to target all drugs potentially in the united states with direct to consumer pricing. that's far more aggressive, not only in scope, but also more aggressive in the potential impact of what the administration is willing to do or if they don't come to the table. they're threatening perhaps action from the d.o.j., from the f.t.c., from agencies that are not usually involved in these sorts of matters, or haven't been at least the first time that this policy has been introduced. host: the president put a time limit of 30 days. what happens after 30 days? guest: the secretary of h.h.s. is going to produce some price targets for some of these drugs, and from there they will try to negotiate a deal to bring prices down through those targets for the drug. host: all right, that is daniel

payne, washington correspondent for stat. you can find his work at >> coming up shortly, president trump is scheduled to give remarks at a state dinner at the lusail palace in qatar. right now we will go live to capitol hill, wear health and human services secretary robert f. kennedy, jr., is testifying on the budget request. chair cassidy: how do you propose we balance competing interests returning power to the states because there is a difference in how different states do it, but replace the funding necessary to combat these public health problems? sec. kennedy: well, i think it is a balance, mr. chairman, and we have a legal obligation, cdc has a legal obligation to do

national pandemic response, and we will meet that obligation. we are going to improve and if we can get support from this body jury appropriate -- to rear appropriate which is critical for the pandemic responsible to a some functions which are local in nature, and in those cases we will be supporting local infrastructure to respond. they know better than we know, and we saw this during some of the hurricane response, with governor desantis's response, which was really florida localized. there was no debts and very little destruction from american that was as bad as the one that followed that relied on federal response and was really a catastrophe for the state. so i think experience shows that

the localities can often do better with some functions, particularly with the hospitals, infrastructure. but we are not relinquishing our responsibility at cdc to manage national emergencies. chair cassidy: thank you. senator sanders. sen. sanders: thank you, mr. chairman. let me start going to prescription drugs. mr. secretary, did i hear you correctly to state that your goal is to have americans pay the lowest prices in the world, or equivalent what is paid in other countries? that is my goal. that you are prepared to work with us on legislation to achieve that goal? sec. kennedy: absolutely. sen. sanders: and i believe there is bipartisan support for it and if the leadership prior addresses that, we can do that in a short period of time. let me ask you this, s secretary of hhs -- we have in america

some 85 million americans were uninsured or underinsured. we spend more per capita, as indicated, than any other country. his health care human right? are we making america healthy when so many people cannot afford to go to a doctor and 60,000 people a year die because they cannot get to a doctor? his health care human right and will you work with us to guarantee health care to every man, woman, and child in america? sec. kennedy: you are asking two different questions. you are asking a philosophical question as to whether it is a constitutional right. as an attorney, i would say that it is not a right of a kind that we otherwise enshrined in the constitution, because health care costs your neighbor money. if i smoke cigarettes for 20 years -- sen. sanders: i don't have a lot of time. sec. kennedy: if you ask me a

philosophical question, i got to give you a thoughtful answer. sen. sanders: within 30 seconds. sec. kennedy: it's not like freedom of every other country mr. secretary, every other country guarantees health care, should we, as americans? sec. kennedy: the objectives is to get americans a level of health care that if they want the choice, which americans want. sen. sanders: they do not want the choice to be uninsured. they do not want the choice to die because they do not get to a doctor. sec. kennedy: americans prefer private insurance to other insurance sources. what i would say is, i want to find a solution. i want every american to have insurance. president trump once every american to have access. the question is how did we get

there? obamacare is not working. it is not. sen. sanders: sorry to interrupt. the reconciliation. sec. kennedy: my job is to make it work. sen. sanders: i have limited time. the reconciliation bill that is being worked on in the house will come to the senate. as it stands right now, cuts to medicaid and the affordable care act more than -- by more than $715 million which would eliminate health insurance for an estimated 13.7 million americans. it would also raise copayments for millions of others. is throwing 13 million americans off of health care, for poor and working-class people keeping america healthy? sec. kennedy: i have not seen that number. i have seen the number 8 million. and the cuts are not true cuts. let cuts are eliminations of waste, abuse, and fraud.

i can go through the people who will lose it. sen. sanders: i really do not mean to be rude but i have a very limited amount of time. sec. kennedy: usa question and i will answer it. sen. sanders: i have a bunch of questions i would like you to answer as well. we talk about austerity and doing more with less. in the very same bill being worked on right now, there are $235 billion in tax breaks for the top two 1%, do you think that makes sense when the same bill would throw 13 million people off of medicaid. should we give tax breaks to billionaires and throat kids and others off of medicaid? sec. kennedy: you are conflating the congressional bills with proposals from the president. the president -- sen. sanders: i am not talking about the bill.

i'm talking about the reconciliation bill. sec. kennedy: the president is not trying to do tax cuts for billionaires and he is trying to have no tax on tips. sen. sanders: 230 thousand billion dollars by estate tax. sec. kennedy: how many billionaires do you know making over time. sen. sanders: look, it is a big bell and there are a lot of provisions, you cannot deny that the top 2/10 of 1% will get 200 billion -- $250 million in tax breaks while we cut medicaid. chair cassidy: senator paul. sen. paul: i want to commend secretary kennedy and the administration by putting forward less spending. one of the reasons we need to look at and it -- nah and other organizations as if you give them the same amount you will get the same privilege grants. i will recite a couple of them. 660,000 to study the impact of micro aggressions on obesity related eating in latinx

americans. may heart disease, diabetes and obesity but eating disorders in latinx americans. $419,000 to the study of lonely rats seeking cocaine more than happy rights. maybe that can go to a real disease. nih recorded a $620,000 grant for lgbtq+ inclusive teen pregnancy prevention program for transgender boys. what they discovered was that girls who think they are boys are at least as likely to get pregnant has girls who think they are girls. amazing, the science. we should all agree that that is left-wing ideology and that is not science. we should study obesity, cancer, and diabetes. i commend you for shifting the balance. i have a specific question about closing down fort dietrich. a contractor intentionally slash

that hazmat or biosafety suit of someone handling ebola. you were immediately attacked in the press by saying it was just anti-science and was not interested in shutting down science. was this a serious breach and is it being investigated? sec. kennedy: we brought in the fbi to investigate and it appears like it was a deliberate criminal act. that is equivalent to attempted murder because the kind of microbe and the pathogens that they were handling have a very high fatality rate of up to 50%. the disturbing thing about it is that there are three leaks a week globally from those labs. and any of those can be cataclysmic for humanity. as a result, we not only closed forts dietrich and brought the fbi into investigate, but we

also declare the end of the studies that will allow those kind of leaks to continue. sen. paul: i commend you for that. ultimately legislation will be needed because the next administration could reverse it. there is some bipartisan support for that function. you have to decide what it is and look for it. i would suggest that both fort dietrich and at the lab nearby run by the dhs that we look at experiments involving ebola and avian flu, marburg virus to determine if they have a function but also to determine whether the experiments are wise. i am told in public records that they are doing and have done experiments to aerosolized ebola at the dhs lab nearby. my hope is that when you investigate whether to do that function or what is being done that you will compile that and

at least give us a report in congress. we are going to ask for it, so there could be public scrutiny. you will help scrutinize it. the whole public needs to know how dangerous some of these things are. the idea of aerosolizing ebola or training it to be that is dangerous and goes against the biological weapons convention. i would like to hear about whether you invent -- you intend to bring information back to congress or the public? sec. kennedy: we will be absolutely transparent. i have a trip planned for -- with christie noem, the director of dhs and other people in my agency who were experts on bio weapons and those -- that functional research and we will be absolutely transparent. we also proposed a methodology

for regulating and determining what is dangerous and what is legitimate scientific investigation. and, how to bring the public into that debate. and i think that is absolutely critical. that is where we messed up last time. as you know, there are some democrats here who are talking about the great science from nih. and now we have the intelligence agency the cia, the fbi and the doe and the state department have all agreed that nah reese -- nih research almost certainly lead to the pandemic. that is not the kind of result that we should be allowing or enabling and we are going to end that now. sen. paul: if possible that trip, we would like to be included or invited if possible. sec. kennedy: absolutely. >> thank you.

mr. secretary, one of my constituents her name is natalie flouts and she is -- natalie flouts is a mother of two. she has been fighting aggressive stage four cancer for nearly five years now. her best hope now is a clinical trial that she is participating at at the nih clinical center. she flew out a few weeks ago for her first appointment and her care team wanted her to come back in four weeks to start treatment. because of the thoughtless, mass firing of thousands of critical employees a crotch -- across nih and hhs, her doctors at that clinical center have told her they have no choice but to delay her treatment by an additional four weeks. now, an extra four weeks might not sound like a long time but for stage four cancer patients like natalie, this could be the

difference between life and death. secretary kennedy, how many staff have been cut from the nih's clinical center and i want a specific number? sec. kennedy: i cannot tell you that now. but what i can tell you is that if you contact my office tomorrow, i will look specifically into that. sen. murray: that is not acceptable. i want an answer. she does not have much time and she deserves an answer. sec. kennedy: wouldn't you rather get her into that clinical trial as fast as you can? so, if you contact my office tomorrow, -- sen. murray: you are here to defend your budget and i am here to ask you questions about the impact. sec. kennedy: you asked me about a specific case that i want to help with. i do not think anybody and i do not think that should happen to anybody. sen. murray: but what have you and i mean you personally done to assess how the staff cuts are

impacting patient care. she has one of many. what have you done to assess that? sec. kennedy: i provided the guidelines that said no clinical trials should be affected by the cuts. i have -- sen. murray: mr. secretary, they are impacting clinical trials. sec. kennedy: do you want me to answer the question. sen. murray: i want to tell you you need to know this. you are here to defend the nih budget. sec. kennedy: senate you want me to answer your question? do you want me to answer your question? sen. murray: natalie is sec. kennedy: waiting for treatment. sec. kennedy:i am offering to treat help her but you do not care. i have offered to help. sen. murray: i am asking you a question and it is critical. you are here to defend cutting nih by half. do you genuinely believe that will not result in more stories like natalie's? sec. kennedy: i think the cuts

that are now proposed are going to hurt. listen. there is no agency head in the government like myself that wants to see their budget cut. sen. murray: i asked you if you have personally assessed with this is doing to patients. i am telling you one story of one person that it is impacting a life or death situation. sec. kennedy: do you want me to answer your question? sen. murray: you did. sec. kennedy: you have not allowed me to answer it. sen. murray: i will say that it is my job to be a voice for people like natalie, and countless others like her. you have to fix this. i want to know and a personal update on her case, and you offer that. please give that in the next 24 hours. i expect details and transparency about the state of nah clinical claire -- nih clinical care. sen. murray: you can contact my office.

i have one minute left and i want to to ask about the cuts. i am alarmed by your decision to essentially eliminate the national institute for occupational safety and health. you've fired nearly 90% of the staff including the staff in my state at the spokane research lab. these experts do essential work protect miners, firefighters and farmworkers. i am told that after backlash you are reinstating some of those, mainly in the west virginia office. but nobody in the western united states. and there does not seem to be a rhyme or reason to how you made these decisions. how do you explain this to constituents who are out of a job and the workers impacted? sec. kennedy: the work will not be interrupted. i have brought back 328 workers, mainly in the cleveland office and the morgan's town office and

for the world trade center site. the work will continue. the epicenter of the work has been cleveland and morgantown. we understand it is a critically important function and i did not want to see it end. sen. murray: i will just say you cannot fire 90% of the people and assume that it will get done. chair cassidy: senator collins. sen. collins: mr. secretary, nearly 7 million americans are living with alzheimer's disease. and, caring for people with this devastating chronic disease costs us some $360 billion a year. i am the author of a law that is known as the bold act. it takes a public health approach to alzheimer's and educates providers, promotes earlier diagnosis, and it helps

caregivers and it also promotes lifestyle changes. i have worked very hard to make sure that hhs has the resources to carry out this law, which was just recently extended. i am concerned that the reductions in force of approximately 10,000 staff across hhs will completely undermine this act. and this act in many ways is consistent with your approach of looking at public health issues for chronic diseases. for example, the healthy aging branch administers the bold act both -- for alzheimer's. it has lost all of its staff. so, how can you ensure that the cdc continues to implement the

bold act and the alzheimer's programs under it when all of the staff responsible for that administration have either been placed on administrative leave or let go? sec. kennedy: i do not know enough about that program. i know that under the -- that division has been folded into the agency for healthy america. and a lot of the reports that whole divisions have been liquidated were just wrong. they were divisions being reassigned. now, i am under a constraint here because at 4:00, yesterday afternoon, we were told that there was a federal judgment four in our case on the organization.

and my attorneys have asked me not to talk about any details of the organization. today. so, but on that budget line, i will work with you. i am committed. alzheimer's runs in my family. you know my cousin, who is deeply involved in it. the nih had a very checkered history on studying alzheimer's because of the amyloid plaque scandal. we have the opportunity to find a cure quickly and also find out equally importantly, why so many people are getting alzheimer's in this generation. i want to make this happen and i want to work with you to make sure that that happens and the programs continue. sen. collins: thank you. i chaired the first appropriations committee hearing of the year.

and we focused on biomedical research and how important it is that america not lose its global edge in innovation that is producing lifesaving and life enhancing discoveries. among the many issues that we covered, as you might expect, the hearing explored the 15% arbitrary, one-size-fits-all percent cap that nih has imposed on indirect but still research related cuts for its grants. what we heard is that this cap means less basic research, fewer clinical trials, and that it will also cause our scientists and researchers to leave the united states and no to other countries. i believe strongly that this proposed cap is poorly thought

out and harmful. and i know that it violates current law because since 2018, we have included in the appropriations bill, specific language that prevents nih from imposing such a cap. i know the system needs to be looked at. but, are you reviewing how nih is approach -- nih's approach of this one-size-fits-all 15% cap on indirect costs would affect laboratories, whether they are private, nonprofit, or they are in universities as far as doing crucial biomedical research? sec. kennedy: senator, we are. you and i have talked about this issue. and i think that the impetus and the cap was that there was a lot of private universities with

giant endowments like stanford and harvard that were getting indirect payments of 78%. what that means if you get a million-dollar grant, nih has to pay you an extra $780,000 for administrative costs, and a lot of that were not going to anything to do with science. they were going to university budget. and, in order to curb that abuse we had opted a 15% which is the industry-standard of the gates foundation of any standard -- or any foundation would pay. i understand the university of maine and the university of alabama and many state universities were not abusing it. we lost $9 billion a year in those kind of costs. and, so, we have a plan for how

to address issues like what is happening. i am being gaveled out so i will talk to you privately about that. chair cassidy: senator baldwin. sen. baldwin:. sec., you run a department that touches the lives of nearly every american. yet for this budget hearing, these are the six pages that we have gotten in terms of your budget request. we are also 7.5 months into this fiscal year, and yet you are not telling me american -- telling the american public about how you are spending the billions in taxpayer dollars right now. you had to submit an operating plan to the congress. and this is just a sample page but 530 programs simply have asterisks. secretary kennedy, this is not

about you hiding information from me. this is about hiding information from the american public. if you are going to cut cancer research or got mental health --gut mental health support, stand by your work and explain it to the american people. now, i want to start with what i hope is an easy question for you. do you think lead poisoning in children is a significant concern? sec. kennedy: is lead poisoning? sen. baldwin: in children, a significant concern? sec. kennedy: extremely. sen. baldwin: then i would like to know why your department has effectively shut down the very program to address lead poisoning in children. the city of milwaukee requested assistance from the cdc to help the city respond to lead poisoning cases tied to public schools. six schools have been closed,

displacing more than 1800 schoolchildren. the request for federal assistance was denied because of lack of staff. the entire childhood lead poisoning branch has been fired. in the words of a milwaukee mom it really sends a message of do not matter. i do not know what you would say to parents who must now test their pet -- test their children for lead and deal with school closures. do you intend to eliminate this branch at cdc, yes or no? sec. kennedy: we do not. sen. baldwin: because you cannot tell us that you want to make america healthy again when you are willfully destroying programs that keep children safe and healthy from lead poisoning. congress dedicated $51 million in funding for this particular program. but when a community asked for help to prevent lifelong

complications for children and there is no one there to pick up the phone, and it is not because this program is ineffective. it is because you have fired the entire team whose job it is to support communities like milwaukee. sec. kennedy: if that money is appropriated we will spend that money if it has been appropriated to milwaukee we will spend it to milwaukee. sen. baldwin: it is to provide the entire -- the entire staff has been fired. secretary kennedy, i did note in your opening testimony, although we would not know it from the skinny budget that we have. you plan on funding the headstart program. i want to tell you about the ramifications of what has happened to date with regard to headstart. i have heard from families across the date, people who are terrified about the uncertainty

and instability surrounding headstart. one week into president trump's administration, headstart programs in wisconsin could not access their grant funding. it forced one headstart in waukesha to temporarily close, leaving 250 families without care. over the last four months, hhs has provided roughly $1 billion last to head -- less to headstart programs across the country than during the same period last year. the delays have exacerbated uncertainty for programs needing to make payroll. in some instances like the ones that i cited, programs have had to shut their doors until payments came through. i do not know what you would say to a parent unable to drop their child off at preschool because you failed to get already appropriated money out the door. or maybe i should ask you, what

would you say to a parent who shows up for child care or headstart and the doors are closed? sec. kennedy: i would be very sad if something i fought very hard to make sure that they would not be close. sen. baldwin: what is causing the delays? sec. kennedy: i fought very far -- very hard to make sure that headstart gets all of its funding, year. sen. baldwin: we need it this year. and why are there delays now? sec. kennedy: i do not know that there are. i will look into it. there should not be any delays. the funding is there and we are spending it. it is allocated and i do not know why there are those kind of problems. i can tell you that within the agency there were people who wanted to make trump administration look bad, and there were checks held up that there should not have been. i will have to look into that,

senator. chair cassidy: senator murkowski. sen. murkowski: good to see you. i want to talk a little bit about the hhs organization and some of the programs that impact alaska's most vulnerable populations. i am letting you know that just after this hearing i will be chairing a senate committee on indian affairs, specifically examining hhs tribal programs that are outside of ihs. i thank you for your early efforts to exempt ihs health care providers from the rifts, that is very important. i have also heard concerns about the impacts to key hhs programs serving their community. you will have some of your folks tuning in and i appreciate that. some of the other reductions that we are looking at within your budget do you have significant consequences to a

state like mine. one is the low income energy assistance program. for us it is not a budget line item. you know that the temperatures can get really tough. it keeps people from freezing to death in their homes. another program is -- and i know that hhs had rescinded a number of those employees and that was great news. but the employees that received notices for the program were not rescinded in the center for marine safety and health studies. this is a big deal for our commercial fishing safety and could leave our fishing fleet out of compliance with coast guard safety regulations. we are watching that carefully. again, the shared focus on making sure that our children are as healthy as they possibly can be. i want to look to ways that we can strengthen and not eliminate the headstart program. i wanted to ask you --

sec. kennedy: you are talking about the niash program. you should talk to me about that. and that is something that i am deeply concerned with and with the commercial fisheries. we should talk about it. and let's work for a solution. sen. murkowski: got it. i am with you right there. let me ask about domestic violence and sexual assault funding. right now, i am receiving a lot of incoming from our community-based domestic and sexual violence program operators. they are concerned about the delayed release of fy 25 funding, the absence of notices of funding opportunities as well as proposed cuts and consolidations that might threaten the office of family violence prevention and the cdc division of violence prevention. you have programs that are really foundational to domestic

and sexual violence. they have been reauthorized with a partisan support. i am going to enter into the record a letter from the national task force and, it basically was sent to you, i guess yesterday, just urging the communication of concrete plans for releasing some of these funds. i am going to raise that to your level. i want to make sure we are sending the right signal to so many on the edge with debased services that are helping the most vulnerable. so we have the funding that is out there that is delayed and we need help releasing that. sec. kennedy: my understanding is that the domestic violence funding was not cut. i do not know. i have to go back and check but specifically i asked about that program last night and was told that there were no cuts and that

president trump is committed to it. and so, i do not know why people will be experiencing even delays. sen. murkowski: and it might be that with the rifts, you do not have people processing these things. last question for you. i mentioned the budget proposal. the skinny budget proposes to eliminate the energy program and the proposal says it is unnecessary because states have policies preventing utility disconnection making it a pass through benefiting utilities in the northeast. further reward states like new york and california, two of the top two recipients. i am just telling you we are not in the northeast, we are not in that bucket. we are cold and there are other places that are hot. it is a lifesaver. i did see your statement from yesterday saying that omb was

thinking that the energy policy will reduce costs dramatically. it might, and it might be a while. right now, folks in alaska still need those ugly diesel debit -- generators to keep warm. sec. kennedy: first of all, i have heard that my whole life because my family was involved in providing low-cost energy to the poor new england and there are people in new england who suffer from it if energy prices are high and you have a cold winter. i was on the navajo reservation a couple of weeks ago and the navajo president said to me if we cut that, people will die on this reservation. i know the same is true in alaska. the presumption behind the budget cuts were that the energy prices were going to drop dramatically, in which case

these payments just become a subsidy and the oil -- and if that does not happen, i would expect congress would then still appropriate the money and i have already spent $400 million between january and now on this program and we have made sure to get it out before -- to all the families who need it. sen. murkowski: you will find a lot of support for that. senator murphy. sen. murphy: i want to talk to you about your relationship with this committee and congress and i want to talk to you about the statements made to the chairman of this committee and members of this committee during your confirmation hearing about vaccines. you did not tell the truth. i find that to be really dangerous for our relationship. if i were the chairman, who believes in vaccines and voted for you because he believes what you said, my head would be exploding. in a hearing you told us "i will

not work to impound, divert or otherwise reduce any funding appropriated by congress for the purpose of vaccination programs." that is not the truth. let me finish my question. sec. kennedy: i am just asking you to repeat it so i can understand. sen. murphy: i will repeat. during the hearing you said to this committee and to the finance committee "i will not work to impound, divert, or otherwise reduce any funding appropriated by congress for the purpose of vaccination programs." you have done the opposite. you canceled $12 billion to the states used to administer and track vaccines. you promised chairman cassidy -- madam chair would you allow me to finish my question. sec. kennedy: when did i do that? sen. murphy: let me finish my question. sec. kennedy: tell me when i did it so i can understand what the question is. sen. murphy: you have canceled $12 billion in public health grants to states whether you

know this or not, and that funding is used in part to be able to administer and dispense the information about vaccines. sec. kennedy: which program. sen. murphy: mr. secretary, let me give you the full cannot bully. -- panpoly. the things you said before the committee that did not turn out to be true. you promised chairman cassidy that the fda would not change vaccine standards for " historical norms." what happened as soon as you were sworn in, you announced new standards for vaccine approvals that you referred to in your own press release as a radical departure from current practice. experts say that departure will delay approvals. you also said specific to the measles vaccine that you support the measles vaccine. you have consistently been undermining the measles vaccine. you told the public that the vaccine wanes quickly and you went on the "dr. phil show" and

said it was never tested for safety and there is fetal debris. sec. kennedy: all true. do you want me to lie to the public. of course it is true. of course it is true senator. you do not know what you are talking about. madame -- i did not ask for a response yet. i would like to lay out the predicate before i am interrupted. he should have respect for this committee. >> go ahead. sen. murphy: just this morning you also said that you in fact would not recommend that kids get vaccinated for measles. you would just lay out the pros and cons. and so, the summation of everything you have said to compromise people's faith in the measles vaccine in particular is contrary to what you said before this committee. you said you support the measles vaccine and then laid out a set

of facts that i will can -- that are contested and i will submit information from experts who can test what you said. and the result is to undermine faith in the vaccines like saying i think you swim in that lake, but you know the lake is probably toxic and there is probably a ton of snakes and alligators but i think you swim in it. nobody will swim in it. i want you to acknowledge that when you say you support the measles vaccine and then go out and repeatedly undermine the vaccine with information that is contact stated by public health -- contested by public health experts it is not supporting the vaccine. i have two simple questions. one, could you clarify what you said in the house this morning, are you are are you not recommending that families get their children vaccinated? or are you just giving people the pros and cons. and, you understand when you say these things about the measles vaccine, what ends up happening is less people get the vaccine.

do you understand that the result of constantly questioning the efficacy or safety of the vaccine results in less people getting the vaccine. i do not want to spend the remaining 20 seconds in an argument under -- over the science but do you understand that as a consequence. and are you still recommending people get the vaccine and are you not? sec. kennedy: if i advise you to swim in a lake that i knew there to be alligators wouldn't you want me to tell you they were alligators. sen. murphy: are you recommending the measles vaccine or not? sec. kennedy: what i have said. sen. murphy: it does not sound like you are. sec. kennedy: are you going to let me answer or keep interrupting. are you going to let me answer? what i pledge before this committee during my confirmation is that i would tell the truth and i would have radical transparency. i will tell the truth about everything we know and we do not know. sen. murphy: are you recommending the measles vaccine? sec. kennedy: i will not tell

people it is safe and effective. i need to respect people's intelligence. sen. murphy: that is dangerous for the american public. chair murkowski: we get it. sec. kennedy: the reason that the american people lost faith in the program is that they were lied to for year after year. chair murkowski: senator marshall. sec. kennedy: by the way, i sat at the hearing this morning that i was recommending measles vaccine. you can look at the transcript. sen. marshall: thank you so much for being here, i am glad you are here. let's stay on the measles vaccine and catch my breath after all of that. i am an obstetrician. if a 25 euro pregnant woman asked me if i -- if she should take the measles vaccine i would have to give her the answer no you should not. but if she was 25 and trying to get pregnant i would give her different advice. i have always valued the

sanctity of the physician-patient relationship. i went to medical school for four years and delivered thousands of babies. it is my job to give that recommendation. what is the role of the secretary of hhs as far as recommendations and vaccines to discuss a little bit further? sec. kennedy: vaccine recommendations, senator, are normally made through the advisory committee of immunized asian practices. which is -- immunization practices. there is another committee which is within fda that actually recommends whether the vaccines get licensed or not. and so, that is where the recommendations come from. and traditionally, they have not done evidence-based medicine. they only adopted evidence-based medicine about 12 years ago. and what we have said during our administration is we want to

have safety studies prior to their licensure and recommendation of vaccines. vaccines are the only medical product exempt from prelicensing safety testing. so, the only vaccine that has been tested in a full-blown placebo trial against another placebo was the covid vaccine. the other 76 shots that children in this country receive between birth and 18 years old, none of them have been safety tested and prelicensing studies against a placebo, which means we do not understand the risk profile for those products. and, that is something that i intend to remedy. sen. marshall: ok. you said earlier you could not talk about the organization and maybe you can answer this question but at least confirm the facts or not. is it true that under joe biden's white house they added 20,000 employees to hhs.

when you are nominated there were 28 visions with hhs. 100 communication offices, 40 i.t. departments, nine hr units as well. can you answer that question? sen. marshall: that -- sec. kennedy: that is right. dozens of i.t. departments, eight senior finance officials. nine separate offices on women's health and a per separate offices on minority health. 20 separate -- 27 offices for hiv. 59 behavioral health programs and 40 night opioid programs. we are trying to consolidate and eliminate the redundancies and eliminate all of those administrative costs for each one of those little departments. consolidate them and make that make sense and accountable to the american people. sen. marshall: i suppose that all of those i.t. systems communicate with each other? sec. kennedy: as you pointed out

there are 40 procurement apartments with four separate computer systems that do not talk to each other. as you pointed out, the supply department grew by 38% over the last four years. i would say that was great if americans got healthier, but they did not. they got worse. so, what we are trying to do is go back to the pre-covid levels and just start making the department function as it would if you -- in an interaction will universe and to bring in modern ai and telemedicine and all of the opportunities that we have now. these new efficiencies for medical delivery to the american people and patient care where we are not able to take advantage of all of them because there is so much chaos and disorganization. and everybody who has gone up against it in the past has

thrown their hands up and given up. what we are saying is let us organize it away that we can complete -- that we can quickly adopt and deploy opportunities for high quality health care. sen. marshall: this was going to be a question. all the research that we do on soil health and nutrition, in my heart, that is research on cancer and research on alzheimer's. at the end of the day as well, we should be spending as much money on the front side as we are trying to cure the end. we are seeing epidemics of colorectal or cancel -- cancer and all of these things and i think the research is -- at the front is every much important at the end. sec. kennedy: senator murphy made a good point. nih had these extraordinary breakthroughs in treating cancer and reducing mortalities for colorectal cancer. my question is isn't it as

important to find out why kids are getting cancer when you and i were a kid when there were zero kids with colorectal cancer. it is not a bad for us when we say we can make it less lethal. why don't we figure out what is causing it and eliminate that exposure with all of these with alzheimer's and heart disease and something is making americans very sick. and our response should not be just we will develop a pharmaceutical fix or a medical fix. let us figure out what it is and get rid of it so we can have healthy kids again. chair murkowski: senator kaine. sen. kaine: i want to ask you some questions about staff reduction and the timing of it. you were confirmed by the senate on february 13, ims -- i am assuming that things that happen before then were other people's work. the fork in the road letter came

out on january 8 to people across the federal employment space, widely attributed to opm, elon musk and doge, so you had nothing to do with that letter, correct? sec. kennedy: correct. sen. kaine: you were confirmed on february 13. on february 14, hhs announced that 3500 probationary employees were going to be laid off. i know you are a hard worker but i assume that in the one day between your confirmation in the next day, you are not the primary decision-maker about laying off probationary employees? sec. kennedy: i was aware of it and i could have blocked it. sen. kaine: so you are not the primary decision-maker. was that made by opm or doge? it was not just hhs it was all federal -- jelly roll agencies. sec. kennedy: i had my full upper staff in place before i got there. sen. kaine: did they make the decision was it -- or was it white house and doge?

sec. kennedy: my staff made the decision. doge came in and gave us information that we would not have otherwise had access. i can also say this. sen. kaine: all i asked if i made it and i appreciate it. sec. kennedy: hhs -- april 1, hhs rifts employees. you had been secretary for about six weeks and a few days after that announcement, hha staff briefed our staff, the senate health staff and here are some highlights in that 10,000, 467 staff at the administration for children and families. 2400 at the centers for disease control. 400 at herself. -- hersa. 197 at samsa. 219 at the food and drug administration. you had been sec. for six weeks. these were rifts, but you were

involved in the decision about these 10,000, correct? and in tandem with your leadership team, correct? sec. kennedy: as i said before i push back on certain ones. sen. kaine: yesterday or it might've been earlier today you confirmed that 20,000 employees have been let go, at hhs. 10,000 rift and 10,000 forked. do you know how many of the 20,000 were veterans? sec. kennedy: i do not. sen. kaine: that is a fact that is easy to determine from the personnel file. i will ask that question for the record. we are finding across the government that veterans are disproportionately being let go because they are a high percentage of the federal workforce and they are dramatically higher percentage of probationary employees because they leave military service after 10 or 20 years and

and they are probationary new employees when they join civilian service. i want to find the answer to that question. where does the rubber meet the road on 20,000 rifts and layoffs and forks? in people not getting cancer trials, and i appreciate your willingness to help that constituent. in-state grants being canceled. virginia losing $425 million in funding to the defendant -- to the virginia department of health. here is a small example. all of our offices do casework. all of them do casework. and we get requests all the time. cms is the largest agency and the federal government. the budget is nearly twice the size of the pentagon. the people who depend on medicaid, medicare and the chip program really depend on it. it is the most consistent in the top three or four and constituent request to my office. answer this question about

medicare, medicaid and the chip program. in every administration that i have served with, i get answers to questions on behalf of constituents. i might not get them as fast as i like and sometimes i like or do not like the answer. let me show you what cms is now doing to answer constituent questions. i have omitted the name of a constituent and the name of my staffer. this was very recent. a hard-working retiree, patriotic and taxpaying american on medicare wrote a very simple question and could not get an answer. asked us to reach out. we reached out to the medicare part cd congressional liaison office. and here was an answer to the basic question. "unfortunately there is not an update to -- >> we will leave this hearing intake you live to qatar where president trump is taking part in a state dinner. you are watching live cov