Lawmakers question Kennedy on staffing cuts, funding freezes and policy changes at health department

WASHINGTON AP Republicans and Democrats alike on Wednesday questioned the deep staffing cuts research funding freezes and drastic procedures changes that U S Medical and Human Services Secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr has made in a sparse short months at the helm of the nation s medical department Kennedy who was to sit before the Senate s robustness committee later in the day appeared at a House appropriations hearing to defend the White House s requested budget for his agency The request includes a million boost for Kennedy s Make America Healthy Again initiative to promote nutrition and healthier lifestyles while making deep cuts to infectious disorder prevention healthcare research maternal vitality low-income heat assistance and preschool programs Kennedy described his downsizing of the sprawling trillion-a-year agency from workers to as necessary cost-cutting measures that have reduced redundancies He argued that he s merely consolidating several existing offices that work on women s wellness minority physical condition and sexually transmitted complaint prevention When we consolidate them Democrats say they re eliminating them Kennedy reported But Democrats argued that particular of that consolidation will ultimately impact the work that the federal regime is doing to reduce overdose deaths survey causes of cancer or offer suicide prevention services to LGBTQ teens Rep Madeline Dean a Democrat from Pennsylvania pressed Kennedy on his plans to shutter the Substance Abuse and Mental Robustness Services Administration an agency that oversees a national suicide hotline surveys Americans on their drug use annually and provides funding and guidance for addiction cure centers Kennedy plans to fold it into his new Administration for Healthy Americans We call that shift and shaft Dean noted of Kennedy s plans Several Republicans too sprinkled hints of concerns about Kennedy s approach to the job throughout the hearing Rep Chuck Fleischmann of Tennessee praised Kennedy for his work but raised concerns about whether the secretary has provided adequate evidence that artificial food dyes are bad for diets Removing those food dyes would hurt the a great number of snack manufacturers in his district including the makers of M Ms candy Rep Mike Simpson a dentist from Idaho commented Kennedy s plan to remove fluoride recommendations for drinking water alarms him The department s press release on Tuesday that communicated the Food and Drug Administration plans to remove fluoride supplements for children from the arena wrongly claimed that fluoride kills bacteria from the teeth Simpson noted He explained to Kennedy that fluoride doesn t kill bacteria in the mouth but instead makes tooth enamel more resistance to decay I will tell you that if you are effective in banning fluoride we better put a lot more money into dental learning because we re going to need a lot more dentists Simpson added Democrat Bonnie Watson-Coleman of New Jersey solicited why why why Kennedy would lay off nearly all the staff that oversees the Low Income Home Ability Assistance Activity which provides billion in heating assistance to needy families The initiative is slated to be eliminated from the agency s budget Kennedy announced that advocates warned him those cuts will end up killing people but that President Donald Trump believes his vitality procedures will lower costs If that doesn t work Kennedy disclosed he would restore funding for the campaign Kennedy heads next to to the Senate where plenty of eyes will be on his dialogue with Republican Sen Bill Cassidy of Louisiana who extracted a number of guarantees from Kennedy about his approach to vaccines Cassidy a practitioner harbored a number of concerns about Kennedy s history of promoting conspiracy theories or misspeaking about vaccines he declared during a confirmation hearing earlier this year Can I trust that that is now in the past Cassidy petitioned Kennedy at the time Kennedy has since delivered a mixed message on vaccines that residents strength experts have announced are hampering efforts to contain a measles outbreak now in at least states He s offered endorsements of vaccinations but continued to raise questions about their efficacy or safety He s noted the childhood vaccine schedule will be examined in a investigation of autism s causes He s called the measles mumps and rubella vaccine a shot given to children to provide immunity from all three diseases leaky although it offers lifetime protection from the measles for preponderance people He s also explained they cause deaths although none has been documented among healthy people At the agency too he s made moves that endorsement the anti-vaccine movement He hired a man who has published research that suggests vaccines cause developmental delays to oversee a analysis on autism And he s terminated particular research and general soundness funds dedicated to vaccines Kennedy who has rejected the anti-vaccine label has regularly noted that he is pro-safety and wants more research on vaccines although decades of real-world use and research have concluded they safely prevent deadly diseases in children His longstanding advocacy has unfailingly focused on ensuring that vaccines and other health interventions meet the highest standards of safety and are supported by gold-standard science Physical condition and Human Services announced in a report As he did during confirmation Secretary Kennedy is prepared to address questions surrounding this topic