RFK Jr. Claims Congressman is Funded by Pharmaceutical Companies to Endorse Vaccines

Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the Secretary of Health and Human Services, faced over three hours of questioning at a House subcommittee hearing on Tuesday that covered everything from the shocking errors in his first major health report to his complete ignorance of federal lawsuits against major health insurance companies. But one of the standout moments during the hearing occurred when Kennedy suggested that a sitting member of Congress only opposed the health secretary’s actions because he was bought and paid for by the big pharmaceutical companies.

Kennedy made his name as an anti-vaccine extremist and has purged the CDC, NIH, and FDA of top advisors who believe in vaccines, including the entire CDC Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP). Kennedy was asked Tuesday by Rep. Frank Pallone, a Democrat from New Jersey, why he had avoided getting any public input on his drastic decisions about vaccines, and the health secretary defended his actions by saying there was already a committee that oversees these things. Pallone pointed out that Kennedy had fired the committee.

But it was after Pallone’s time had officially expired that the real drama of the hearing would begin. The chairman of the committee moved on to a more MAHA-friendly member of Congress, Rep. Neal Dunn, a Republican from Florida. And as Kennedy started to respond to Dunn’s softball question, he would quickly move on to address Pallone, an unusual move that’s not typically permitted under the rules.

Kennedy said that Pallone had previously been a champion of people who had been harmed by vaccines and only changed his tune after receiving money from the pharmaceutical industry.

“If I can take a minute just to respond to something that Congressman Pallone said, and I’ll address you, Congressman Pallone,” Kennedy said. “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.”

Kennedy then moved on to the money part, and the fireworks started.

“Since then, you’ve accepted $2 million from pharmaceutical companies in contributions, more than any other member of this committee,” Kennedy said. “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.”

One of Pallone’s fellow members of Congress objected because Pallone apparently didn’t hear what was being said about him. Once it was explained to the chairman that he was impugning the reputation of a member of Congress, Kennedy was asked to retract his statement. Kennedy only did so with a smirk.

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There were many other moments from the hearing that were jaw-dropping, as Kennedy often insisted he wasn’t actually cutting programs that he had indeed cut. Other times, Kennedy defended the cuts with incredibly bad logic. For example, Kennedy was asked by Rep. Troy Carter of Louisiana about why he’d cut funding for studies on an HIV vaccine. The secretary had the gall to insist it was because a vaccine for HIV had been promised for decades without results.

Do you think that kind of logic would fly for other diseases like cancer? We haven’t cured cancer yet, so naturally, you should give up on finding new treatments?

Lawmakers often pointed out that many of the cuts were for congressionally approved programs, and he had no authority to just unilaterally decide to cut things he didn’t like. But that’s what he did, just like Elon Musk frequently did as the head of the so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).

Rep. Nanette Barragan, a Democrat from California, grilled Kennedy over his cuts to Alzheimer’s research. Kennedy insisted he didn’t know about any of those cuts and repeatedly said he didn’t know if what Barragan was saying was true. Kennedy claimed ignorance about things he should know throughout the hearing.

The health secretary is wildly unqualified for his role and wrote in a recent book that he doesn’t even believe in germ theory, one of the most basic things anyone needs to accept in order to understand modern medicine. Instead, Kennedy believes in miasma, or bad air, a theory that was last popular in the 19th century.

Kennedy also made some wild comments about his plans for every American to wear a wearable device that can track glucose. Trump’s pick for Surgeon General, who has yet to be confirmed by the Senate, owns a company that sells a wearable which would seem to fit with Kennedy’s “vision” for health tracking. Casey Means was nominated by Trump, reportedly at Kennedy’s suggestion, after questions were raised about the president’s first pick for the job, Janette Nesheiwat, and her credentials. Means, a 37-year-old holistic medicine doctor, co-owns a company called Levels that sells products for monitoring glucose levels. Consumers pay at least $200 for a one-year subscription to Levels.

People who aren’t diabetic don’t need to be constantly monitoring their glucose levels, but Means is convinced that it’s one of the keys to health. And Kennedy clearly shares that view, since glucose was the first thing he mentioned during his testimony Tuesday as something that needs to be monitored.

Kennedy’s call for every American to wear a health tracker is rather amusing, given the right-wing conspiracy theories about how the government wants to track you and poison your health. It was extremely common when the covid-19 vaccine was released to hear people insist that they contained a microchip put there by Bill Gates to connect everyone to 5G wireless signals. Those crackpots, needless to say, are now some of Kennedy’s biggest defenders in the “MAHA movement.”

Rep. Balderson asked Kennedy about privacy and wearables. But the health secretary didn’t acknowledge the privacy aspect, instead talking about how he personally had friends who “changed their lives from wearing a glucose meter.”

“They’ve lost weight, they’ve lost their diabetes, and you see that happen again and again,” Kennedy said. “And it really has a miraculous impact on health in our country. It’s 80 bucks a month and we’re exploring ways of making sure that those costs can be paid for.”

It’s not clear what Kennedy means by how those costs can be paid for, but it would obviously be a huge windfall for any company that makes glucose monitors if they were suddenly reimbursed by Medicare for people who didn’t actually need to monitor their glucose.

“The Ozempic is costing $1,300 a month. If you can achieve the same thing with an $80 wearable, it’s a lot better for the American people,” Kennedy said.

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Kennedy’s first major report, released in May, cited studies that simply don’t exist. He’s hawking products that people don’t need, and it sounds like he’s planning to launch a huge campaign next week for a product that his fellow MAHA cultists might make money from. And there appear to be no guardrails to stop any of it. Members of Congress can ask all the tough questions they like. But as long as Trump’s in power, the MAHA movement is going to move full speed ahead.