Key takeaways from RFK Jr.’s HHS budget hearings

During congressional budget hearings this week, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy rebuffed suggestions that his vaccine skepticism is at least partly responsible for a measles outbreak that threatens the U.S. status as a country where measles has been eliminated.

While he appeared to be trying to shift the conversation away from vaccines, he has softened his stance, acknowledging that the best way to prevent measles is by being vaccinated with the measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine, which has been used since the 1970s. During the hearing, Kennedy said, “It’s safe for most people.”

The secretary was appearing before committees Thursday to address the president’s budget, which proposes a 12.5% decrease to HHS spending for the coming fiscal year — a nearly $16 billion decrease from last year.

The hearings came amid news that President Donald Trump plans to nominate Dr. Erica Schwartz, a pro-vaccine physician, as director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Though she will have to be confirmed, The New York Times called the nomination “the clearest signal yet that the White House is veering away from (Kennedy’s) vaccine skepticism in the lead-up to the midterm elections.”

Utah is now the state with the most measles cases — 602 as of April 14 — in the outbreak. While cases have spread throughout the state, the largest number are in the southern part of the state near the Utah-Arizona border. The Utah Department of Health and Human Services reports that 75 of those cases were reported in the last three weeks.

But while measles and vaccines were a hot — or rather heated — topic, those weren’t the only issues that surfaced in Kennedy’s budget hearing appearances.

Autism linked to Tylenol?

Utah Republican Rep. Blake Moore said he is “underwhelmed” by research efforts into autism, including work that underpins an earlier announcement that the Trump administration believes autism and use of Tylenol during pregnancy could be a cause.

A new Danish study is among a growing body of research that has found no link between autism and using acetaminophen, the active ingredient in Tylenol, during pregnancy. Kennedy dismissed it as a “garbage study.”

Moore, whose son is neurodivergent, was quoted by BBC and other media saying, “My wife was hurt, and she felt for a split-second until we came to our senses and we talked about this, that there was any way she was responsible. We don’t even know if she took Tylenol during her pregnancy, but that was a hurtful moment for her.”

Reducing food and other aid

Asked separately about cuts to aid like food stamps and the Women, Infants and Children (WIC) supplemental nutrition program, Kennedy said that “nobody wants to make the cuts,” but he noted the president’s budget included them because of a $39 trillion debt.

The president’s budget proposal cuts $1.4 billion from WIC, which is under the purview of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, not HHS.

In the hearing with the House Ways and Means Committee, Politico reported that Kennedy said “that $2 billion in cuts to substance use and mental health grants his department issued and quickly reversed earlier this year, before the White House released its fiscal 2027 budget plan, had been a ‘mistake.’"

And he reiterated that he was working to protect the Head Start program, the federal nutrition and education program for low-income preschoolers. “It’s getting no cuts,” Kennedy said.

Per NBC News, Rep. Joe Courtney, D-Conn., asked Kennedy about the comments Trump made recently “floating the idea to let states control Medicare, Medicaid and day care subsidies because the federal government has ‘to take care of one thing: military protection. We have to guard the country.”

Kennedy said he and the president had not talked about that. When Courtney accused him of dodging the question, Kennedy responded, “My answer has to begin with correcting a lot of the misstatements that you made in your introduction” Kennedy added, “I’m telling you: The president’s policy is to save Medicare. That’s what he’s always said.”

Changes are coming

Kennedy also said he is altering the makeup of the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force, which recommends how — and how often — people should be screened for diseases. Insurance companies typically follow the task force’s guidance to determine coverage.

NBC reported that “the medical community has long suspected that Kennedy would overhaul the task force, given that its last several meetings were postponed and it has not convened in more than a year. The American Medical Association urged him in a letter last year not to fire the current members.”

Kennedy also urged lawmakers to confirm Dr. Casey Means as surgeon general, calling her an “evangelist” for the Make American Healthy Again movement.

Her nomination has been held up since February, without a vote by the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee on whether to approve her. She has been criticized for what NBC called “controversial stances on vaccines, birth control and pesticides.”