(LifeSiteNews) — Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS) Robert F. Kennedy Jr. admonished U.S. Rep. Frank Pallone of New Jersey during a contentious House Energy and Commerce Committee hearing on Tuesday, charging the Democrat with changing his position on vaccine safety due to large financial contributions from pharmaceutical companies.
Kennedy was advocating for the Trump administration’s HHS budget requests for fiscal year 2026 and had laid out a significant plan for fundamental changes to the orientation and goals of the gargantuan federal agency before taking questions.
Challenging the presentation of the longtime health advocate, Pallone said, “Secretary Kennedy, quite frankly, I think you’re trying to defend the indefensible. There’s no way that this budget or the actions you have taken thus far as secretary are going to make this country healthier.”
He went on to charge Kennedy with having “dangerous” views on vaccines, pursuing an “anti-science agenda,” and promoting “conspiracy theories without data or evidence.”
“I just really think that people are going to die as a result of your actions and congressional Republicans’ actions,” Pallone said.
He continued raising objections regarding HHS’ responsiveness to written correspondence to inquiries from members of Congress and complained that the agency had not allowed public input regarding vaccine-related decisions. “You say you want transparency, but there’s been no public process for any of this. Why?” he asked.
Kennedy replied, “We have a public process for regulating vaccines. It’s called the ACIP committee, and it’s a public meeting that we —”
But Pallone interrupted, “You fired the committee,” to which Kennedy responded, “I fired people who had conflicts with the pharmaceutical industry. That committee has been a template for medical malpractice for 40 years.”
Closing out his time for questioning, Pallone concluded, “The bottom line is here we have no transparency; we have no response. You feel no responsibility to Congress whatsoever, and you just continue this ideology that’s anti-science, anti-vaccine. That’s all I see. I see nothing else. And I don’t think I’m ever going to get a response.”
Later, during questioning from Republican Rep. Neil Dunn of Florida, Kennedy returned to respond to Pallone’s final comments, addressing him directly:
Fifteen years ago, you and I met — you were at that time a champion for people who had suffered injuries from vaccines. You were very adamant about it. You were the leading member of Congress on that issue.
Since then, you’ve accepted $2 million from pharmaceutical companies in contribution, more than any other member of this committee.
And your enthusiasm for supporting the old ACIP committee, which was completely rife and pervasive with pharmaceutical conflicts, seems to be an outcome of those contributions.
Democrats on the committee responded with outrage at Kennedy’s comments. Rep. Diana DeGette of Colorado raised a point of order, charging the HHS Secretary with “impugning the reputation of a member of Congress.”
“The Secretary implied that Mr. Pallone would not fight for vaccine victims because he took money from the pharmaceutical industry,” she said. “He needs to take back those words.”
And after a request from Republican Chairman Buddy Carter of Georgia, Kennedy did retract his words, saying “they are retracted.”
Kennedy prioritizes nutrition, healthy lifestyles and safer food products
In his opening remarks, Kennedy asserted, “the United States remains the sickest developed nation, and yet we spend 4.5 trillion annually on health care, two to three times more per capita to comparable nations. Clearly, something is structurally wrong with our approach.”
He pointed out that the costs of health care are “steadily increasing at a rate of 2% greater than the economy,” presenting the industry with an unsustainable problem.
“If we don’t staunch this trend, we will ransom our children to bankruptcy, servitude, and disastrous health consequences. Yes, an exploding debt is a social determinant of health,” he said.
Spending more money cannot solve this problem, Kennedy argued, but spending smarter can help. This includes shifting “funding away from bureaucracy toward direct impact.”
He went on to highlight several priorities, including the need to “combat the opioid crisis, especially the spread of synthetic drugs like fentanyl,” a prioritization of nutrition, healthy lifestyles and safer food products.
“We will equip FDA to expand its food safety efforts through research, regulation, inspection, and education, to remove harmful chemicals from food and packaging,” he pledged, while returning the CDC to its “core missions” of “tracking diseases, investigating outbreaks, and cutting waste.”
Kennedy also pledged to “end gain-of-function experiments and eliminate funding for research based on radical gender ideology.”
“We will launch a new era of transparency and public service, creating an honest, science-driven HHS that answers to the President, to Congress, and to the American people,” he concluded.
