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.
