Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. delivered a defiant defense on Wednesday of his drastic overhaul of federal health agencies, insisting to members of Congress that he had “not fired any working scientists” and was “not withholding money for lifesaving research” despite evidence to the contrary.
In back-to-back appearances before House and Senate committees, Mr. Kennedy, a longtime critic of vaccination, also made clear that he did not think the health secretary should be in the business of making vaccine recommendations. He ducked questions about whether, if he had young children today, they would be inoculated against measles, chickenpox or polio.
“I don’t think people should be taking advice, medical advice from me,” the health secretary said.
After weeks of controversy about his plans for autism research, Mr. Kennedy also testified that federally funded studies should focus solely on identifying “environmental toxins” — a term that Mr. Kennedy’s critics say is code for vaccines.
“I’m told that there was a 20-to-1 research ratio for genetic causes over the past 20 years,” he said, adding: “I believe that was because they did not want to look at the environmental exposure because they were scared. So I don’t think we should be funding that genetic work anymore.”
Mr. Kennedy had come to Capitol Hill, his first appearance there since becoming health secretary, to promote President Trump’s budget for the next fiscal year. But his testimony devolved into a series of fiery exchanges with Democrats, who wanted to talk about the mass layoffs and cuts to research funding he has already imposed.
Engineered in part by Elon Musk and his team at the Department of Government Efficiency, the remake of the health department includes cutting 20,000 jobs — one-quarter of the health work force. It also collapses entire agencies, including those devoted to mental health and addiction treatment, and emergency preparedness, into a new, ill-defined “Administration for a Healthy America.”
Democrats charged that in making the cuts, Mr. Kennedy had usurped the power of Congress. Representative Rosa DeLauro of Connecticut, the top Democrat on the House Appropriations Committee, pointedly directed him to language in the Constitution that gives Congress the power of the purse.
“You have an obligation to carry out the law and to implement what the Congress has done,” she said sharply. Mr. Kennedy insisted that if Congress gave his agency money, he would spend it. Ms. DeLauro shook her head, looking disgusted.
“Unbelievable,” she said. “Unbelievable.”
Mr. Kennedy clashed openly and angrily with Democratic lawmakers on both sides of the Capitol. He showed little hesitation in telling them they were wrong, and engaged in a heated back-and-forth that is unusual for any witness, much less a cabinet secretary coming to Congress to ask for money to run his agency.
“I don’t know if you understand this or whether you are just mouthing the Democratic talking points,” Mr. Kennedy said to Representative Josh Harder, Democrat of California, who asked about cuts to Medicaid.
The health secretary testified that while Mr. Trump’s budget cuts would be “painful,” they were necessary to ease the federal government’s $2 trillion deficit.
Some of Mr. Kennedy’s statements did not comport with the facts. He told the Senate health committee that no current vaccines except those for Covid had been tested against placebo. That prompted the committee’s Republican chairman, Senator Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, who had left the room, to return to correct him.
“The secretary made the statement that no vaccines except Covid have been evaluated against placebo,” Mr. Cassidy said. “That’s not true. A rotavirus, measles and HPV vaccines have been.”
Mr. Kennedy’s assertion that he has “not fired any working scientists” flies in the face of reality. Hundreds of scientists from the National Institutes of Health, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Food and Drug Administration have lost their jobs as part of his plan to overhaul the Department of Health and Human Services.
The Trump administration has also frozen or canceled scores of research grants at academic institutions, many of them from the National Institutes of Health, which falls under Mr. Kennedy’s purview. Columbia University alone has experienced significant cuts to more than 300 federal grants, many of them for medical research.
Mr. Trump has published only the broad outlines of his budget plan, which calls for deep cuts to the N.I.H. and the C.D.C. In written testimony submitted to the committee, Mr. Kennedy said the cuts would save money “without impacting critical services.”
The budget blueprint, the statement said, “recognizes the fiscal challenges our country faces today, and the need to update and redirect our investments to meet the needs of a rapidly changing world.”
Republicans largely praised Mr. Kennedy, but their questions revealed that they, too, were somewhat uncomfortable with his changes. In the House, several asked about projects in their districts. Representative Chuck Fleischmann of Tennessee, who represents candy manufacturers, worried aloud that Mr. Kennedy’s plan to rid the food supply of certain petroleum-based dyes would cost his constituents money.
Representative Stephanie Bice, Republican of Oklahoma, urged Mr. Kennedy to protect a medical research foundation in her district. Representative Riley Moore, Republican of West Virginia, expressed relief that Mr. Kennedy had reversed the firings of more than 100 employees with the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, which helps protect coal miners from black lung disease.
In the Senate, Mr. Cassidy called on Mr. Kennedy to articulate “a clearly defined plan or objective.” Mr. Cassidy voted to confirm Mr. Kennedy despite intense misgivings about his views on vaccines. He had asked Mr. Kennedy to testify about the job cuts at the health department last month, but the secretary did not appear.
“Much of the conversation around H.H.S.’s agenda has been set by anonymous sources in the media and individuals with a bias against the president,” Mr. Cassidy said. “Americans need direct reassurance from the administration, from you, Mr. Secretary, that its reforms will make their lives easier, not harder.”
That may be a tall order. A recent poll by KFF, a nonpartisan health policy research organization, found that a majority of the public opposed major cuts to staffing and spending at the nation’s health agencies. A majority of Americans said the Trump administration was “recklessly making broad cuts to programs and staff, including some that are necessary for agencies to function.”
In anticipation of the hearing, Senator Bernie Sanders, independent of Vermont and the ranking member on the health committee, released a report on Tuesday that accused Mr. Trump of waging an “unprecedented, illegal and outrageous attack on science and scientists.” The report found, for instance, that Mr. Trump cut cancer research by 31 percent over the first three months of this year, compared with the same time frame last year.
“Trump’s war on science is an attack against anyone who has ever loved someone with cancer,” Mr. Sanders said in a statement. “The American people do not want us to slash cancer research in order to give more tax breaks for billionaires.”
Mr. Kennedy insisted to House members on Wednesday morning that he had managed a growing measles outbreak better than his counterparts in other nations. The outbreak, which began in West Texas, has killed two unvaccinated children and one adult, and has now sickened more than 1,000 people in 30 states, according to the C.D.C.
Mr. Kennedy has acknowledged that vaccines are an effective way of preventing the spread of measles. But he has insisted that the choice to vaccinate should be voluntary.
He has instead promoted treating the disease after infection with alternative therapies, including cod liver oil, which contains vitamin A — a remedy that doctors said had sickened some children who took too much of it. Ms. DeLauro accused him of “promoting quackery.”
Mr. Kennedy also clashed on Wednesday with Representative Bonnie Watson Coleman, a New Jersey Democrat, who asked about cuts to home heating programs and accused him of “attempting to legitimize racial discrimination” by eliminating funding for minority health programs. “My time has expired,” he said sharply, after she cut off his answer.
To that, Ms. Watson Coleman shot back: “Well, then so has your legitimacy.”
But by far the most passionate Democrat was Ms. DeLauro, who survived ovarian cancer nearly four decades ago and has served in Congress for 34 years. She grew emotional after the hearing, as she spoke about how research funded by the National Institutes of Health had most likely saved her life.
“I’m here,” Ms. DeLauro said, fighting back tears, “because of the grace of God and biomedical research.”
