Department of Health and Human Services

ok well good afternoon and uh i want to welcome again uh to our subcommittee the secretary of health and human services uh robert f. kennedy um mr. jr. mr. secretary we're pleased to have you with us here today welcome good to have you back um secretary kennedy uh brings a new perspective to the focus on public health and what is needed to improve the state of health care system in America. For too long, public health recommendations have not revisited the science of supporting them, and the health care system lacks focus on improving health and wellness for better long-term outcomes. Secretary Kennedy's Make America Healthy Again initiative has galvanized advocates who want to take a direct role in improving their health and their well-being. The federal government is currently spending, well, let me rephrase that, American taxpayers are currently spending an estimated one point nine trillion annually on health care programs and services, which constitutes over a quarter of federal outlays and the largest category of federal spending. The United States vastly outpaces every other country in the world on a per capita health. care spending. And yet, despite this massive and growing investment, America's health outcomes are often lower than other developed countries. Life expectancy in the United States is lower than in any other developed ec- econom- economy, while rates of infant and maternal moral- uh, ma- mortality, obesity, diabetes, and heart disease are higher. That does not mean that targeted money spent on the right on the right work isn't important. But simply more money to the system is not necessarily improving our outcomes. It's it's time to take to do something different, and I want to commend Secretary uh Kennedy for charting a new course uh to fight chronic disease that is crippling America. In addition to taking on chronic disease, the administration destroying common sense to hospitals that perform uh mutilating surgeries on children. The Department of Health and Human Services has taken numerous actions to end the practice of sex change surgeries on minors in the health care system. These so-called treatments expose children to irreversible harm that will last their entire lifetime. Ending these practices is long overdue. Also, long overdue is enforcement of conscious rights protection by the Weldon Amendment, which for over twenty years has prohibited the discrimination of health care entities by state and local governments because they refuse to provide coverage for abortion. Prior secretaries have blatantly ignored the law in order to protect the far-left government forcing their views on faith-based providers. Just last month, the Department of Health and Human Services announced an investigation into thirteen states for violation of the Walden Amendment. So thank you, Secretary Kennedy. Thank you for your agency standing up and doing the right thing. Another area that uh I want to uh see the administration focus more on is the uh status of rural health care. Hospital closures, uh, maternity deserts, and limited access to general surgery abounds and much of the united states being from uh alabama and being from a rural state uh rural communities deserve better um from their government the one big beautiful bill provided fifty billion for rural healthcare transformation and i think discretionary investments into this space can complete uh this effort like with any other budget the proposal puts forward by your agency seeks to balance objectives of physical stewardship while putting a priority on the most critical investments. Like last year, I doubt that we will be able to agree on areas for reduction. I'm a strong supporter of investments for NIH and believe extreme swings in funding supporting biomedical research are counter-productive. I respect that to fit the present subjective, you've had to make some hard decisions. And I look forward to working with you and, uh, the uh, Doctor Potticchiera to finding the right balance on spending on research to ensure that America's rightful place or at the forefront of scientific break breakthroughs. So, Mister Secretary, uh, as I'm sure you've learned in your time in federal service, implementing reforms in Washington is not an easy task. The President has asked you to take on a very mighty challenge, and I look forward to your continued success and ways that we can work together to continue making America healthy again. And with that, I would like to recognize the ranking member, Mister Lauro, for any opening remarks that you might have.

Thank you so much uh Chairman Adderhall for convening uh today's hearing

Thank you.

on the Department of Health and Human Services uh proposed budget. Now I say a thank you to Secretary Kennedy for taking the time to join us today uh and to hear his testimony and uh to be able to engage in a dialogue over our questions. Um uh Secretary Kennedy, you and I spoke uh uh on the phone recently about this, but let me just commend you uh on your recent efforts to reduce the amount of microplastics um in uh American drinking water. Um we know there's a pervasive a pervasive problem with these contaminants, and I applaud the department's efforts alongside the EPA to classify microplastics for the first time as water contaminants. um micro-plastics have been shown to cause damage to our respiratory system increase our risk of heart attack and stroke potentially lead to colon and lung cancer along with a slew of other negative health efforts they have been found just about everywhere and just in just about everyone even newborns enter the world with micro-plastics already um in in their in their bodies and i did mention this to you on the phone and for anyone who wants to bother to take a look there is a book out called plastics inc the secret history and shocking future of big oils biggest beth uh biggest bet uh oil companies are upping the production of plastic as a safeguard against falling revenue which talks about um uh the um this issue here is that each person's brain contained around seven grams of plastic in entire disposable spoons worth those who suffered from dementia had more plastic in their brains than those who did not so uh again let me commend you and the department for for walking down that road and uh getting that done um we need to act quickly and seriously to stop this pollution of ourselves and our planet this designation is an important step in the right direction uh i was very proud of the work that chairman adderholz and i and every member of this subcommittee were able to do earlier this year on the fiscal year twenty twenty-six funding bill for the departments of labor, hhs and education. It illustrate that despite partisan divisions, we can still come together on a bipartisan basis, negotiate in good faith, and forge an agreement that passed overwhelmingly. I was extremely disappointed to see that the White House budget request did not build on that progress we made but instead it's proposed extreme cuts to programs that the American people rely on. Uh, Mr. Secretary, the budget request proposes a sixteen point five billion dollar cut to health agencies funded by this subcommittee. That adds up to fourteen percent. And frankly, it lacks uh, it signals a lax of good faith on the part of the administration and indicates to me a shameful reversion to the same extremism we found in the pages of Project twenty twenty five. The president is failing the American people. He is failing to bring down the rising cost of living, which he promised to do again and again on the campaign trail. Instead of taking any action to bring down costs, he has called affordability a quote " con job", a hoax. Uh, just the other day he said, and I quote, " The United States can't take care of daycare or Medicare or Medicaid, because quote, we're fighting wars." wars of choice, not necessity, that the vast majority of Americans are opposed to. The president wants to increase funding for the Pentagon by half a trillion dollars to fight his wars overseas. Meanwhile, his budget proposal includes no increase in funding for child care. Inflation is surging, the cost of gas, groceries, everyday necessity is climbing day by day, and all of this administration has done is start more wars, raise more tariffs, create more uncertainty, but no relief for the American people. The only thing this administration has managed to accomplish is cutting taxes for the wealthiest Americans and the largest corporations, paid for by defunding Medicaid and nutrition assistance by one point two trillion dollars and pushing fifteen million people off their health insurance. The consequences of these cuts will extend far beyond just Medicaid enrollees. They will raise the cost of coverage for everyone. And under your tenure atop HHS, you have fired thousands of department personnel, decimated our public health system, incapacitated critical agencies like the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, SAMHSA, and the Administration for Healthcare Research and Quality, AHRQ. Almost three hundred CDC staff have been on administrative leave for over a year. They are being paid not to work. Taxpayers' dollars, not to work. Officials at SAMPS have not directly responded to inquiries from this committee for a full year, undermining our oversight responsibility. The HHS funding bill we passed in January requires monthly agency briefings for the committee, but not a single one has been scheduled. It has been even longer since AHRQ awarded funding for a new research grant, and as far as we can tell, they have ceased to function as independent health agencies. Over the past year, Mister Secretary, you have terminated hundreds of NIH research grants, not because there was any problem with the research being conducted, not because they were breaking any rules, but because they were researching issues that you just personally do not like. We must fund research. that is based on scientific evidence and not on subjective opinion. This administration has extorted public universities in order to extract ideological concessions. Again, the problem here was not that they were engaged in misconduct, but that you just did not agree with them politically. You choose to use your power to force them to agree with you. And this is a pattern that extends beyond public funding for health research. In August, you fired the director of the CDC, Susan Monarez, because she refused to put blind loyalty to your own personal beliefs above empirical data and scientific research. You replaced the CDC's vaccine advisory panel with people who share your anti-vaccine agenda. Fortunately, a federal judge blocked their attempts to gut the childhood immunization schedule. The judge correctly ruled that your hand-picked advisers were, quote, distinctly unqualified unquote due to their lack of vaccine experience. You are the secretary of health and human services. You've been in this position for fourteen months. If you still claim today that you have not quote " seen the evidence that supports vaccines", that's a remarkable failure of leadership and an evidence of a refusal to avail yourself of information that is extremely relevant to your role in government. Some of the leading experts in this field work at the CDC, but it's my understanding that you are unwilling to even meet with them. In twenty twenty five measles, cases in the United States shot up to more than twenty two hundred. In the first three months of twenty twenty six, there have been already more than seventeen hundred measles cases. We have seen outbreaks in South Carolina, Texas, Florida and Utah. Under your leadership, the US is on the brink of losing its measles elimination status, which we have held for more than twenty-five years. In January, HHS attempted to block ten billion dollars in federal funding for child care and assistance for needy families, in five states with democratic leadership. Once again, a federal judge blocked you, but it did not prevent you from attempting to coerce the public in the first place. Now we are more than halfway through the fiscal year, and grant making at HHS has slowed to a trickle. The administration is withholding billions of dollars owed to states and communities, money that came from their taxes. For the last ten weeks, OMB has used unprecedented fifteen-day funding schedules to prohibit HHS agencies from making the grants to carry out their programs. which is the core function of many HHS agencies. And only this week, as you are testifying before Congress, did the OMB finally release those funds. It should not take a congressional hearing for OMB to release funds appropriated by Congress to your agencies. So, Secretary, you are the secretary. OMB is not the secretary of HHS. The Constitution is clear Congress has the power of the purse. It is the executive branch's job to execute the laws we pass, not manipulate the process to advance a partisan agenda. The President's budget proposes to cut funding for NIH research by six billion dollars. We are not going to do that. I just will tell you that right now. You propose cutting CDC funding by thirty percent. We are not going to do that. You propose eliminating the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. which helps prevent overdose and supports people with substance use disorders, and we are not going to do that. You propose eliminating the LIHEAP program, which would raise energy costs for six million American households, even as President Trump's war with Iran has led to a forty percent increase in the price of gas. You can be sure we are not going to do that. None of these proposals make Americans better off. All of them make it more expensive. more difficult for people to live their lives. Mister Secretary, you cannot strengthen public health systems by defunding the CDC. You cannot support medical research by cutting six billion dollars from the NIH. And you cannot improve access to quality health care by kicking fifteen million people off of their health insurance. We'll have more questions, Mister Secretary, when the time comes. I look forward to your testimony and look forward to engaging on the question and answer. Thanks, I. uh chair and i yield back

thank you uh reiki member uh this time i'll recognize the uh secretary for his comments

thank you so much chair nations um that you just outlined and thank you for the uh the opportunity to be here before you today to discuss the president's fiscal year twenty twenty seven budget requests we stand at a generational turn point our children are the sickest generation in modern history and decades of failed policies captured agencies and profit driven systems have caused it parents across the country demanded change and we are delivering it we are ending the era of federal policies that fueled the chronic disease epidemic and replacing them with policies uh put the health of american people first president trump and i are challenging the status quo and the institutions that defend it as we work to make america healthy again in just fifteen months hhs has delivered historic wins we negotiated most favored nation drug prices with sixteen of the largest pharmaceutical companies so americans no longer pay more than people in other wealthy countries for the same medications we're bringing real transparency to healthcare pricing so patients i use the full convening power of the federal government bring health insurance ceos the table to reform prior authorization we're cutting red tape speeding decisions and demanding transparency we're also cracking down on waste fraud and abuse this year hhs and usda issued new dietary guidelines that put real whole food at the center of the american plate we flipped the food pyramid upside down and sent a clear message to the american people eat real food hhs has also opened the door to partnerships with the industry trade association nonprofits and advocacy organizations more than fifty medical schools have committed to expand nutrition education from an average of just two hours to forty hours food manufacturers are stepping up too more than forty percent of the food industry is committed a phase l petroleum-based dyes by the end of the year many have already eliminated them in conjunction with these efforts fda approved six natural food colorings derived from fruits and vegetables president through president trump's great american recovery initiative hh is matching uh compassion with action to help americans break the cycle of addiction at hhs we are prioritizing patients with ultra-rare diseases and their families and driving faster access to lifesaving treatments restoring gold standard science and integrity across the agency we're protecting children from the sex rejecting procedures that expose them to irreversible harm we are eliminating outdated and misleading warning labels on hormone therapies used to treat women during menopause we're strengthening our oversight of organ procurement we're implementing operation stork speed to ensure the safety and quality of infant formula we're applying that same focus and urgency to rural america the rural health transformation fund which the chairman mentioned delivers the largest investment in rural health in our nation's history fifty billion dollars over five years to strengthen rural hospitals and ensure americans can access the care they need no matter where they live members of congress on both sides the aisle have made rural health a clear priority in their conversations with me because every state is feeling the strain of hospital closures workforce shortages and gaps in access hhs announced more than a hundred and thirty five million dollar investment this month to expand rural residency programs and nutrition services the data is clear physicians train in rural communities they're far more likely to stay and serve there the president's budget puts all these priorities into action it invests in prevention because preventing disease costs less and delivers better outcomes than treating it as my uncle president john f kennedy said progress is a nice word but change is its motivator and change has its enemies we see those forces clearly entrenched interests defenders of a fallen status quo and institutions that put profits ahead of the american people our resistance underscores the urgency of this moment we can reverse chronic disease improve public health at lower cost and i stand ready to work with this committee and congress to seize this opportunity implement and codify lasting generational reform in american healthcare our country for our children and for the healthy american people together we can make america healthy again thank you

thank you uh mr. secretary and uh we appreciate again you being here today i know you've had a long day and uh been on the hill so uh we thank you for spending time with us this afternoon um i want to um mention the uh chemical abortion um pristone um it is um as you probably know fda has issued a um black box warning and uh i'm gonna read what the the warning says serious and sometimes fatal infections and bleeding occur very rarely following spontaneous surgical and medical abortions recent data shows that the rate of serious adverse events is closer to one in ten, or ten percent of women who take the drug. However, at the same time, FDA does not currently require reporting serious non-fatal events. Uh, my question is how can the department appropriately address the risk of chemical abortion drugs to the health and safety of women without the reporting of serious adverse events?

uh mr. chairman i regret that i can't talk about that issue because as you know it's under litigation in louisiana and i've been advised by the office of general counsel to not discuss it

uh so um so right now you don't have any um about any reporting requirements or any changes right now as that um you uh are you um

Yeah,

is that

they've asked me not to discuss it because anything i say may have implications on the litigation.

yeah ok well i i do wanna mention and understand that all i i but i i do wanna point out that that you know modifications issued by fda under the previous administration created a mail-in order abortion scheme that completely removed the in-person dispensing requirement it requires no ultrasound no uh gestational age confirmation, and no assessment of risk. Uh, the black box warning directs physicians to inform the patient about risk, such as severe pain or heavy bleeding, and advise them to bring the medication guide with them, so a potential emergency room provider knows what they're undergoing for a medical abortion. And so, uh, I, even though you can't speak speak to it uh according to your uh counsel i do wanna say that when you do have serious risk factors like atopic pregnancies um that it's very difficult when you um have no requirement there any be any physical examination of a woman and so uh we would clearly this is an important issue for many members of congress and i would be remiss if i didn't take this opportunity to let you know that uh some strong feelings on uh on behalf of members of congress let me go to um uh talk about little bit rural healthcare as you as you mentioned uh hospital leaders in my state of alabama have documented for decades that uh medicare hospital wage index is is seriously flawed um that it is heavily distorted by exceptions and it creates a self perpetuating disadvantages for low wage and rural states. And that results in, I know in Alabama alone, hospitals are being paid substantially less for providing the same care. My question is how is CMS evaluating whether the current wage index methodology accurately reflects true labor market costs today?

Uh, Mister Chairman, the um, as you know the social security act makes it uh requires any changes in the wage area index to be budget neutral and so uh making changes in it is very complex because if you raise somebody's compensation you're choosing to lower somebody else's compensation and ultimately this is a uh it's a problem that is as you say helping to destroy rural hospitals we've lost a hundred and twenty rural hospitals since twenty ten uh but it's something that we can't fix at hhs we need congress to intervene and we are here to to provide technical advice and to work with you to make sure that we get something that works

yeah well i you know like i say the the in cms in evaluating whether the current wage index uh methodology it actually reflects the true labor cost um you know i think that's something that should be looked into if they could look at the true labor cost and then they could help congress determine a a statutory solution to it so getting that information to congress and how it is substantially different for rural areas and how that methodology is doesn't really the true market cost i think is something that the department could could take a look at do you agree

i'm happy to work with you and to bring doctor oz in to work with you on uh on possibly developing that kind of a stuff

yeah well then that's then that's what the request would be is we wanna you know have the information so we can for the information is laid out so congress you know if need to be we can determine statutory solution solutions to it and with that i will um now um recognize the ranking member

thank you mr. chairman i would just make this reference to you this is a different tack on a rural health it's a fifty billion dollars rural health fund is is talks this article talks about it's coming up short and that that will be a very detrimental um uh effect on rural hospitals and their abilities to to stay open um my time is limited um mr. secretary so i'm gonna ask you a couple of quick yes or no questions to start tobacco was the leading cause of death and disease in the united states uh killing half a million americans every year do you think it's important to prevent youth from starting to use tobacco yes or no

yes i do

ok uh do you think it's important to raise awareness about pregnancy related complications that lead women uh lead to women dying yes or no

yes i do

ok On April first it marked one year that American taxpayers are paying nearly three hundred c d c staff, including those who work on tobacco prevention, maternal mortality, and disability and health, which advises a program synonymous with the Kennedy name, Kennedy-Schreiber name, Special Olympics, to be on administrative leave. For more than one year, public health experts are being paid not to work. Waste of taxpayer dollars, thirty-eight million dollars. you can bring these staff back from administrative leave just as you brought back the cdc employees focused on occupational health can you commit to bringing back these experts from administrative leave and and really end this wasting of taxpayers funds

uh i expect that uh uh president trump i believe that he is going to uh release the nominations of the new team at cdc including the new cdc um administrator or director um this week hopefully today or tomorrow and uh and that decision will be in their hands

ok but you could bring back as you did um the the folks with regard to focus on occupational health but from your point of view can you bring these folks back uh uh uh that have been on administrative leave these are people who were you know your your your employees so you

well in in you know this is the issue that at this time jay Bhattacharya is acting as head of cdc that's a decision that he would normally make um the uh you know we we lost a lot of employees at cdc but

so the answer is no you won't bring them back thank you thank you ok uh let me uh uh i actually have two other questions i'm gonna try to move as quickly as i can Uh March fifteenth the FDA recommended that raw farm voluntary recall is cheddar cheese made from raw milk linked to E coli contamination. April second, after eighteen days, company finally initiated voluntary recall but only " under protest", according uh to the gentleman in charge uh um uh uh Aaron McAfee. Um, eighteen days, excuse me, eighteen days. Nine people sick in three hospitalizations, one case of serious kidney condition, more than half the cases involving children, three are younger. The FDA's initial outbreak alert, the agency stated that they were, quote, providing information to consumers and retailers so they are aware of this outbreak, before deciding to eat raw farm-brand cheddar cheeses or to serve it to children. Usually the alert says consumers, retailers, it's a quote, should not eat, sell or serve. Or consumers should check their homes for recalled products and throw those products away. that wasn't there quite frankly never have seen anything like this uh uh uh with with regard to to roll call now i know mister secretary that you have been an staunch advocate of raw milk positioning it as that a quote superfood a key element of make america healthy again uh uh talk about it reducing chronic disease uh uh uh uh uh you know you describe the fda's aggressive suppression of natural unprocessed foods. You said that you're drinking it yourself, despite federal health agency's warning of safety risks. Um, and you have said that you promise to end what you called the Food and Drug Administration's quote " aggressive suppression of raw milk". You urged the CEO of Raw Farm to previously apply for an advisory role at the FDA to establish national standards for raw milk, uh, distribution and you're a longtime promoter of raw milk and a custom and a customer of raw fun i i just have to ask this question mister secretary did you or another uh senior officials exert any influence in the way the fda alerted consumers about this outbreak

i agree with you that the uh the behavior of the company during the outbreak was unprecedented we immediately told them that they needed to do a recall in virtually every case that recall happens voluntarily and immediately uh but there was foot dragging by they initially refused and we put tremendous pressure on them and told them that we were doing a forcible recall and finally they complied

uh uh uh do the fda refuse to use its mandatory recall

uh we were going to do it but usually we don't have to and in virtually every case

no usually they'll comply right but we should use it more often than not

the company stops up and voluntarily removes company was uh intransigent let me put it that way

mmm uh i i just have i i i i having you know said what i said and what your view is on raw milk unpasteurized milk and the fda's website says raw milk unpasteurized milk can harbor dangerous germs that can pose serious health risks to you and your family you have your own personal views about raw milk they cannot be part of of of a health of of a protocol

well they are those are those uh the raw milk is not regulated by the federal government uh um uh

that the use

congresswoman deloria

unpasteurized milk

it's regulated yeah it's regulated by the states it's not regulated by us

well mmm well they can legalize it within their borders

i'm not sure but your question is we don't regulate it the fda does not regulate it it's regulated by the state

well right it can't be circulated across state lines

some states allow it some states do not it's up to the state it's not up to us

well you are the head of the health and human services if raw milk has the ability to put nine people into the hospital serious kidney sets more than half the cases involving children three years and younger you are the secretary of health and human services is there not some moral responsibility or compunction to say don't drink raw milk don't do that because it's unpasteurized and it can cause you serious harm to your health

sure

that is is that not your view as your responsibility

you just pointed out that processed cheese can also contain contaminants there is all every product can contain contaminants what what we do is we inform the public

mister secretary the look the the the chairman is gabbling me down and uh just to say this if

and we'll let people make a choice there's also

if i were the head of hhs i would by god say don't take raw milk it is dangerous to your health and if you can't say that well maybe there is some other conclusion that can be drawn thank you mister chair

miss lillo

thank you so much mr. chairman and secretary thank you so much uh for being with us today um it's an honor to be with you and um it it is clear that we need strong uh forward thinking leaders in place at hhs uh to advance the maha agenda americans are fed up with the status quo that has worked to stall the momentum of the maha movement we're ready for leaders who go against the grain who challenge outdated ways of thinking and put forth innovative solutions to our country's most pressing public health issues Thank you for doing that. And that's also why I strongly support the immediate confirmation of President Trump's nominee, Casey Means, for US Surgeon General. Means has been a leader in uncovering the root causes of chronic disease and shedding light on our broken health care system. Through her work, she has amplified the concerns of American families, especially mothers, whose opinions and decisions on their children's health care have too often been an afterthought rather than a priority. secretary kennedy can you elaborate why casey means nomination for us surgeon general is critical to advancing the maha agenda and how will a continued delay affect the american people

thank you gargantuan woman casey means is the most articulate eloquent and erudite evangelist for the maha movement she wrote the bible on metabolic health in the a best-selling book that has changed the way that people think about metabolism she was number one in her stanford medical school class she practiced medicine for a while until she realized we're in a sick care system we weren't she was healing people who never should have been sick she decided to devote her life instead actually preventing disease by educating mothers educating the american people and you know casey means is not a political person she is just a very very effective evangelist the kind of changes that we need to end the chronic disease epidemic in this country and i hope that she gets support any you know all the democrats on this committee are people who i have worked with with for many years to try to get to get dyes out of the food to get people eating to to reform infant formula to do all the things we need to get americans healthier uh what i would say to you is democrats and republicans support should support her nomination because she's gonna help our country and a you know the only thing that would prevent that is the kind of lack of integrity lack of courage and the tribalism that is polarizing and destroying our country

thank you so much i hope they move swiftly with that confirmation um i'd now love to turn to your work on uh women's health initiatives uh uh this is so incredibly important to me uh on a personal level but also to my district. Um we from eliminating the black box warnings uh for men and pause treatments to hosting the twenty twenty six national conference on women's health, it's clear that your agency is challenging the status quo to harness innovative breakthrough treatments and research that have been largely overlooked. Uh and the urgency of this work is especially evident in places like Louisiana, where high rates of chronic disease the prevalence of medical deserts and the ongoing healthcare workforce shortage have consistently resulted in poor health outcomes for women across the state uh secretary kennedy based on the lessons your agency learned in the recent national conference on women's health what specific actions will the department be taking to build out the administration for a healthy america's new maternal and child health bureau

well we've released a number of initiatives that are now funded in the proposed budget specifically for maternal health we have the worst maternal health record of any developed nation in the world and particularly uh black americans women are dying at two and a half times the rate of white women in this country a college educated black woman is more likely to die two times more likely to die and a white woman with a with a high school education we are trying to fix that president trump is trying to fix that disparity and to fix maternal health across the board i want to just mention one very very promising initiative under the trump administration we've initiated a pilot program we provide uh called the parent-native pilot program uh provides protocols to hospitals for how to improve the outcomes for maternal health we have two hundred and twenty hospitals that signed up and in those hospitals maternal mortality has dropped by almost forty two percent so we have solutions for this we need to now expand that to every hospital in this country but help is around the corner

thank you so much for your work i yield back

thank you very much mr. sakhde it's always good to see you i have seventy seven thousand federal employees in my district so will not surprise you that i'm gonna ask some question deal with ftes and the ability of your agency to respond to the challenges that you put forward that uh we all uh know are challenging the health of our country but you need people uh with talent with expertise and with conviction uh to to pursue solutions so i wanna ask you some questions when when we talked last year um i asked you about this and you said uh to me that in talking about doge personnel that should not have been cut were cut um i don't know whether you still believe that but that's what you said last year um how many full-time employees do we have in hhs now

last year when i talked to you there were sixty two thousand down from eighty two thousand we are now at seventy two thousand and we're hiring twelve thousand new employees uh we we have we will have made up

so it's right

for all the employees that we lost and we've replaced them with a better group of people who are actually gonna address chronic health

your judgment is that the the other uh twenty thousand uh that were reduced uh we're not we're not capable we're not uh motivated

well it's not my judgment it's the record they presided over the biggest decline in in health in in um in the history of the world you know the sixth generation in history we have the sixth population on the face of the earth that is a failure of government they weren't looking at chronic disease they were focused on other things and they did nothing to prevent the food ties the bad food all the things that are making us sick it was their job to protect us and they did not do it they failed at their job and if this was private industry they would have all been fired oh we did what we had to do to change the culture at these agencies so they're now doing what they can do to pretend that they are what they were hired to do which is to protect the health of our country and or as once again to the healthiest country in the world

uh mr. secretary you and i don't agree uh because i don't think doge and i think doge was in charge of these uh unless uh you indicate to me that it was your evaluation that led to the firing of these folks um essentially most of us believe that they were fired uh to reach a number uh a lesser number it is ironic that you've just told me we've reached back to that number because uh if you're telling me that doge and the people uh who uh resulted in the firing of those folks or forcing them to retire uh was made on the basis of uh ability and talent uh i hear what you're saying about the result uh but uh i don't think that was i don't think that's accurate

well first of all uh congressman oh i appreciate the dialogue that you and i are now having because my experience with talking to democrats on some of the other committees is they don't let me ask questions and so i cannot tell you how deeply i am grateful for the the chance to respond the um i during the biden administration my agency grew by thirty eight percent mainly during uh because of covid and so we had at the end ten people doing one job we cut that down to five people doing the same job i can talk about the duplication that happened at my agency which is just insane nine offices for women health eight offices for minority health twenty seven separate hiv programs or fifty nine behavioral health forty opioid programs we had fourteen hundred external affair officers and a hundred communications officers uh offices forty one information officers forty procurement departments uh dozens of i t departments none of them talking to each other oh we had to do a consolidation of the agency uh make it work efficiently and that's what we did and i'm not saying the people who lost their jobs were bad actors they weren't many of them were doing jobs that they were hired to do uh we needed to do something drastic change the institutional culture of this agency and realign it with a new trajectory and the chronic disease epidemic

yes sec day my point is that we're gonna be back apparently pretty close to the same compliment of f t s that we had i i understand that

yes

um now how many of the replacements are political as opposed to career

virtually all of them are career

um so i wanted to ask you a question about experts having been rehired but it is your position that all of the people that were hired to fill these positions are uh did not work there uh in the past

some of them i think many of them were recalled

yeah and and that of course makes my point about they were removed to get to a number not not to affect the result but and the and the problem with my letting you speak i still get five minutes no matter how long your answer is um lastly he's well he's giving me a little bit of latitude

uh it's a pleasure to talk to you just a little bit

uh let me let me ask you about uh the morale at cdc uh i i talked to this uh the the nih director who is also temporarily acting as a cdc director he told me uh cause i asked him the question i said it's reported as being so that the morale at cdc was in fact very low if the morale is low at cdc inevitably the work that they do will not be up to the standard you want or that i want or the american people want uh what is your assessment of the morale at cdc

i can't give you an honest assessment i can't give you what i've been told by jay which is the morale is much better than it was a year ago i think a year ago it was really at a nadir you know during all the um

during

the rifts uh i think it was at a nadir now i i would say that we're bringing in an extraordinary team and and you know the the the team has been leaked and it's gotten applause from both republicans and democrats i think this new team is really gonna be able to revolutionize c d c and get it back on track and get it doing the job that it that it is that it does better than any other health agency in the world

well the proof is in the pudding right

right

thank you mr. chairman

alright mister l z

thank you mr. chairman thank you mr. secretary for being here uh well as fun as that was to talk about let's talk about anthrax which i think is a lot more fun The nation's most bi- likely bi- biological weapon whose risk has substantially elevated with the widespread availability of AI tools and drones, it has the potential to kill hundreds of thousands of Americans in a single drone disseminated attack. Despite these concerns, the previous administration planned to eliminate Anthrax antitoxin countermeasures cuts that may embolden adversaries to exploit these vulnerabilities. Does the President's budget ensure that the strategic national stockpile is able to fully meet its Anthrax antitoxin requirements?