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The Big Story

RFK Jr grilled by Congress over transparency, spending cuts

Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Appeared before the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Tuesday to talk about the Trump administration’s budget request for fiscal year 2026.

During the hearing, Democratic lawmakers questioned Kennedy about his time at HHS Secretary. Here are some key takeaways:

Retracts claims about Pallone:

Rep. Frank Pallone (D-N.J.) criticized Kennedy for his lack of transparency despite his promise to bring “radical transparency” to the agency.

Pallone cited HHS’s lack of response to congressional inquiries as well as the firing of the entire Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices.

Kennedy responded by pressing Pallone about previous comments he made in the 1990s about the presence of mercury in products approved by the Food and Drug Administration.

Kennedy later retracted his comments about Pallone after Rep. Diana DeGette (D-Colo), ranking member of the health subcommittee, said he was “impugning Mr. Pallone.”

‘You lied to Sen. Cassidy’:

Rep. Kim Schrier (D-Wash) accused Kennedy of lying to Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La) to secure a vote during his confirmation hearing.

Cassidy had reservations about Kennedy during the confirmation process but was ultimately convinced to vote for Kennedy after he pledged to “maintain the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices without changes.”

Kennedy denied making such a commitment. A spokesperson for Cassidy told The Hill “as Senator Cassidy has said publicly, the commitment was about the ACIP process, not staffing.”

Unaware of ‘defend the spend’:

Kennedy did not seem to know anything about the “defend the spend” initiative being enacted by the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), which has paused grants at agencies like HHS pending manual review.

DeGette told Kennedy that she had sent him a letter two months ago with questions about the initiative but never got a response from Kennedy. When she asked Kennedy directly during the hearing if he knew anything about the initiative he responded, “about what?”

HIV vaccine research

Rep. Troy Carter (D-La) pressed Kennedy about the cancelation of funding for HIV prevention research, including trials testing potential vaccines for virus.

Kennedy denied personally making the decision for HHS to cut funding for HIV research and asked Carter to “show me one life” when he described the research as lifesaving.

Welcome to The Hill’s Health Care newsletter, we’re Nathaniel Weixel, Joseph Choi and Alejandra O’Connell-Domenech — every week we follow the latest moves on how Washington impacts your health.

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Essential Reads

How policy will be impacting the health care sector this week and beyond:

Democrats try to reopen abortion conversation on Dobbs anniversary

Democrats are looking to restart the abortion conversation around the third anniversary of the Dobbs decision that overturned Roe v. Wade. That Supreme Court decision in June 2022 turned abortion into one of the most powerful positions Democrats could run on. They saw major victories on the issue in the 2022 midterms and Virginia’s off-year elections in 2023, but the party largely underperformed up and down the ballot on …

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5 testy exchanges from RFK Jr.’s House hearing

Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. sparred with Democrats throughout a House budget hearing Thursday, with members accusing Kennedy of lying about changes to vaccine oversight, and Kennedy accusing lawmakers of being influenced by campaign contributions from Big Pharma. Kennedy appeared before the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Health to discuss the Trump administration’s budget …

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House GOP moderates tell leadership they won’t back Senate tax bill over Medicaid cuts

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On Our Radar

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Branch out with a different read from The Hill:

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Around the Nation

Local and state headlines on health care:

A federal program that makes New Hampshire’s cancer registry possible could be cut in the 2026 budget (NHPR)
Texas to create its own psychology licensing test amid pushback on national exam (The Texas Tribune)
How hotels became New York’s default answer to homelessness (New York Focus)

What We’re Reading

Health news we’ve flagged from other outlets:

She hoped key research could help save her eyesight. Then the Trump funding cuts came (NPR)
The plan to vaccinate all Americans. Despite RFK Jr. (The Washington Post)
Insurance coverage of vaccines at risk in RFK Jr.’s reshuffling of CDC’s vaccine advisers (Stat)

What Others are Reading

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Trump’s ‘both sides’ approach to Israel, Iran comes into question

President Trump’s strategy of playing both sides is coming into question as he fumed over Israel and Iran’s continued fighting while demanding peace … Read more

What People Think

Opinions related to health submitted to The Hill:

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RFK Jr grilled by Congress over transparency, spending cuts

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