emergency preparedness, into a new, ill-defined “Administration for a Healthy America.”

Democrats charged that in making the cuts, Kennedy had usurped the power of Congress.

The health secretary testified that while Trump’s budget cuts would be “painful,” they were necessary to ease the federal government’s $2 trillion deficit.

Kennedy’s assertion that he has “not fired any working scientists” flies in the face of reality. Hundreds of scientists from the National Institutes of Health, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Food and Drug Administration have lost their jobs as part of his plan to overhaul the Department of Health and Human Services.

Trump has published only the broad outlines of his budget plan, which calls for deep cuts to the NIH and the CDC. In written testimony submitted to the committee, Kennedy said the cuts would save money “without impacting critical services.”

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.