In his first hearing in Congress after the ratification of his appointment, US Secretary of Health, Robert Kennedy Junior avoided sharing his beliefs and defended the deep cuts at the Institutes of Health.
Robert Kennedy Junior, who has been openly against vaccines for many years, has been called upon to comment on Donald Trump’s budget, which provides exorbitant cuts to the scientific services of the Ministry of Health.
Democratic MP Mark Pocan asked him if he would vaccinate his children for measles – The measles cases spreading in the country have now exceeded 1,000 cases: out of the three deaths in this outbreak, two of them were unchanged children.
“For measles? Well, probably for measles. What I would say is that my views on vaccines don’t matter … I don’t want to seem to make evasions, but I don’t think people have to get medical advice from me, “Kennedy replied.
During the hearing on Kennedy’s ratification, US Senator Brian Sajii emphasized the role that Kennedy played in discouraging the adoption of the vaccine against measles in the Samoa nation of the Pacific in 2019.
“The problem is that his job is the chief of the nation’s health adviser. This is the top line of every Health, Federal, State, Local Leader. This is his job to give people the best tips he can. I believe that, in my opinion, he resigns from his main responsibility, “Georges Benjamin, Executive Director of the American Public Health Union, told reporters in a phone call, as reported by ABC, after Kennedy’s deposition.
Trump’s budget proposes the largest cuts ever made to National Institutes of Health (NIH), reducing funding from $ 48 billion to $ 27 billion. Many of the 27 NIH institutes will collapse, and the funding of those specifically focused on conducting minority health research and international research is completely abolished.
Members of the Commission pointed out that without funding, clinical trials and critical departments such as the lead poisoning program at the Center for Disease Control and Prevention have been closed without funding.
Many people had already been fired even before these proposed cuts, as the Ministry of Health plans to reduce its workforce by a quarter.
Kennedy claims that cuts will not affect the work of the Institutes, Clinical Tests and Programs, without presenting information or details of how this will happen.