[Pages S903-S923]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

Federal Fumbles

Mr. LANKFORD. Mr. President, in Oklahoma, if you were to go to any
house anywhere in the State right now and ask them how their money
should be spent, they would probably smile at you and say: I would like
to decide that, not somebody else.
That would be a pretty common conversation, I would bet, in most
every State.
For a lot of folks in my State that make $55,000, $60,000--make
enough to be able to get by, work hard, take care of their kids and
their family--it is a challenge for them from day to day, so every
single dollar counts to them. They think about how every single dollar
is spent or saved.
That is why it is surprising, in all the dialogue right now about
government waste--there is a big dialogue about how do we handle waste
and how do we cut back and how fast should we cut back and what should
that look like.
But Oklahomans that I talk to are not offended that we are actually
cutting back on waste. Now, they may have questions about how it is
done and the speed and where it comes out. Those are all reasonable
questions we should have a national dialogue on. But when Oklahomans
hear that USAID last year did a grant of $32,000 to create a comic book
about transgenders in Peru, they would say to me: Hey, I would like to
be able to spend that $32,000 myself rather than the transgender comic
book in Peru. If the folks in Peru want that comic book, maybe they
should pay for it, not American taxpayers.
The folks in Oklahoma, if I were able to talk to them about the same
issue,

[[Page S904]]

would ask me questions about the $2.5 million grant that was given to
Vietnam to be able to fund the construction of electric vehicle battery
recharging stations--which, by the way, $2.5 million that was given by
USAID to Vietnam to do that created one charging station which so far
has saved a total of 260 gallons of gas equivalent--$2.5 million. It
might have been cheaper just to send them 250 gallons of gas than it is
to send them $2.5 million to be able to do that.
Now, if I were to talk to Oklahomans, they would tell me they want to
be able to be more in charge of that money, not sending it to do that.
They would do the same thing when they find out that $10 million in
food aid that was supposed to be going to Syrian refugees was actually
diverted to a terrorist group linked with al-Qaida, and they would want
to ask USAID why that was done.
They would ask some basic questions: why almost $1 million was sent
to a group linked to Hamas just the week before the October 7 attack
was actually done.
All those things are reasonable conversations to have that are
really, honestly, not partisan conversations in this room. I don't find
anyone that thinks that is a partisan issue. Everybody just says: How
do we go after that waste, and what do we do to be able to stop it?
For the last 10 years, I have stood in this room and I have talked
about my ``Federal Fumbles'' book. We just released the latest version
of my ``Federal Fumbles'' book today. The ``Federal Fumbles'' book that
we put out each year is not trying to be overly critical of government.
We have released it under Republican and Democrat Presidencies and
Congresses. We have said: Why don't we spend time--quite frankly, as I
ask every year--why doesn't every single Member of this body assign
their staff to go look for areas of waste and regulatory inefficiency
and just ask some very basic questions: How could we do this better?
Every business asks that question all the time. They ask the
question: How can we be more efficient? How can we do things better?
But we in government ask more ``What can we do next?'' and very
seldom stop to evaluate what has already been done. That is all
``Federal Fumbles'' is saying: This is the money that was allocated.
How was it actually spent?
Over the years, we have engaged in things to be able to identify some
areas of waste and to be able to put a stop to them. We stopped the
funding that was going toward drag shows in Ecuador that we used to
fund in American tax dollars. That is not happening anymore. We stopped
the funding that was being sent to France to help preserve the secret
language of French Parisian butchers. We used to fund that. We don't
anymore. We stopped the funding that was going to research the Russian
wine industry after we exposed that. We even stopped the funding that
was going to the border to be able to fund Shakespeare all along our
border. There might be other ways to be able to spend our money better
at the border other than doing performances of Shakespeare with Federal
tax dollars.
This year, we are spending some time actually focusing in on what can
we do better; what has already been done that the money has gone out
the door or how can we do things better. One of them, interestingly
enough, has been one of the areas that are being talked a lot about
more that we have already focused on, and that is FEMA and disaster
relief. Now it has suddenly become a big topic of conversation over the
last couple weeks. But we ask a very simple question: When a community
experiences a hurricane, a tornado, a flood, and they want to engage
with the Federal Government for disaster relief, this is what they
confront: 30 different Agencies, 30 different processes for aid coming
to their community, most of them having a different way to actually
sign up for them, different deadlines, different information that is
needed, and also different percentages. Some of them pay 90-10. Some of
them pay 85-15. Some of them pay 50-50. They have to know this
intricate set of rules in the middle of cleaning up from their disaster
to be able to get relief.
This is a disaster, and it shouldn't be a partisan issue for us to be
able to look at it and to say: We can do better. When a small, rural
community faces a devastating flood, why are we asking the mayor of
that community to figure this out to be able to get aid? They won't be
able to. They are trying to help their neighbors dig out. We can do
better on this.
So we exposed the 30 different Agencies and the spaghetti map of how
to be able to get aid and to say: Let's work on this. We exposed some
of the inefficiencies that are out in our Federal Government right now,
even for things like permitting.
We all talk about energy production, and I know we have differences
of opinion on where that energy should come from, but when we start
talking about the permitting to go get energy--whether that is lithium
or whether that is natural gas--we get into a conversation about how do
you permit to actually go get that resource.
Well, right now in the United States of America, it is taking 29
years to go from the beginning process where a critical mineral is
mined to actual production. We are on the same international ranking
for efficiency of regulations on mining as Zambia.
If we go into our northern border, to Canada--now currently,
apparently, referred to as the 51st State--if you go into Canada, it
takes 3 years for them to be able to permit a mine. And they go through
all their environmental reviews. They go through their legal
challenges. They do all those things in 3 years, what is taking us 29
in current structure, if it ever gets done at all. We can do better on
that.
If we want to increase our use of American-made minerals and our
American-made production on that, we as the Federal Government, we as
the U.S. Senate, have to be able to reform the way we are doing our
permitting processes so that we can produce that American energy.
If we have some belief that China or Central Africa or the Middle
East is producing energy cleaner than we are, we are kidding ourselves.
We will produce it cleaner if we can get to it at all.
In this ``Federal Fumbles'' book, we walk through a lot of areas of
waste we have identified and said: Hey, let's find some common areas of
agreement that we should all be able to look at.
Let me raise one that is controversial: the SNAP program. I don't
know a person in this room that would say they want to end the SNAP
program. That is food stamps, for some people that still use the old
term. But over $10 billion was actually allocated in the SNAP program
last year of what they called improper payments; that is, we don't know
if they qualified or not for the program.
Now, a lot of folks in Oklahoma would say: I don't mind people
getting some help when they need it, but for folks that don't qualify,
why are they actually getting access to that?
We have the same issue in the Medicare and Medicaid Program. We don't
want to do anything to be able to hurt that program. We have a lot of
things we need to do better in that program to deliver. But over $100
billion in Medicare and Medicaid last year was designated as improper
payments; that is, we don't know if it is an appropriate payment that
was done or not.
That is something we should spend some time investigating. Mr.
President, $100 billion seems like real money to me.
Last year, there was a billion dollars that was allocated in
subsidies to a Chinese solar manufacturing facility--a billion in
American taxpayer subsidies.
If I went to the folks in Oklahoma and said, ``Where should we get
solar power?'' Not a one of them would say China. And if they did, they
certainly wouldn't say: We should give a billion dollars to a Chinese
company to be able to subsidize them to be able to send solar panels to
us.
If I were to walk around Washington, DC, right now, current stats are
there are 17 Agencies in Washington, DC, that are using 25 percent or
less of their real estate. Seventeen of our Agencies are using 25
percent or less of their occupancy building space. That is billions of
dollars in costs in electricity; that is billions of dollars in costs
in furniture--for a simple question, because it is not a business. They
are not having to pursue efficiency. We have 75 percent of the building
unused.

[[Page S905]]

That is an area that we should actually ask some very simple questions
about and just say: What can we actually do better on this?
Listen, these aren't partisan things. If I sat down with my
Democratic colleagues, they would nod their head and say: Let's take a
look at that. Let's figure it out. The most simple thing that we do
every year when we bring out this ``Federal Fumbles'' book is say: Here
are things we can talk about.
Now, I understand the DOGE conversation has become controversial with
Elon Musk and some of the tactics and the speed that they are moving. I
completely understand that and respect the conversations about that.
But government inefficiency shouldn't be partisan. It shouldn't be
controversial.
And for those that have joined all of us that have worked on this for
years to expose waste in government, welcome to the club. We are glad
to have folks engaging on this. I am not critical. I am excited that
you are here because we need more help, because when the Federal
Government fumbles taxpayer dollars, people in Oklahoma, in my State,
lose their hard-earned tax money on things that aren't education,
aren't roads, aren't national defense. They are waste, and that is what
people want to see stopped.
So I not only encourage people to be able to just take a glance--it
is easy reading, lots of pictures. I not only encourage people to take
a glance at our ``Federal Fumbles'' book, now that it is released, but
I encourage every Member of this body to assign their staff to go look
for waste. And then let's sit down together and see if we can figure
out how to make it stop. We should waste less and save more. It
shouldn't be that hard.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Rhode Island.

Nomination of Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.

Mr. REED. Mr. President, I rise today in strong opposition to
President Trump's nominee for Health and Human Services, Robert F.
Kennedy, Jr.
The Department he has been picked to lead is charged with protecting
the health of all Americans, from safeguarding Medicare and nursing
home care for seniors to investing in medical research, to safeguarding
the Nation's food supply and supporting public health programs such as
lead poisoning prevention and suicide prevention.
One of the most important public health inventions of the last
century is vaccines, making many deadly and debilitating diseases a
thing of the past. The Secretary of Health and Human Services has an
outsized role in making vaccines available to children and adults
throughout the country, and that is something that gives me great pause
about Mr. Kennedy's nomination.
For those of us who grew up in the 1950s and 1960s, polio was an
insidious threat that sent fear literally through every home in this
country until Dr. Salk invented a vaccine. And it literally saved the
lives--many, many lives--of generations of Americans. It was approved,
and then it went forward. But I can recall lining up--in fact, my
parents pulling me along and urging me to stand in line to get the
first shot, and then the following year, get the next shot, because to
them it was not just a medical routine. It could eliminate the constant
worry and concern that one day their child could be subject to polio.
So this notion of vaccine that is prompted by Mr. Kennedy is, I think,
contrary to the great experience, at least, of those who have been
through that period of time.
Mr. Kennedy has spent the last decade or more spreading lies about
vaccines and encouraging families not to vaccinate their children. He
is not just an advocate with a loud bullhorn spreading that
message. Indeed, Mr. Kennedy has made a living making millions of
dollars, no less, questioning the safety of vaccines--safety that has
been proven time and time again.

Mr. Kennedy chaired one of the most prominent anti-vaccine
organizations, the Children's Health Defense, for almost a decade,
stepping aside only to run for President in 2023.
Mr. Kennedy had a long and successful career as an environmental
lawyer, and he has a compelling personal history overcoming addiction
and should be commended for that. However, Mr. Kennedy's only work in
the health space has been deeply detrimental to the public health of
the United States and, indeed, across the globe. There is no starker
example of this than his work in Samoa 5 years ago.
In 2018, in a tragic mistake, two infants in Samoa died after
receiving their measles vaccine. The vaccines had been improperly
prepared--improperly prepared--with a muscle relaxer instead of water.
To be clear, nothing about the vaccine itself killed these children.
Indeed, two nurses were imprisoned for 5 years for the mistake they
made that day.
Children's Health Defense, again, chaired by Mr. Kennedy, seized on
the opportunity and began questioning the safety of the measles vaccine
online. Between the tragic accident and the spread of misinformation,
the vaccine rate in Samoa fell to dangerously low levels.
Children's Health Defense pressed on, paying for Mr. Kennedy to
travel to Samoa, with a prominent anti-vaccine activist, to meet with
the Prime Minister and other government officials, as well as other
anti-vaccine activists.
And the damage was done. A measles outbreak began a few months later
and, with such low vaccination rates, spread rapidly. By January 2020,
there were almost 6,000 cases of measles, which resulted in the death
of 83 people, and nearly all of the deaths were in children under the
age 5.
Two truly tragic deaths spiraled into over 80 deaths, mostly of young
children. And really think about that: children dying of a vaccine-
preventable illness, with a vaccine widely available. And Mr. Kennedy
was one of the leading voices opposing vaccination, encouraging places
like Samoa to embrace a natural experience to see what happens when we
stop routine vaccinations.
We have seen what happens. Children die.
And on top of that, Mr. Kennedy not only maintains no wrongdoing; he
takes no responsibility. He denies the reality of what happened. In his
confirmation hearing, he claimed that the cause of these children's
death wasn't clear. Nothing could be further from the truth. We know
exactly what happened, and Mr. Kennedy is still peddling misinformation
to the U.S. Senate and to the people of America.
Now, I mentioned that Mr. Kennedy stepped down from Children's Health
Defense in 2023 to run for President, which leads me to my next
concern. It has been reported that Mr. Kennedy, in fact, approached
both the Trump and Harris campaigns offering his support if he could
take on a prominent role in the winning campaign's administration.
Then-Candidate Donald Trump took him up on his offer. In short order,
Mr. Kennedy abandoned his campaign, endorsed President Trump, and, it
appears, agreed to do whatever President Trump would demand of him in
the new role as Secretary of HHS.
The American people, I do not believe, can trust Mr. Kennedy. Mr.
Kennedy has proven, time and time again, that he will bow to President
Trump and his reckless agenda.
For example, Mr. Kennedy has a long, lifetime record of being pro-
choice. Yet he said at his confirmation hearing that he will do
whatever President Trump wants on issues of reproductive health,
perhaps taking away lifesaving care for women.
During his confirmation hearings, Mr. Kennedy downplayed the work
that he had done discrediting vaccines, no doubt to secure the votes he
needed to get confirmed in this role. When asked about his affiliation
with Children's Health Defense, which, again, promotes anti-vaccine
views widely and he chaired for almost a decade, he acted like he had
barely heard of it.
When asked about his previous statement sowing doubts about vaccines,
he claimed it was taken out of context or misrepresented. Yet these
anti-vaccine statements are not things he has said once or twice; they
are deeply held views that he has spent a lifetime pushing.
In 2015, for example, Mr. Kennedy falsely associated autism with
vaccines, saying:

They get the shot, that night they have a fever of 103
degrees, they go to sleep, and three months later their brain
is gone. This is a Holocaust, what this is doing to our
country.

He did later apologize for equating autism with the Holocaust, but he
has

[[Page S906]]

only doubled down on his lies about vaccines and autism. As recently as
2023, in an interview he said:

I've read the science on autism and I can tell you, if you
want to know. David, you've got to answer this question: if
autism didn't come from the vaccines, then where is it coming
from?

Well, ask scientists, not Robert Kennedy.
However, this wasn't the first time he had made references to such
despicable examples as Nazi Germany when talking about childhood
immunizations.
When speaking at a conference in 2013 about his claim that vaccines
cause autism--a claim that has been debunked decades before and many
times since, he stated:

To me this is like Nazi death camps, what happened to these
kids.

When asked why the CDC would cover up the supposed link between
vaccines and autism, Mr. Kennedy said:

I can't tell you why somebody would do something like that.
I can't tell you why ordinary Germans participated in the
Holocaust.

This is not the language of a thoughtful, insightful person dealing
with a subject so critical to our country as vaccines. This is
inflammatory, outrageous, and I think consistent with his behavior,
unfortunately.
Now, Mr. Kennedy has also said that vaccine scientists should be
imprisoned for their work. At the same conference he said of vaccine
researchers:

Is it hyperbole when I say these people should be in jail?
They should be in jail and the key should be thrown away.

In 2021, speaking on a podcast about how he encourages people not to
vaccinate their children, he said:

If you're walking down the street--and I do this now
myself, which is, you know, I don't want to do--I'm not a
busybody. I see somebody on a hiking trail carrying a little
baby, and I say to him, ``Better not get him vaccinated.''
And he heard that from me. If he hears it from 10 other
people, maybe he won't do it, you know, maybe he will save
that child.

In case it wasn't clear, he repeated his position later in the same
podcast saying:

If you're one of 10 people that goes up to a guy, a man or
a woman, who's carrying a baby and says, ``Don't vaccinate
that baby,'' when they hear that from 10 people, it'll make
an impression on `em, you know. And we all kept our mouth
shut. Don't keep your mouth shut anymore. Confront everybody
on it.

In the summer of 2023, speaking on a podcast, he was asked if there
was any vaccine he thought was good, and he responded:

There's no vaccine that is safe or effective.

That says it all. He has a long, long record of opposing vaccines and
discouraging families from getting vaccinated.
But now that Mr. Kennedy is facing a nomination vote in the Senate,
he changes his tune. Mr. Kennedy said in his own confirmation hearing
that he did not oppose vaccines and had, in fact, gotten all of his
kids vaccinated.
That is a hard pill to swallow for the families in Samoa whose
children died after Mr. Kennedy and his organization convinced them not
to vaccinate their children.
If confirmed to this role, I don't know which Robert Kennedy we will
get: the pro-choice, environmental lawyer with a penchant for
conspiracy theories and pushing anti-vaccine propaganda or a mouthpiece
for President Trump, pushing an anti-choice agenda, putting women's
lives at risk, advocating for an end to Medicaid and the Affordable
Care Act, and allowing Elon Musk and DOGE to undermine HHS at every
turn.
Either outcome is dangerous to the American people and their health,
and I will oppose the nomination.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Washington.
Ms. CANTWELL. Mr. President, I rise to share my deep concerns about
entrusting our Nation's ability to respond to another pandemic, our
world leading medical innovation infrastructure, the ability of women
in my State to choose a medical abortion, and continued research for
healthcare of millions of Americans, putting that in the hands of the
HHS Secretary nominee, Robert F. Kennedy.
We all agree that our healthcare system could be reformed. It can be
bloated; it can be maddening. Too many people have gotten the dreaded
letter from an insurance company telling them: ``Sorry, your procedure
isn't covered.'' And if you don't have insurance, you avoid that doctor
visit, and you pay out of pocket, or maybe you wait until you end up in
the emergency room and have to deal with medical debt. And we all know
the cost of prescription drugs are too high.
We agree that we are spending way too much and that we need better
outcomes. So you only have to look at the health outcomes of virtually
every other industrialized nation to know that they spend less and get
better results. But rather than choose a new leader for the Health and
Human Services Agency that would lead us down that better path,
President Trump's nominee would get us stuck in conspiracy theories
that would cost us lives.
The nominee has been a purveyor of disinformation. As my colleague
from Rhode Island just mentioned, sowing doubt about lifesaving
vaccines, he said, ``[ . . . ] the COVID 19 was a bio-weapon that
spared Jews and the Chinese [ . . . ].''
Achieving better health outcomes, both today and in the future,
happens when we follow science--not conspiracy theories, but science. I
happen to represent a very innovative science State, and right now, it
is a choice about innovation versus the skepticism represented by this
nominee.
Instead of speeding up innovation, under Mr. Kennedy, we would be
taking a risky step backwards. The COVID pandemic showed us, in my
State, one of the first--actually, the first in the Nation known cases
of a COVID-19 case.
And 5 years ago this month, some of the first deaths occurred in my
State. Sadly, there were many more. And trust me, I came back here to
Washington, DC, and people talked as if business was usual, all the
while it was spreading across my State.
Ultimately, this pandemic killed more than 1.2 million people, and it
devastated our economy, it had an impact on our children's education,
and it has long term healthcare effects on millions of survivors.
Now, we are at the possibility of the beginning of another crisis,
the avian flu. This crisis is yet another reminder of the importance of
medical research and collaboration. But these two stories were on the
front page of the Seattle Times just yesterday, the cost of eggs
skyrocketing, caused by the avian flu, and the proposed cuts to NIH.
Now, what do people not understand? Does it make sense to cut science
at the time we might have another pandemic? Does it make sense to
continue to cut the collaborative efforts of research? This Washington
Animal Disease Diagnostic Laboratory at Washington State University is
on the frontlines of the avian flu.
One of my institutions is on the frontline. They test animals from
across the State so they can be identified and stop the flu from
spreading. And we want to cut those dollars?
Americans already see the impact of the avian flu every time they go
to the grocery store, and now, people in Seattle and Spokane are saying
it costs $7 for a dozen eggs. Some stores are limiting how many eggs
you can buy.
So, as you can see, this issue is on the top of mind of constituents,
and they want to know what kind of leadership we are going to provide
here in Washington, DC, to lower costs, particularly at the grocery
store, but to also lower costs in healthcare. Putting someone in charge
who is a skeptic of medical science in response to the avian flu is
just wrong. It is a catastrophic mistake for America's healthcare.
Now, I will admit my State is a global leader in medical innovation.
From research, to biotech, to getting drugs to the market--in 2023, the
National Institutes of Health awarded $1.2 billion in highly
competitive grants to 65 different organizations in the State of
Washington.
This supported about 12,000 jobs and generated close to $3 billion in
economic activity. So, yes, we know a little something about global
health and innovation. But we know something else, Mr. President, the
kind of research we are talking about here is the kind that saves
lives, and this, ultimately, is about making an investment in saving
the lives of people.
Last Friday, when the Trump administration announced it was reducing

[[Page S907]]

crucial funding for NIH grants, you are talking about our medical
institutions that need this to build services and equipment and train
the next generation of researchers.
For example, as I mentioned, Washington State University with avian
flu, they actually help pay for backup generators. These generators
keep the systems working in case of a power outage so the pathogens
can't escape. So if you cut the institution and you cut the lab, who is
going to pay for these overhead costs? Or will they have to cancel
their research or stop training the PhD students?
So, this week, a court stepped in and blocked the NIH head count cuts
for now, but believe me, people are afraid that their life's work will
be gone.
At the University of Washington Medicine, they are testing treatments
for kidney disease, diabetes, Alzheimer's, and pediatric cancer. So, if
the so-called DOGE cap goes into place, these are programs that will
see a shortfall.
They tell me they have to stop admitting new patients to clinical
trials, that they will have to scale back. And we can't just start and
stop medical research like a faucet. Once these people leave, the
programs are stopped. It takes a long time to get them started. Once
halted, the research data, the clinical trial, the patients, the
laboratory, the equipment that led to those innovations will be lost.
Now, if you ask me, that is throwing taxpayer dollars away. When you
have an opportunity to cure a disease that affects millions of people
and can save taxpayers billions, but somebody is arbitrarily going to
cut these NIH funds, thinking they are saving the American people? They
are not saving them. They are causing harm.
Cutting NIH and scientific research funding have consequences for
every State in this Union. North Carolina is home of the famous
research triangle and receives about $2.2 billion in NIH funding. Texas
is home of Baylor College of Medicine and receives about $1.85 billion
in NIH funding.
As a country, we should be working together to do more research,
create more jobs, and decide what are the lifesaving science and
medical innovations that we want to invest in and are represented in a
budget process here in the U.S. Senate--not the arbitrary decisions of
someone who hasn't even been elected to make these decisions.
But the risks don't stop at our medical labs. Republicans are
proposing to cut $2.3 trillion in Federal Medicaid funding so the
administration can afford to lower taxes on some of the most extreme
wealthy Americans.
More than 1.8 million Washingtonians are enrolled in Apple Health,
Washington's Medicaid program. So that is one in six adults, two in
five children, three in five nursing home residents, three in eight
people with disabilities. I am not confident, Mr. President, that Mr.
Kennedy understands how critical this process is and the provisions of
Medicaid are to people in my State.
We know that we had this debate before and only because a very small
bipartisan group of Senators helped save Medicaid from a crazy block
grant idea that would have taken a very big building block out of our
healthcare delivery system. Thanks to all my colleagues on this side
and those on that side who stood up for that and said block granting
was the wrong idea.
Well, believe me, they are at it again. There are those who think to
give the tax break to corporations, somehow you are going to get it out
of the hide of these very individuals that are counting on Medicaid.
I do not believe Mr. Kennedy will stand up to President Trump and be
an advocate for those who rely on Medicaid. I know my constituents know
what is at stake with this vote, and they know that our healthcare
delivery system is about science, it is about innovation, it is about
making the investments to keep Americans healthy. I urge my colleagues
to vote no on this nomination.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Democratic whip.
Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, the greatest threat to American prosperity
is not food aid to kids in Sudan or a diverse workforce; the greatest
threat to our country is the abuse of power by a small group of
people--an unelected group of people--who happen to have a billion
dollars.
Our Founding Fathers created a government with checks and balances,
but they didn't anticipate a U.S. Congress--now currently under
Republican control--that would voluntarily give away its constitutional
authority. That is where we find ourselves, as hospitals and medical
researchers in blue and red States are in chaos over the Trump
administration's attempt to usurp Congress's power of the purse.
When Senate Republicans abandon another constitutional responsibility
of advice and consent for Cabinet officials, we are presented with such
things as the bizarre nomination of Robert Kennedy, Jr., to serve as
Secretary of Health and Human Services.
It has been my honor to know members of the Kennedy family and
particularly to serve with one of them, Teddy Kennedy. He used to sit
right back there. He was an amazing man. He probably had more impact on
the legislative agenda and the outcome of legislation than anybody I
witnessed in the time I have been in the Senate. I counted him as a
friend, and I still mourn his loss. But today we are considering a
Kennedy that I don't believe is qualified to follow in his uncle's
footsteps.
Health and Human Services is a life-and-death Department of
government. Every day, Federal health officials decide whether to
approve new medications after they have been proven--clinically tested
and proven to be safe and effective. We count on the HHS to initiate
recalls of contaminated food. We count on that same Agency to
investigate new therapies for cancer clinical trials. We count on HHS
to alert doctors about an emergency disease outbreak. Think about the
gravity of those situations and how much is vested in the Secretary of
that critical Department.
In any of these tasks--critical, often historic tasks--Robert
Kennedy, Jr., would find himself unqualified, unfit, and dangerous to
lead the Department of Health and Human Services.
Mr. Kennedy masquerades as a crusader for healthy foods and someone
who just wants to--``I just want to ask some questions. I just want to
study the science.''
America, the Senate, don't be fooled.
Mr. Kennedy has spent the past 30 years ignoring science and lying to
parents about vaccines, all the while enriching himself by the doubt he
has created.
He declared:

I see somebody on a hiking trail carrying a little baby and
I say to him, better not get that baby vaccinated.

Can you imagine that for a moment, that he would walk up to a person
he didn't know and counsel them: Don't vaccinate your child.
Look at this quote. Does this sound like the kind of person you want
to lead the premier health Agency of our Federal Government?
He states:

There's no vaccine that is safe and effective.

No vaccine safe and effective. And he wants to head the Health and
Human Services Department?
The organization he founded sells newborn onesies that have printed
on them ``Unvaccinated, Unafraid.'' Another one says ``No Vax, No
Problem.'' To him, it is a novelty, a game that he can say these things
about vaccines that literally have been proven over and over and over
again to be safe and save lives.
During his confirmation hearing, Senator Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, a
Senator, of course, and a medical doctor who has the distinguished
record of service to poor people in his State, practically begged
Robert Kennedy, Jr., to state unequivocally that the hepatitis B and
measles vaccines do not cause autism. Kennedy couldn't bring himself to
do it.
When confronted during his hearings with false statements he has made
linking vaccines to autism, he feigned ignorance to decades of research
findings and suggested he just needed to be shown the data. Well, that
data has been around for decades.
Mr. Kennedy approaches this job with bias--a deadly, dangerous bias--
and he is unwilling to consider information that contradicts his
preconceived conspiracies.
If Mr. Kennedy is confirmed, he won't be just speaking to one parent
on a

[[Page S908]]

hiking trail; he will be speaking to all American families from a
podium with a U.S. Government seal on it. That is a terrifying
prospect.
Since 1974, the measles vaccine has saved 94 million lives, and since
its creation, the smallpox vaccine has saved 200 million lives--2
proven, successful vaccines, and we have to sell them to a man who
wants to head the HHS and says that there is no vaccine that is safe
and effective?
Measles is one of the most contagious pathogens on Earth. When I was
a kid in the fifties going to school, it was common for kids to get
measles. I had them. I stayed home from school a few days and usually
got through it all after waiting at home for all those red spots to go
away. Yet, with Mr. Kennedy's megaphone online, we are seeing the
danger of conspiracy theories.
Last year, a record share of kindergartners across America had
nonmedical exemption from vaccines. Right now, there is a measles
outbreak tearing through Gaines County, TX. Seven kids are
hospitalized--all unvaccinated. Gaines County has one of the highest
rates in Texas of school-age children opting out of vaccines. Why are
parents in that county in Texas and a few other counties forgoing
lifesaving vaccines? Because of fraudsters like Mr. Kennedy.
What about polio? I know that issue personally. I see Senator King on
the floor. He remembers it as well. Since 1955, the polio vaccine has
prevented 20 million people from becoming paralyzed and saved 1\1/2\
million lives. Most Americans are lucky never to have ever experienced
the fear of polio. I remember, as a kid, it scared the hell out of us.
A kid could go to school healthy and be paralyzed at dinnertime.
A constituent of mine, Mary Ellen from Union County, wrote to me.
Mary Ellen said:

When I was in kindergarten, my best friend disappeared for
weeks. When I asked about her, people shook their heads--
saying polio. When she returned, she couldn't walk without
heavy leg braces. . . . We could hear her cry and scream with
pain.

I remember that era--iron lungs, leg braces, paralysis, and worse.
Had Mr. Kennedy been our Nation's Health Secretary at that time,
would American families have access today to lifesaving measles and
polio vaccines? I am afraid the answer is clearly no. This isn't
speculation; look at the record.
Mr. Kennedy and his associates have filed petitions with the Food and
Drug Administration to remove the COVID, hepatitis B, and polio
vaccines from the market.
In 2019, Mr. Kennedy flew to Samoa during a measles outbreak to
question whether the vaccines themselves were causing the illness. As a
result of that, 83 people died in Samoa.
When asked by Senator Warren, Mr. Kennedy said he would not do
anything differently about that dangerous trip. Eighty-three people
died as he spread those falsehoods about the vaccine.
Senator Cassidy aptly wondered:

Does a 70-year-old man who spent decades criticizing
vaccines and was financially vested in finding fault . . .
can he change his [attitude]?

Mr. President, I am sorry, but we know the answer.
Listen, I understand we have a great health system in this country,
but I also understand it is flawed in many ways. I spent years in my
Senate and House career to lower drug prices, rein in Big Pharma's
influence, and stop Big Tobacco from peddling poison to our kids. But
just because he might talk about the right problems doesn't mean Mr.
Kennedy has the right solutions. In fact, over 2 days of hearings, he
did not offer a single concrete idea on how to improve the delivery of
primary care or preventive healthcare services.
It was clear Mr. Kennedy didn't understand the difference between
Medicaid and Medicare. Mr. President, I will tell you, that is an issue
that you take up in Congress 101.
Nobody believes Kennedy will stand up to President Trump or Elon Musk
on medical research.
I understand the urge to shake things up, to address failures in our
healthcare system, but Mr. Kennedy brings an unacceptable prejudice
that will only cause harm and be dangerous to American families.
Neil Steinberg writes for the Chicago Sun-Times. He wrote that when
you are claiming you want to ``study'' the issue where the science is
settled, that is code for dismissing facts that don't serve your
personal bias.
I fear there is a sense that being an outsider is qualification
enough, but how far could Senate Republicans be willing to go if they
pursue that dangerous path? Make no mistake, if the political tables
were turned and it were Democrats proposing this man for this job, he
wouldn't get a single Republican vote in the Senate. He would be
decried as a pro-choice, anti-vax, uninformed, conspiracy theorist who
trades on his family name to peddle dangerous misinformation that
benefits him financially. And guess what. This nominee is all of those
things. But because he was nominated by President Trump and has the
MAGA seal of approval, my Republican colleagues can't wait to march
down and support his nomination.
Many of them secretly, privately, quietly know better. Some of them
are doctors or parents themselves who trusted doctors to vaccinate
their kids or people who spent their lives trying to really improve our
health system. They know Mr. Kennedy is not the right choice for the
job, and they know our children will suffer the most if he becomes HHS
Secretary. I hope they will find the courage to join me and reject his
nomination.
Let me add this point that is related to this issue, and I will make
it brief. On Friday, the Trump administration issued an illegal order
to impose an arbitrary cap of 15 percent on ``indirect costs'' that the
NIH pays to grantees for essential research expenses.
Without this funding for specialized equipment, data processing,
safety materials, and the maintenance of labs, universities and
hospitals nationwide will not be able to afford the technology that
allows them to continue lifesaving research.
This is a critical moment in America's history. After the progress
that we have made, after the leadership we have shown, are we going to,
under this new President, turn our backs on medical research? God
forbid. If you go through the misfortune of a terrible diagnosis for
yourself or someone you love, you pray that you can then ask the
doctor: Is there anything--a new medicine, a new cure, a new surgical
procedure? And you are hoping that medical researchers lead that answer
to yes that one moment in your life.
In 2017--the last time President Trump attempted to cut NIH funding--
the now-House Appropriations Committee chair, Tom Cole of Oklahoma,
called the proposal ``arbitrary, unreasonable, and ultimately
destructive of the research enterprise.'' Chairman Cole understood that
cutting funding means clinical trials will be delayed, new
breakthroughs in cures will be put off, and promising researchers will
get discouraged and leave the field.
A constituent and doctor from Palos Heights, IL, wrote to me:

I care about this issue because I know new research on
immunology kept my stage-4-cancer-patient wife alive for 10
years, enough to see our youngest son graduate from high
school.

This sudden, indiscriminate cut to medical research violates Federal
law, which blocks NIH from deviating from its current indirect cost
policy.
Thankfully, my attorney general in Illinois, Kwame Raoul, and 21
other States filed a Federal lawsuit to temporarily halt this senseless
cut.
Remember, tweets from Elon Musk forced a bipartisan pediatric cancer
research bill to be cut from a government spending bill just a few
weeks ago. Now Mr. Musk is at it again; only this time, he is targeting
cancer, Alzheimer's, and diabetes. If Elon Musk were to get sick, I
will bet the richest man in the world would find the doctor he wanted.
I am sure he would. For the rest of us, for the parents facing a
devastating diagnosis of someone we love, this is a cruel political
decision.
A University of Chicago researcher put it this way:

This attack on the very structure of . . . academic
research . . . is threatening a system that every other
country in the world has tried to reproduce. . . . It seems
spiteful and targeted at those of us who just want to
contribute to a better society.

Mr. President, I don't know that this will continue to be a problem
and challenge, but I promise you this: As long as I have the power to
stand and speak out in favor of the National Institutes of Health, I am
going to do it.
This country is a great country. It has greatness that includes
medical research--maybe the best in the world.

[[Page S909]]

Why in the world would we give up on that? And why would we choose
someone so bizarre to head up the Health and Human Services Agency and
trust with him life-or-death decisions? It is a bad choice.
I will be voting to oppose Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., and doing
everything in my power to restore the spending for medical research in
America.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Justice). The Senator from Colorado.
Mr. HICKENLOOPER. Mr. President, I appreciate what the good Senator
from Illinois has gone through and enunciated in great clarity.
Our government plays a critical role in informing the public. The
American people look to us for trust. They look to us for guidance
during the roughest points of our history. They look to us for
accurate, factual information so they can have the freedom to raise
their families without fear and anxiety.
That trust is broken when partisan officials use their platforms to
spread reckless and damaging information. They attempt to overwhelm
Americans with views that push anti-science narratives or foreign
propaganda often that threatens our national security.
You can't go onto social media anymore without running into a fake
headline or some hyperbolic clamor with no source. I mean, for so many
people, the more you see, the more you believe, and this leaves
Americans dazed and confused, unsure of who to trust and where they can
go to get accurate information.
Unfortunately, the new administration has shown a bias towards
elevating people who peddle disinformation, spreading seemingly random
falsehoods about our voting systems, marginalized groups, or our public
health. This has real negative impacts on Americans.
Way back in 1980, I graduated with a master's in Earth sciences. I
moved west to work as a geologist. Earth sciences is kind of low on the
Pavlov pyramid of science, but I published peer-reviewed studies, and I
have a reverence for the scientific process. I think I understand how
it works, despite the fact that there are not that many of us left
around here anymore. I will be the first to admit that science can
sometimes surprise us. It is always evolving. It is why the entire
field of science relies on constant evaluation and constant research to
continue to make new discoveries or deepen our understanding of complex
problems.

Leading with science helps us get the most accurate information we
can. Yet the Trump administration's appetite for anti-scientific claims
and disinformation is something that, in many ways, threatens all of
us. It puts our country at risk.
This morning, the Senate confirmed Tulsi Gabbard as the Director of
National Intelligence. I voted no on her confirmation. Ms. Gabbard has
none of the relevant qualifications or intelligence experience
sufficient for this role. Officials from both sides of the aisle have
raised concerns about her ability to provide the President with
impartial analysis as the Nation's top intelligence officer.
Ms. Gabbard has frequently parroted Russian disinformation. She
repeated Russia's erroneous justification for its brutal invasion of
Ukraine. She criticized Kyiv's democratic government--a steadfast
partner of the United States--and she spread, repeatedly, falsehoods
about her own involvement in bioweapons research in Ukraine.
Let's be clear about what this means: An American adversary invades
another democracy, and Ms. Gabbard actively pushes their narrative.
Either she cannot distinguish fact from fiction or she intentionally
chooses to promote false claims. Either scenario should be
disqualifying for a Cabinet official, let alone one who is responsible
for ensuring the President has accurate and timely intelligence.
As they say, ``He who stands for nothing will fall for anything.''
Regardless of her intentions or what she actually believes, her
readiness to champion clear disinformation undermines our national
security and puts American servicemembers at risk.
As the Director of National Intelligence, Ms. Gabbard will have full
visibility into every threat that the military and civilian personnel
who perform these vital missions in Colorado and across the country and
around the world are working tirelessly to address. They need leaders--
we need leaders--who base every assessment and decision on accurate
intelligence, not propaganda, especially not propaganda from one of the
most threatening rivals we have.
President Trump's nominee to the Department of Health and Human
Services, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., is another clear example of someone
who is willing to overlook facts and science when it is convenient. He
has a wide following, and many people look to him for guidance and for
leadership. In particular, his ideas of a healthier America appeal to
many Coloradans. Indeed, they appeal to me as well.
But make no mistake: Our country can and should be healthier, and we
all share a vested effort in that direction. There is a bipartisan
appetite to get us there. We should provide better food options and
keep unsafe chemicals out of the products that we eat, but we have to
be able to do it in tandem with fact-based science and thoughtful
policy to protect Americans and to keep them safe.
RFK, Jr., has shown a propensity for anti-science claims. One of his
most anti-scientific claims is that autism is caused by childhood
vaccines. This is a claim that has been spread through many communities
for decades. It is all based on a single paper published back in 1998.
That paper was retracted years ago, and there have been hundreds of
studies on the nonexistent link between autism and the measles vaccine
ever since. They have all--I repeat--they have all had a zero
connection between vaccines and the cause of autism. Let me be clear:
Every single one found a zero connection. It is settled science.
Vaccines are not only extremely safe; they are extremely effective.
Every year, they save millions of lives all around the globe. We have
effectively eliminated horrible diseases like polio, and we are making
considerable progress toward a vaccine for HIV and for AIDS. In the
last hundred years, our country's average life expectancy has increased
by 30 years, and 25 of those 30 years are largely attributed to vaccine
adoption and clean drinking water. Vaccines not only save lives, but
they also make lives healthier and happier, which is as they were
intended.
Now, some of the damage from disinformation about vaccines is nearly
impossible to undo. Why would anyone accept the results of one debunked
paper rather than the conclusions of hundreds of studies that have been
conducted since?
It is completely understandable for parents to have questions and
concerns about vaccines that their children receive. I know I have as a
parent. As a parent of two kids--one who just turned 2 years old--I
understand the concern that families feel. We want to make sure that we
are doing everything we can to keep our kids healthy and safe. We do
the best we can with what we have to make them as healthy and happy as
possible. People who peddle vaccine skepticism are preying upon
parents' very rational fears to advance these conspiracy theories.
Parents are trying their hardest to keep their kids safe and healthy,
and it is irresponsible for people to plague them with pseudoscience
and misinformation when the science has been settled on this for
decades. The measles vaccine is safe and does not cause autism.
It is personal for me, too. My son Teddy--now in college--
unfortunately, got pertussis, or whooping cough, when he was 4 months
old--before he was able to finish his full vaccination schedule--after
he interacted with an unvaccinated child. Because of how rare whooping
cough is now, it took us a while to get the correct diagnosis.
Finally, when we got him into Children's Hospital, I remember staying
up all night for 2 nights in a row to blast little puffs of oxygen into
his coughing face--to snap him out of those coughs--about every 10
minutes and to prevent his oxygen blood levels from dropping too low.
It is one of the most frightening experiences of my entire life.
Whooping cough--that disease--is rare because of the vaccine and
because of the adoption of that vaccine. America was able to almost
completely stamp it out of existence. If we backslide in the number of
children getting vaccinated, stories like what happened

[[Page S910]]

to my son Teddy are going to become more common and more severe.
When you consistently promote uncertainty in settled science, it
begins to raise doubts about all science, and it slows our progress
using science against the really big challenges, like a cure for cancer
and vaccines for the next pandemic.
In President Trump's first full term--at the height of the COVID-19
pandemic--Operation Warp Speed helped bring vaccines to the public in
record time. The National Institutes of Health estimate that Operation
Warp Speed saved over 140,000 lives by speeding up the development of
vaccines by more than 5 months. When the next pandemic comes along--it
is not if; it is when--we are going to need a robust Federal response
and preparedness plan. We need the ability to get to a vaccine down to
100 days. We need that plan to be guided by actual science. Otherwise,
we obviously endanger the lives and health of all Americans.

The Department of Health and Human Services also oversees Federal
medical research as Senator Durbin pointed out. The research has
unlocked groundbreaking achievements in public health and will continue
to help us cure diseases and work toward solutions for a variety of
illnesses. However, the White House announced late last week that they
are slashing funding for the National Institutes of Health.
This will have devastating impacts on research projects in Colorado
and across the United States, including places in Colorado like CU-
Anschutz, Fort Lewis College, and National Jewish Health. Our Colorado
institutions are at the forefront of medical research from everything
from clinical trials for veterans who are struggling with PTSD to
individuals with Down syndrome. These cuts for research institutions,
rural hospitals, and our veterans will impact our most vulnerable
communities--all this to give tax cuts to the wealthiest Americans.
Again, I am all for making government more efficient and smaller. If
you want to seriously look at how we spend money and where we can cut
actual fraud and waste and abuse, I am in. I am game. But I struggle to
understand how stripping funding for cancer research or Head Start or
hiring programs for law enforcement officers is wasteful. These cuts
throughout our government are exaggerated by the extreme nominees who
are really ill-equipped and ill-experienced to handle large
governmental organizations.
The administration also continues to illegally dismantle Agencies
without having congressional approval. They have attempted to freeze
Federal funding--something the courts have halted but that the White
House continues to pursue. Colorado and the American people are caught
in their crosshairs.
I have committed to opposing nominees who pose a genuine threat to
Colorado. We have also helped support lawsuits and oppose some of these
Executive actions. I would be the first to admit our government isn't
perfect. Government never will be. I would be the first to recognize
that it takes all of our elected officials to do their duty for the
American people and to be truthful and for our constituents to hold us
accountable.
The American experiment in democratic government is just too
important to confirm people who actively spread disinformation and
refuse to follow science. It threatens Coloradans. It puts all of us at
risk.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Maine.
Mr. KING. Mr. President, I would like to begin my remarks this
afternoon by talking a little bit about the Constitution.
I spent some time last week talking about the Constitution and our
failure to observe that the constitutional, fundamental structure of
the division of power between the Congress and the Executive is being
violated and that Congress is allowing it to happen.
Another provision of the Constitution is the provision in article I
about advice and consent. It is a fundamental check and balance built
into the Constitution, by the Framers, for a reason. It wasn't a
throwaway line or a few sentences that were put in because they wanted
to fill the paragraph out. Again, it is part of the structure that was
designed to protect us from tyranny. The structure involved the
division of power, the separation of power, because the Framers knew,
if all power was concentrated in a single individual or a single
institution, that that institution or that individual would inevitably
abuse our people. That is human nature. That is 1,000 years of human
nature. All power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. So
the advice and consent provision was in the Constitution for a reason.
It was in there for a reason in order to provide a check on the
Executive and the people who were going to be put in charge of running
the administration.
By the way, I want to stop for a minute and focus on the word
``administration'' and the word ``Executive'' because it really goes to
the discussion we are having in this country right now about how our
government is supposed to work.
The ``Executive'' comes from the word ``execute,'' and the word
``execute'' means ``to put into action.'' It doesn't mean to initiate
the action. It means to put it into action. It is the same for the word
``administration.'' There is a reason we call it the administration.
They are to administer the laws. In fact, the obligation on the
President in article II is to see that the laws are faithfully
executed. It does not give the President the power to ignore laws or to
decide which laws he or she thinks are OK; to ignore the responsibility
and constitutional authority of the Congress to define spending. It
does not give the President that power; although the fellow we approved
for the Office of Management and Budget last week thinks he has that
power or this President or any President has that power. That is
absolutely antithetical to the whole concept of the Constitution as
established by the Framers.
So ``administration'' means administer the laws. ``Executive'' means
execute the laws, not make them. We make the laws here, and the
administration is to faithfully execute those laws.
Now, let's talk about ``advice and consent.'' ``Advice and consent''
means we have a responsibility--a constitutional responsibility--to
consider each of the President's nominees for these important jobs.
This isn't something that we may do or occasionally do; this is a
fundamental part of our job.
We take an oath when we come here to defend the Constitution against
all enemies, foreign and domestic.
I think it is interesting. They knew in 1787 that there was a
potential for domestic enemies of the Constitution.
So we have an obligation to take ``advice and consent'' seriously.
Now, I am a former Governor, as is the Presiding Officer. And as a
former executive, I believe the executive should have the ability to
choose the team that they want, to choose their advisers, to choose the
people who they will work with, with some limitations. In other words,
I start with the premise that the person elected should--perhaps, ``get
the benefit of the doubt'' is a little too strong. But I start with the
premise that they were elected, and they should be able to choose the
team that they are going to be working with.
However, I think there are two qualifications. And, by the way, this
has been my stated position on this subject since I entered the Senate.
We should give the benefit of the doubt to the Executive. However, the
nominee must be manifestly qualified and not hostile to the mission of
the Agency to which they have been appointed--two criteria, two
criteria that, for me, give life to the idea of ``advice and consent.''
OK. Let's talk about Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. He, unfortunately, checks
both of the boxes as to being disqualified. No. 1, he is not remotely
qualified to run an organization of the magnitude of HHS. He has no
background in management, no experience in running anything remotely
like the scope and scale of the Department of Health and Human
Services, no executive experience in that sense.
That is No. 1: Is he qualified? No, he is grossly unqualified.
But the second box is my criteria: Is he hostile to the mission of
the Agency? And if the mission of the Agency, HHS, is to protect the
health of the American people, I would argue he is manifestly hostile
to that mission.
There has been a lot of discussion here today, and I think it is
interesting. I don't know how this debate is

[[Page S911]]

going. I haven't heard too many people come up on the floor and support
this nominee and tell us why he should be approved, because do you know
what? If this were a secret ballot, this man wouldn't get 20 votes.
Everybody in this body knows he is not qualified. Everybody in this
body knows he has no business anywhere near this position. But here we
are; we are going to take a vote. Unfortunately, it will probably be on
a party-line basis.
But let me focus on just one little piece. On January 29, barely a
week ago, before the Senate Finance Committee, here is what Mr. Kennedy
said:

News reports have claimed that I am anti-vaccine or anti-
industry. I am neither. I am pro-safety. All of my kids are
vaccinated.

I bet that came as news to a lot of the people he has been leading
astray over the last 25 or 30 years.

All of my kids are vaccinated, and I believe vaccines have
a critical role in healthcare.

I am reminded of Saul on the road to Damascus--a miraculous
conversion. A bright light was shown, and, suddenly, the scales fell
from his eyes in his confirmation hearing.
Let's go back, a little over a year, to July 6, 2023. This is a
quote--a direct quote:

There is no vaccine that is safe and effective.

He later said on the podcast:

Vaccines are inherently unsafe.

This man shouldn't be confirmed because he told the committee and the
Senate something diametrically opposed to the position he has taken the
last 30 years, all of his adult life.
Maya Angelou said if somebody tells you who they are, you should
believe them. And he has told us repeatedly.
And he has acted on his vaccine skepticism. This isn't something that
was rumbling around in his head. He has traveled the world. He has
written articles. He has gone on podcasts. He has gone on TV. And he
has discouraged people from being vaccinated. And now he has this
miraculous conversion 10 days ago:

All my kids are vaccinated, and I believe vaccines have a
critical role in healthcare.

The same thing during COVID--he said:

It is criminal medical malpractice to give a child one of
these vaccines.

Wow, criminal malpractice.
And, of course, as has been discussed, he said:

I do believe that autism does come from vaccines.

In July of 2023, there was one study in England--I think it was in
1998--that purported to show a tenuous connection between vaccines and
autism. I am reasonably confident that one of the authors of that study
recanted it. It was withdrawn, and it has been debunked over and over
and over again. But this man has been peddling this lie for 20 years.
Who knows how many parents have fallen for that, and who knows how
children have paid the price.
Just to talk about vaccines, at one point during the pandemic, there
was a survey in July of 2021. Remember, that was the height of it. They
surveyed 50 hospitals in 17 States. Ninety-four percent of the patients
hospitalized in July of 2021 were unvaccinated. What does that tell
you? Vaccinations worked, and people who were unvaccinated were at an
enormously higher risk--94 percent of the people were unvaccinated.
In addition to the vaccination issue, this man doesn't respect the
FDA, the Agency that was put in place to protect our health, to
regulate us, to be sure that we are getting safe medications, to deal
with some of the awful problems of the potential of harmful medications
literally getting into America's bloodstream.
In December of 2024, barely 2 months ago, he said he would fire
officials at the FDA. And in October 2024, he said on X:

FDA's war on public health is about to end. If you work for
the FDA and are part of this corrupt system, I have two
messages for you . . . Preserve your records, and . . . pack
your bags.

He didn't say a certain office in the FDA or a certain part of the
FDA or maybe there was one provision or part that he didn't think was
helpful. He said: ``If you work for the FDA''--that is everybody--
``preserve your records, and . . . Pack your bags.''

This man is not only unqualified; he is anti-qualified. He is a
danger.
We have physicians in the Senate. I believe that the Hippocratic
Oath, ``Do no harm,'' should apply to Senate votes. You should not be
voting for somebody who you know is going to do harm to the public
health.
So this is really a kind of surreal debate because everybody in this
Chamber knows this man should not be Secretary of Health and Human
Services.
Now, I want to end with a personal story. One of the few advantages
of being older is that you have a long memory. In 1952, I was entering
the third grade at MacArthur School in Alexandria, VA, and in my class
in the third grade was a kid named Butch. He was horribly twisted into
a wheelchair. I don't think I had ever seen a wheelchair when I was
going into the third grade, but he was there.
And here it is--I am not even going to say how many years later, but
I can close my eyes and see Butch in that chair. Polio was what he had.
He was in pain daily. He could barely make himself understood. His arms
were crossed. His legs were bent grotesquely in the wheelchair. And 3
years later, the Salk vaccine began what turned out to be the
elimination of polio.
Where would we be as a country if this man had been the head of--at
that time, it was HEW--and somehow put a stop to this vaccine, which I
believe he has said even the polio vaccine should be rescinded, which
has saved millions of lives around the world. Where would we be?
I can't escape the memory of that boy in that wheelchair. I can't
escape the memory of my parents not letting me go to the public
swimming pool because of the fear of polio, not being able to go out
and play in the summer in Virginia because of the fear of polio that
stalked the land.
The former Republican leader was a victim of polio. The former
President, Franklin D. Roosevelt, was a victim of polio. And it was the
vaccine that ended it.
I hope this place comes to its senses and rejects this surreal
nomination. It would be hard to find someone less qualified to serve in
this position. I believe it will lead to damage to our country, to our
health, to our children.
I urge my colleagues to vote no. If you vote yes, you will regret it.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Minnesota.
Ms. SMITH. Mr. President, I want to just, first, comment on how much
I appreciated the comments of my colleague from Maine, Senator King--
both in your elucidation of the deep challenges of the Robert Kennedy,
Jr., nomination but also your close look at what the difference is
between the legislative branch and the executive branch, and the role
that we have in this body to provide advice and consent.
And I appreciated what you were saying about kind of what your North
Star is when you look at these nominations.
I would say I agree with you that I do believe that incoming
Presidents should be able to surround themselves with people whom they
trust, and that, of course, we may strongly disagree with the
President; however, he has the right to have people around him who
agree with him.
But I think that there is something that you said, Senator King, that
was extremely important. I also look at these nominations in terms of
whether I believe they have the base-level qualifications to do the
job. And then the second thing I ask myself is, Can I trust these
individuals? Can I trust Robert Kennedy to follow the law?
I mean, that is fundamentally what their responsibility is--to,
certainly, be loyal to the person who put them in that role, but also,
at a base level, that they are going to follow the law.
So, Mr. President, I rise today to highlight what I consider to be
the threat of Robert F. Kennedy, the threat that he poses to Americans'
health and safety and well-being.
In fact, I have concluded--I have talked with him. I have listened to
him. I have asked him questions, both in a private setting and also in
committee. And I have read his words and his history. I can only
conclude that he cannot be trusted with this important job; that I
cannot trust him to follow the laws of this land.
I believe that Mr. Kennedy is wholly unqualified for the position of
Secretary of Health and Human Services,

[[Page S912]]

and that he is unprepared to lead. And I think that he cannot be
trusted with the health and the well-being of Americans, particularly
in this moment.
Now, if you are listening to this, and you don't really know that
much about the Department of Health and Human Services, you have got a
busy life, you are trying to figure out how to afford your life and how
to kind of hold it together in what is a very busy and complicated
world, I want to just be clear about what I think Mr. Kennedy's
confirmation would mean for Minnesota families. If he is allowed to
become Secretary, I have concluded that your family will be less safe,
that your loved ones will be more likely to get sick, and that you and
the people you care about will be less likely to get the care you need.

As I have thought about this, what I find most disqualifying about
Mr. Kennedy is how he has basically made his career--he has built a
career around saying what he needs to say in order to get attention,
and by getting attention, he is making money. I think it is just
important to understand this. This is whether he is talking about
vaccines or infectious diseases, whether he is talking about anything.
So you walk away from talking with this individual not entirely sure
what it is that he believes because he does seem willing to say nearly
anything to nearly everybody without actually considering what impact
his words have on the lives of real people, whether he is talking about
reproductive freedom, whether he is talking about mental health care,
whether he is talking about infectious diseases, whether he is talking
about vaccines.
So let's focus a bit on the question of vaccines because I think this
is the thing that has gotten the most attention--and rightly so.
In decades of public appearances, as well as in our one-on-one
meeting--the one-on-one meetings that I had with him--as well as when
he talked about this in front of the Finance Committee, Mr. Kennedy has
continued to promote harmful and dangerous information--information
that if people followed and they paid attention to him and they did
what he suggested, it could do real harm to their families; it could
hurt them.
If you think about vaccines, this is his long and very public record
of denying the safety and the efficacy of vaccines. In fact, he has
spent almost the last two decades of his life promoting these harmful
and false theories that vaccines will cause autism and that they are
otherwise unsafe.
As an example, in 2021, he proudly described stopping strangers out
on hikes and telling them not to vaccinate their babies. Can you
imagine that? You are out walking around, and Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.,
comes up to you--a man of stature and power--and says: Don't vaccinate
your children.
Those words have impact.
During a podcast interview in July of 2023, Mr. Kennedy said--and I
believe Senator King quoted this as well:

There's no vaccine that is safe and effective.

So, OK, just think about that. He is saying: Don't pay any attention
to the science. Don't pay any attention to the experts. I am going to
tell you that there is no vaccine that is safe and effective.
Those words have consequences.
The online store is another example. Mr. Kennedy's organization, the
Children's Health Defense--there is an online store. You can all go on
and check it out. You will find there that they are still selling
little baby onesies and T-shirts for little children that have messages
on them like ``Unvaccinated, Unafraid.''
Now, of course, here we are on the verge of a vote to decide whether
the U.S. Senate is going to confirm Mr. Kennedy, and, of course, now he
is denying all of that. He is distancing himself from all of these past
statements. But you can't run away from your words, certainly in this
day and age--and, I would argue, in any day and age. Those words are
out there. You said them. They are on the record. They are on video.
And it matters what the Secretary of Health and Human Services says,
what he says about these things, and, of course, it matters what he
doesn't say as well. Words have real consequences.
Just the mere fact of his presence being as the head of this Agency,
just the fact that he sits there is going to be a factor that will
cause some people not to know whether they can trust vaccines. He is in
a position of power and authority. He has a high and loud bully
pulpit--an individual who has told Americans, both when he was out on
hikes, stopping them as they are walking by, and on every media
megaphone that he could find, that vaccines are neither safe nor
effective. Yet here he is about to assume, unless my colleagues come to
their senses, this most highest, you could argue, public health job
that affects the health of all of our families. This is an unbelievable
and an unacceptable risk to the health and safety of Americans.
I also wanted to highlight for my colleagues an exchange that I had
with Mr. Kennedy when he came before the Finance Committee, where I
serve. I wanted to ask him about a statement that he had made about
Americans and antidepressants. When I probed him on this, I confronted
him with some things he had said in the past about antidepressants.
Basically, he attributed a connection between people who are using
antidepressants and school shootings. I asked him about that, and I
asked him whether he thought that folks who take antidepressants are
dangerous or not. He refused to even say that Americans who take
antidepressants are not dangerous. He could not even get those words
out of his mouth. In fact, he doubled down on his claims that
antidepressants do cause school shootings, and he claimed that this is
an area that needs to be studied and that he knows people who have had
``a much worse time getting off of SSRIs than they have getting off
heroin.''
Now, this is a typical strategy that I saw Mr. Kennedy take with many
of our colleagues both on the HELP Committee and on the Finance
Committee. When confronted with the facts and asked whether he believed
the science and the facts, he would always say some version of ``Show
me the data; show me the information'' even when the research is
settled, the data is settled.
Here, let me come to this question about whether or not
antidepressants are dangerous and are somehow a contributor to school
shootings, which is an outrageous thing to say.
There is a study in 2019 that was published in the Journal of
Behavioral Science and Law, and it says it appears that ``most school
shooters weren't treated with psychotropic medication before their
attacks. Even when they were, no direct or causal association was
found.''
I was stunned when Mr. Kennedy again sort of said ``Well, I don't
believe that research'' or ``I need to see other data; we need to look
at this.'' Of course, he is not willing to accept the facts and the
science. He is not willing to do that.
I am simply not willing to trust Mr. Kennedy when it comes to
ensuring that your children, your loved ones, the folks that you care
about in your lives, are going to actually have access to the mental
health treatments they need to live their lives as productively as they
possibly can.
It also, I think, is worth noting that these comments that Mr.
Kennedy is making linking antidepressants to school shootings--what it
does, of course, is it perpetuates the stigma that so many Americans
who struggle with mental illness, mental health--so many of those
Americans struggle with the stigma, and they already feel that, and yet
here is potentially the next head of Health and Human Services who is
perpetuating this stigma in a very real way.

I have seen this in my own life. I have seen people who have been
bowed down by this feeling that they can't talk about their challenges
with their mental health because people are going to think less of
them. It is a stigma that I have spent my time in the Senate working in
a bipartisan way to try to break down. So to see it perpetuated in this
way by Mr. Kennedy is just such a clear reason why he cannot be
trusted.
The rigorous, peer-reviewed research on SSRIs--a common form of
antidepressant--is the science Mr. Kennedy has willingly chosen to
ignore, but it is not the only science he has willfully chosen to
ignore. Mr. Kennedy said during his confirmation hearings

[[Page S913]]

that if President Trump directed him to go after mifepristone--one of
the key drugs that is used in medication abortion--he would do whatever
the President ordered, even though this is a medication that has been
proven safe and effective for more than two decades. Yet Mr. Kennedy
said that he would follow the guidance of the President and not the law
when it comes to the safety of mifepristone.
In fact, as my colleague Senator Hassan made so abundantly clear in
the committee, over 40 safety studies have demonstrated what Mr.
Kennedy was not willing to see, which is that there is clear evidence
that this medication is safe.
On reproductive freedom, Mr. Kennedy has proven himself wholly
untrustworthy, repeatedly flip-flopping on his position depending on
whom he is talking to. Now, this is something that many of us have seen
in our lives--a person who will say one thing to one person and another
thing to another person, all with the goal, it seems, of winning
friends and influencing people, but this is not the kind of character
you want to see in this most important job at the Federal Government,
leading the Department of Health and Human Services.
Here is just a bit of an example of how this has played out with Mr.
Kennedy on the issue of reproductive freedom and abortion rights. On
the morning of August 13, 2023, Mr. Kennedy said:

I believe a decision to abort a child should be up to the
woman during the first three months of life.

Now, people may agree or disagree with this view, but it is clear
what he is saying here.
The very same day, his campaign followed up by saying that his
position on abortion is that it is always the woman's right to choose
and that he does not support legislation banning abortion.
So on the same day, two different positions.
Then, on May 19, 2024, a few months later, in a podcast interview, he
said:

I wouldn't leave it up to the States--

This is a quote.

I wouldn't leave it up to the States. I believe that we
should leave it up to the woman--

We shouldn't have government involved.

--even if it's full-term.

OK. So there is a completely different view.
Then the very next day, he tweeted:

Abortion should be legal up to a certain number of weeks,
and restricted thereafter.

Mr. Kennedy seems to change his mind so often that we don't know what
he actually thinks, what he actually stands for. But when you are the
Secretary of Health and Human Services, you have to stand up for
something. You have to stand up for the laws of the land.
What is clear through all of this back-and-forth--it is clear to me--
is that the Trump administration and Mr. Kennedy are more than willing
to restrict or even ban access to medication abortion despite the fact
that they have been determined to be safe and effective and that Mr.
Kennedy and President Trump are, in fact, dangerous to a woman's access
to medication abortion.
I want people just to think about this for a minute. If you live in a
State like mine, in Minnesota, where the State has determined that
abortion should be accessible, that this is a decision that is up for
people to be able to make on their own without government
interference--and roughly 60 percent, maybe a bit more now, of
abortions are done through medication abortion. Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.,
and Donald Trump are going to affect your rights in Minnesota if they
take away the right to mifepristone just as much as they affect the
rights of somebody who is living in Texas or any of our States.
Mr. President, I want to change the topic to discuss a bit the
question of infectious diseases and how Mr. Kennedy has taken similarly
unfounded positions--positions that are not based on the science at
all.
On infectious diseases, he has taken a position that I think could
put Minnesota families at risk. Here is an example of that. At a
Children's Health Defense conference in November of 2023--this is the
anti-vax organization that Mr. Kennedy led for the last 7 years--Mr.
Kennedy said that he is ``gonna say to the NIH scientists, God bless
you all. Thank you for public service. We're going to give infectious
disease a break for about eight years.''
Now, Mr. Kennedy and President Trump may want to give infectious
diseases a break for the next 8 years, but I am pretty sure that
infectious diseases are not going to give the United States of America
a break for the next 8 years.
Here is a classic example of that. Across the country, we are facing
a very real public health threat from avian flu. In Minnesota, farmers
and producers know this better than anywhere, although it is certainly
not affecting only Minnesota; it is affecting many of our States. This
is an infectious disease that is infecting flocks of wild birds and
also domesticated poultry. Nearly 150 million chickens across the
United States have had to be culled, had to be euthanized, to prevent
the spread of the virus. In the last year, bird flu has jumped from
poultry to livestock, often to dairy cows, and then from livestock to
humans--often, the individuals that are working in livestock
operations. So this is something we have to take seriously.
This is important for us to pay attention to. We need surveillance.
We need to be working on treatments. We need to be evaluating whether
we need to be finding a pathway potentially to some sort of a vaccine.
Avian flu is not going to take an 8-year break. It is already
infecting chickens and livestock, and it is already infecting
Americans.
And I know that in Minnesota, people want somebody leading the
Department of Health and Human Services who is paying attention to this
and wants to be on top of this.
You know, one of the things that is sort of incredible, when you dive
into the things that Mr. Kennedy has written, is that it is not even
really clear if Mr. Kennedy believes that germs cause disease.
I mean, if you read his words on this, you come away with a very
concerning perspective. For six pages in one of his recent books, just
as an example, he extols the virtue of something called the miasma
theory while simultaneously casting doubt on the basic and well-
accepted scientific evidence that germs cause disease.
You know, Mr. Kennedy doesn't even really describe this miasma theory
correctly, but he most certainly doesn't accurately represent germ
theory, which is the basic understandable concept that medical students
are introduced to at the very beginning of their medical education that
germs, viruses, bacteria are the cause of many, many human illnesses.
You know, and this is the kind of stuff that if it were coming from
the Secretary of Health and Human Services, people are going to listen
to this. And I just, like, think about the chilling effects that this
could have on the healthcare that people are able to seek and receive,
particularly if Mr. Kennedy is going to be dialing back or stopping the
research on infectious diseases that is the lifeblood of the United
States public health work that we do.
At the Finance Committee and then the next day at the HELP Committee,
my colleagues and I gave Mr. Kennedy opportunity after opportunity to
dispel the false and misleading claim he has spread for decades and to
distance himself from these past positions. And we gave him the chance
to tell Americans that he would keep them and their children safe and
that he wouldn't threaten their access to treatments or to cures or to
care and that he believed the research that is out there and accessible
to anybody and everybody who wants to see it--the research that is
taught at medical schools, the research that is followed by National
Institutes of Health, and he couldn't do it. He couldn't just say that
vaccines don't cause autism. He couldn't just tell us that
antidepressants don't cause school shootings.
He couldn't just tell us that he will make sure that America's health
insurance is protected. I mean, he could barely--in his conversations
and the questions that he was asked, he could barely articulate that he
understood the difference between Medicare and Medicaid. Instead, what
happened is that Mr. Kennedy repeatedly talked about following the good
science, the science that is good. But the science that he relies on is
not good.

[[Page S914]]

And in so many circumstances, he quotes science or studies that have
been disproven. The studies that he has referenced have been withdrawn,
or they don't say what he claims or purports to say that they do.
Most of all, what happens is that this has the potential to hold our
researchers and our scientific community back from making the real
progress that we need to make when it comes to medicine and disease and
treating ailments.
Think about the progress that we could one day make to help cure
cancer, to prevent Alzheimer's. If we have to revisit the history, the
record of science, because Mr. Kennedy says that he doesn't think it
shows what everybody else thinks it shows, think about how that is
going to set us back, how that is going to keep us from moving forward
to address the real health challenges of today and tomorrow.
Think about what it might have meant if Mr. Kennedy had led the
Department of Health and Human Services when we were in the midst of
Operation Warp Speed and we were doing everything that we possibly
could to get a vaccine out to Americans and the world to stop the
millions of deaths that were happening because of the COVID-19 virus.
What would have happened if Mr. Kennedy, sitting in that position of
authority, had said: I don't believe the science; I think we need to do
more. I don't think any vaccine is safe and effective; and, therefore,
I want to call this vaccine back.
And, in fact, that is what Mr. Kennedy did. He submitted a call to
the Department of Health and Human Services in the early days of the
vaccine saying that he thought that it should be pulled back from the
market.
Think about what impact that could have had on all of our families if
he had been in a position of authority and had been able to accomplish
that. Over and over again, when he is faced with the actual science--
for example, on the science that proves that SSRIs are not associated
with school shootings, that vaccines do not cause autism, that germs do
cause illnesses--he has refused to accept it, and he has doubled down
on his dangerous beliefs.
So this is concerning when it is an individual who is speaking on a
podcast, but it could be a matter of life or death when it is the
Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services. As I think
about what I said at the beginning of my remarks about my strong belief
that my job as Senator is to assess whether I can trust somebody in
this role, can I trust them to follow the law? Can I trust this
individual to protect the health and well-being of the people in my
State and the people around the country? The answer is clearly, no,
this is an individual who cannot be trusted.
At the heart of this nomination, of course--the heart of the work of
the Department of Health and Human Services--is America's health and
healthcare. And it is clear to me that Mr. Kennedy has made it clear
that he will enable the Trump and Musk agenda of chaos, that he will
enable what they are doing not to execute the laws of this country,
which is their constitutional responsibility, but to attempt to make
the laws of this country.

And, you know, we can see this during his confirmation hearings.
Repeatedly during his confirmation hearings, Mr. Kennedy said that he
would follow Mr. Trump's directives.
Now, I am going to be clear about this, I understand that it is the
job of any Cabinet official to follow the policies of the individual
who has put them there, but not if those policies break the laws of the
United States of America.
Department heads, Cabinet heads, the head of the Department of Health
and Human Services is required to execute the law, not to execute the
will of the President--because the President is a President; he is not
a king.
What I am convinced of at this stage is as we see what, I believe, is
a massive power grab by Donald Trump and Elon Musk to not just execute
the laws but to make the laws, that Mr. Kennedy would be a part of that
process, that he would be an enabler of that power grab that we see
happening all over the country. And that is another reason why I cannot
trust him.
I want to take a look for a minute at the directives that President
Trump has put out already. Let's take a look at these--these directives
of stopping lawfully executed payments to healthcare organizations that
have been made following the will of Congress, the people who are
supposed to be making the laws in this country.
I heard a lot about this from Minnesota, huge amounts of concern
reflected back to me in my office about what is actually happening with
the President's directives, basically directing to withhold funding
that Congress has authorized.
I heard from Minnesota's community health centers that they were
going to begin doing layoffs because of this Federal funding freeze--
basically, a massive cut that they are experiencing. You know,
community health centers are all over the country, and in my home State
of Minnesota, they are the place that individuals can go to get basic,
preventative healthcare. It is a very important part of our healthcare
network, and yet many of these have come to me and said that they are
basically going to be laying off providers and other folks who are
providing direct care to patients.
One community health center's CEO in greater Minnesota, outside of
the metro area, said that it was the worst day in his 38-year career
when he got word of this freeze.
Now, I understand that this freeze has been unfrozen for now, at
least in some cases--though, in other cases it seems like it is back on
again. In fact, I hear repeatedly that it is off and on and off and on
in this sort of chaotic and confusing dance that they have started.
But these clinics are still facing real challenges about getting
access to their Federal funding, and this is threatening their
operations. Imagine if you were running a--like a small bootstrap and,
you know, small little health center and every day you are just trying
to make payroll. You don't have millions of dollars sitting in your
bank account waiting for a rainy day. Every day is a rainy day, and
every day you are just trying to make it work. And very suddenly, one
of your most important ways of paying to provide healthcare to an
individual has just evaporated overnight.
So then what happens--because people still get sick, people still
need healthcare, even if they are unable to get it at a community
health center. So what do they do?
Think about this, right now, in Minnesota--it is probably the same in
West Virginia and other parts of the country--Minnesota emergency rooms
are packed full of people who have the flu or RSV or norovirus. They go
to the emergency rooms. You want to go to the emergency room when you
really, really need emergency care. You go to a community health center
when you need to be able to get access to urgent care but the care that
you need right now. And what is happening is that because there are a
lot of illnesses, people are getting sick in the wintertime, it is like
20 below in Minnesota right now, if they can't get their primary care
in a doctor's office, in a clinic, they are going to end up in the ER.
And then what happens to all the rest of us who really might need
emergency care? The ER is jammed to overflowing. There is no space. You
have to wait 5 hours to get the care that you need. That is what is
happening with this funding that is being put in jeopardy. That means
that community health centers might not be able to help the patients
that they typically help. And I am not talking about a small number of
people here. That is 170,000 people in Minnesota who rely on community
health centers.
And what is going to happen, those folks are going to end up in
emergency rooms, and that is going to increase wait times, and it is
going to stress the capacity of hospitals to provide care that people
need.
President Trump did this. Robert F. Kennedy, if he were head of
Health and Human Services, I have no reason to trust that he would stop
this. In fact, I believe the opposite, I believe he would enable it.
And this is why I think his nomination will end up making all of us
less healthy and less safe and less secure.
President Trump, in another example, unlawfully cut National
Institutes of Health grant funding earlier this week. This amounts to
millions of dollars that support lifesaving research

[[Page S915]]

into Alzheimer's and cancer and Parkinson's disease, and I am just
talking about in Minnesota there.
This was retroactive; it happened overnight. Hospitals are left
struggling. Big research hospitals like the University of Minnesota and
the Mayo Clinic are suddenly looking at massive cuts to their research.
They have trials for important, you know, treatments and cures for
serious diseases that are suddenly thrown into chaos, and you have
individuals who are part of those trials who are hopeful that they are
going to be getting--they are hopeful that, in some way, that this is
going to help them to find a cure for what disease is ailing them.
And with this cut to NIH funding, overnight massive cuts, what does
that mean for people's health and safety and security? It means people
are less well-off. National Institutes of Health is under the umbrella
of the Department of Health and Human Services, the organization that
Mr. Kennedy is asking Congress to provide advice and consent on.
Again, I have no confidence. In fact, I am sure that Mr. Kennedy
would be an enabler to President Trump's power grab here and his
undermining, along with Elon Musk, his undermining of this extremely
important research that helps us be healthy, helps us find the
treatments and the cures for the diseases that are a threat to all of
us.
So I see my colleague from Massachusetts is here. I know she has an
important perspective on this, with Massachusetts being another--as is
Minnesota--another center of research and education and medical
education, and I suspect that we agree with one another when it comes
to the threat that Robert F. Kennedy poses to all of our health and
well-being.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Massachusetts.
Ms. WARREN. Mr. President, I want to say thanks to the Senator from
Minnesota for her leadership on this point. I know that great research
institutions in Minnesota that count on her support are out there
fighting, thanks to Donald Trump, as they are in Massachusetts--and
people all around this country who rely on those research institutions,
who are looking for those cures, for those better treatments, for those
opportunities in their lives that, right now, Donald Trump and his co-
President Elon Musk seem to want to cut off.
So we will stay in this fight. We will indeed.
I am here today because Americans didn't vote to bring back measles.
Americans didn't vote to bring back polio. Americans didn't vote to
bring back dangerous diseases that we thought we had wiped out decades
ago. Americans didn't vote to get rid of critical vaccines that we
know--based on science--we know save lives.
But that is what Robert Kennedy, Jr.'s vision would mean for
Americans. That is the vision that Donald Trump will empower him to
carry out.
Kennedy not only worked to undercut vaccines at home and abroad; he
has made a lot of money doing it. In fact, Kennedy has made millions
off of peddling harmful conspiracy theories that hurt real people. He
opposed the lifesaving COVID vaccine just 6 months into the pandemic,
and he set himself up so that he and his family could make millions
more from putting Americans' health at risk.
One thing is very clear: We cannot trust Robert Kennedy to make
healthcare decisions that will affect every person in this country.
Right now, millions of Americans are sitting down for dinner with
their kids, and I hope we just think for a minute about what RFK, Jr.'s
plans would mean for them.
Will their teeth decay because Kennedy took fluoride out of the water
based on some conspiracy theory? Will they have to worry about getting
measles at school because Kennedy is spreading anti-vax conspiracies on
government letterhead? Will parents have to risk their kids getting
polio and maybe dying by sending them to daycare because Kennedy used
his HHS rules to open the door to a flood of bogus lawsuits that force
manufacturers to pull the vaccines?
Look, here is the thing: Robert Kennedy has spent years on an anti-
vaccine crusade, spreading baseless conspiracy theories under the guise
of protecting children. So we don't need to guess the level of harm he
will cause. His past already tells us everything we need to know.
In July 2018, two children died immediately after receiving a measles
vaccine that nurses had incorrectly mixed with a muscle relaxant.
Within weeks, the Samoan Health Ministry publicly confirmed the nursing
error and charged the nurses with manslaughter.
Nevertheless, leading anti-vaccine groups--including Kennedy's own
organization, Children's Health Defense--exploited public fears to
question the reports and spread baseless claims.
On August 5, 2018, Kennedy's organization, Children's Health Defense,
posted on Facebook--and I will quote the post:

Were these once-healthy children the only two to receive
MMR that day? If not, why were they the only ones to die?
Research needs to determine susceptibility so that no child
is ever injured.

Del Bigtree, Kennedy's partner and former campaign manager, also
released a video linking the tragedy to false claims about measles and
telling his followers to ``share it with everyone you know. This is how
we are changing the world.''
Now, amidst public distrust and a paused vaccine program in Samoa,
the vaccination rates plummeted. About 10 months later, once the Samoan
Government had finally stood up against the disinformation and resumed
the vaccine program, Kennedy visited the island to meet with the Prime
Minister.
Later, recognizing the blowback that comes with how much went wrong
when a conspiracy theory cost people their lives, Kennedy has since
denied that his visit had anything to do with vaccines and said that
anything suggesting otherwise was ``an industry propaganda trope''--in
other words, totally false--``an industry propaganda trope.'' Kennedy
lied.
A blog post that Kennedy himself wrote in 2021 admits that he went to
Samoa to meet with the Prime Minister, who wanted to discuss the
possibility of ``measur[ing] health outcomes following the `natural
experiment' created by the nation's respite from vaccines.''
Think about what that means. Another way to say it is that Kennedy
was interested in taking advantage of how the vaccination rate had
plummeted--caused by misinformation--so that they could conduct
uncontrolled trials on whether unvaccinated kids were healthier than
vaccinated kids, a conspiracy theory that he had widely spread.
You see, at the time, one of his traveling partners was working on a
similar study with two anti-vaccine activists, which was ultimately
retracted, following an investigation that ``raised several
methodological issues and confirmed that the conclusions were not
supported by strong scientific data.''
Now there is no surprise here. The Prime Minister of Samoa declined
Kennedy's outrageous proposal. He didn't want his country to be
Kennedy's guinea pig. He didn't want unvaccinated children to be
studied to see what happened to them when measles or other diseases
broke out.
But that didn't stop Kennedy from spreading his message. On this trip
to Samoa, he met with various anti-vaccine influencers, one of whom
said the meeting was ``profoundly monumental for the movement.''
A few months after Kennedy left, in October 2019, the vaccination
rate in Samoa hit a historic low of 31 percent, down from 74 percent
the prior year. And, no surprise, a massive measles outbreak erupted.
So here is Kennedy telling us now: No, no, he had nothing--nothing--
to do with this. His trip to Samoa had nothing to do with the measles
vaccine, and calling any claim ``industry propaganda trope,'' and yet
he himself posted a blog about meeting with the Prime Minister and
talking about a study to measure health outcomes following a natural
experiment of studying children, some with no vaccination and some that
were vaccinated.
And the anti-vax groups he met with talked about how profoundly
important it is. Then Mr. Kennedy leaves. Vaccination rates drop down
to 31 percent.
The measles outbreak was truly tragic. In total, more than 70
children died,

[[Page S916]]

right up until a door-to-door vaccination campaign brought the disaster
to an end.
As HHS Secretary, Kennedy would be responsible for whether we keep
our children vaccinated or subject them to, in his word, the same
``natural experiment'' that he was interested in testing in Samoa. Is
that really what we want for our kids? Is that what we want for our
elderly parents? That is a living nightmare, and it could truly be our
reality with Kennedy heading up the Department of Health and Human
Services.
And all the while that this is going on, while Kennedy is promoting
this anti-vax theory, he and his family are profiting off the plan.
Now, I have been sounding the alarm about Kennedy since the minute
Donald Trump announced that he would nominate him for HHS Secretary. It
is not just that he is unqualified; his long history of promoting anti-
science conspiracy theories make him disqualified.
This is a man who claimed ``there is no vaccine that is safe and
effective''--``no vaccine.''
He said that the polio vaccine ``killed many, many more people than
polio ever did.''
Now, Kennedy came to our committee and said: Don't worry. He swears
he is not anti-vaccine. But he has spent years on an anti-vaccine
crusade, spreading baseless conspiracy theories under the guise of
protecting children, and making millions of dollars in the process.
And when, in Senate hearings, he was confronted with his own words,
he simply denied saying them. He denied saying them, despite the
videotapes, the transcripts, the blog posts, and the people who heard
them.
Kennedy thinks he knows what he needs to say to try to get the job
that will put him in charge of our vaccine program. So he says he
didn't say exactly what he said. Kennedy's actions speak louder than
his latest words. And time and time again, Kennedy has shown us who he
is: an anti-science conspiracy peddler who is willing to gamble with
American lives. We know who he is. We need to pay attention.
Let's do a quick count of some of the ways that, as HHS Secretary,
Kennedy could make the anti-vaccine lawsuits and his own payouts even
bigger. What could Kennedy do? Well, as Secretary of HHS, he could
publish his anti-vaccine conspiracies, but this time on U.S. Government
letterhead, something that might impress a jury in a subsequent trial.
He could appoint people to the CDC vaccine panel who share his anti-vax
views and let them do his dirty work. He could tell the CDC vaccine
panel to remove a particular vaccine from the vaccination schedule. He
could remove vaccines from a special compensation program, which
``would open up manufacturers to mass torts'' lawsuits. He could make
more injuries eligible for compensation, even if there is no causal
evidence. He could change vaccine court processes to make it easier to
bring junk lawsuits that could get vaccines pulled from the market. He
could turn over FDA to his friends at the law firm, and they could use
it however benefits their lawsuits.
In short, as HHS Secretary, Kennedy would have the power to make
healthcare decisions that would affect millions of Americans--working
Americans, kids, seniors--on everything from vaccines to abortion to
lifesaving drugs.
Kennedy would have the capacity as head of HHS to make it easier to
sue vaccine manufacturers. And in an area where the profit margins on
vaccines are quite modest, if those lawsuits mount up, vaccines could
simply disappear from the market all together. Manufacturers could
decide: You know, it is just not worth the lawsuits. We will go produce
other drugs.
Those kinds of decisions are critically important, and the
consequences are grave. For many Americans, they may be the difference
between life and death, and they could change lives forever.
So while you and your family are forced to deal with the grave
consequences of Kennedy's conspiracy-driven healthcare decisions,
Kennedy could set himself up to make millions of dollars off his anti-
vaccine crusade, just like he has been doing for decades.
Remember, the very first ethics agreement that Kennedy submitted to
us on the Senate Finance Committee, he said that even while he served
as Secretary of HHS, he planned to keep a financial stake in ongoing
litigation, including vaccine-related litigation. That means that from
the jump, Kennedy's plan was to keep making money off the backs of
lawsuits against vaccine manufacturers, some of which directly related
to the very products he would have the power to regulate as Secretary
of HHS.
So there he is. He has the power to regulate these drugs. He has the
power to make life a little better or a little worse for the vaccine
manufacturers. He has the power to make it more likely that lawsuits
against vaccine manufacturers would succeed. And his initial plan was--
even while he sat there as Secretary of HHS, he was going to keep on
making money from that.
This was a damning conflict of interest, so we called it out. Kennedy
told us, OK, OK, he would submit an updated ethics agreement. Sounds
good. What was his update? Well, he said that instead of personally
keeping the millions that he would make off these ongoing lawsuits, he
would hand that money directly to his son.
Later, he confirmed that the son he is handing his interests off to
is the one who works at Wisner Baum, the same law firm that Kennedy has
maintained this very lucrative arrangement with over the years, so far
netting him a reported $2.5 million just in the last few years.
Kennedy has made clear that he can use his tools as HHS Secretary to
open up the door for more anti-vax litigation and, once he is through
as Secretary of HHS, go right back to Wisner Baum and cash in on the
new flood of cases that Kennedy himself has unleashed. So that is
Kennedy's idea of fixing an ethics issue.
Beyond that, Kennedy has flip-flopped countless times in his answers
to the Finance Committee. He is untrustworthy. He has made so many
contradictory statements that it has come to the point that it is hard
to believe anything he says is true.
For example, Kennedy originally said he was not an attorney of record
in any of these vaccine-related lawsuits, but we did a little homework,
and we found at least five cases related to the vaccine litigation that
hadn't been disclosed where Kennedy appears to be the attorney of
record. That is important because what it means is that Kennedy is a
lot closer to these cases than he is revealing--cases that he and his
family will be able to make bank off even as he serves as Secretary at
the HHS.
The importance of this litigation cannot be overstated. Just 20 years
ago, we watched vaccine makers pull their product off the market
because they didn't have protection from these kinds of lawsuits. The
consequence of Kennedy's ability to make those lawsuits easier is also
the ability to shut down access and manufacturing for vaccines for
every one of us, and I think that is a terrible mistake.
Kennedy claims that he is taking on Big Pharma, but that is the lie
he is peddling to hide his conflicts. I pressed him on real ways to
take on the industry, including using march-in on Big Pharma's patents
when they use taxpayer funds to bring drugs to market and then turn
around and jack up prices on hard-working Americans and by having the
government negotiate prices directly with Big Pharma on behalf of
Medicare beneficiaries.
But Kennedy, after talking a big game about taking on Big Pharma,
said no, he doesn't support march-in rights and, no, he didn't want to
commit to defending Medicare price negotiations--two proven methods to
take on the drug industry and put money back into Americans' pockets.
So whose side is he on? Well, one thing is for sure: RFK, Jr., is on
the side of his own bottom line.
He has also refused to share a list of cases that he stands to
benefit from. I told you he said, nope, he was not attorney of record
on any cases. We dug around, and we found five. How many more are
there? Well, here is what Kennedy said when we said: Just give us a
list of the cases that you are participating in so we can take a look
at the possible conflicts. His answer: The list is so long and the
conflicts so clear that evidently it would be more damning than what we
already know.
Kennedy's list of ethics issues and financial issues are a mile long,
and there is still too much that he refuses to reveal.

[[Page S917]]

Think about this. He has already told us enough about his conflicts,
about how he plans to keep making money even while he is Secretary of
HHS. He revealed all that right up front. He said: Yes, I am going to
make money while I am Secretary of HHS. Yet, on basic questions like
``Can you just give us a list of the cases you participated in?'' he
says ``No, I can't do that,'' which really makes you ask, what on Earth
is he hiding?
He is dodging questions from the Senate, he is contradicting himself,
and he keeps changing his answers in order to muddy the waters and
really make it hard to understand what is going on.
Look, no one is fooled here. Kennedy has said he will ``slam shut the
revolving door'' between government Agencies and the companies they
regulate, but what he won't agree to is to cut off his own family's
steady stream of money flowing in from lawsuits that he personally can
directly affect while he is Secretary of HHS.
Kennedy knows that these conflicts are serious, and that is why he
scrambled to update his ethics agreement and hand off his interests to
his son in a desperate attempt to ``fix'' things. But that simply isn't
good enough when millions of Americans' lives are hanging in the
balance.
Don't take it just from me; take it from the Wall Street Journal
editorial board. They wrote:

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. pledged during his confirmation
hearing . . . to root out corruption between industry and
government. Yet the man who wants to be the nation's
Secretary of Health and Human Services refused to rule out
personally making money from lawsuits against drug makers.
This ought to be disqualifying.

The Wall Street Journal: ``This ought to be disqualifying.''
It is simple: If Kennedy wants to prove he was serious about
``slamming shut the revolving door'' between industry and people making
money from their positions in government, I laid out a list of
commitments he should make immediately.
Senator Wyden, the ranking member on the Finance Committee, and I
wrote:

1. If confirmed as Secretary, you will recuse yourself from
all vaccine-related communications and decisions. Given the
breadth of your involvement in vaccine litigation, such a
recusal would help ensure that you and your family do not
benefit financially from official government actions that you
will oversee and control. Such recusal will also ensure
vaccine-related policymaking and communications are not
inappropriately skewed by your personal views at the expense
of scientific evidence.

That was part 1 that we want.

2. If confirmed as Secretary, you will recuse yourself from
all matters related to HHS-regulated entities that are
involved in cases or litigation that you or your family have
an interest in. This will help ensure, for example, that you
could not leverage your position as Secretary by conditioning
a company's request regarding an unrelated manner (e.g., an
FDA approval) on such company agreeing to settle an anti-
vaccination case in which you or your family have a financial
interest.
3. If confirmed as Secretary, you will not litigate cases
involving vaccines, represent parties in VICP-related cases,
or have a financial interest in such litigation or cases for
at least 4 years after leaving office. As Secretary, you
would be in a position to influence future anti-vaccine cases
and litigation in ways that would benefit you personally
after leaving HHS. For example, you could direct the CDC to
remove a vaccine from the vaccine schedule, change vaccine
labeling requirements, or make procedures in special vaccine
court more advantageous for plaintiffs. Then, if you leave
HHS and immediately return to litigating against vaccine
makers, you would stand to profit from rules you helped
reshape. This commitment would further mitigate the
appearance of a conflict of interest while you are in office.
These commitments will help ensure that you do not have a
direct or indirect financial incentive to interfere with
HHS's vaccine proceedings or other matters involving the
manufacturer of Gardasil or any other HHS-regulated entity.

In other words, Senator Wyden and I laid out a path where he truly
could avoid the conflicts of interest. If he wants to serve his country
and not his own pocketbook, we have shown him a way that he can do
this.
Senator Kaine and I followed up on this and wrote to Kennedy:

At your Senate confirmation hearing, you pledged to
``remove the financial conflicts of interests in [HHS]
agencies.''

Continuing with our letter:

You should start by mitigating your own conflicts of
interests, including by (1) relinquishing your direct and
indirect financial interests in matters over which you will
have power at HHS; (2) recusing yourself from matters
involving your former clients, former employers, or entities
in which you have a financial interest; and (3) for at least
four years after you leave office, committing to not lobbying
HHS, litigating cases against pharmaceutical companies and
manufacturers, or joining the industries or entities that you
interact with at HHS.

In other words, we showed you another way that you can get this done.
Look, this is just common sense. I would hope that my Republican
colleagues would agree that our HHS nominee should not have ongoing,
lucrative agreements that enable his immediate family to line their
pockets while he influences healthcare decisions that impact millions
of Americans.
It is not just attacks on vaccines that we have to worry about from
the Trump administration. In the middle of the night last Friday,
Donald Trump announced deep cuts to the National Institutes of Health
funding, which powers the lifesaving research and medical breakthroughs
at universities and medical institutions across the country, especially
in my home State of Massachusetts. These Trump cuts will stop research
that is working to help cure diseases, it will force people who are
working now to lose good jobs, and it will literally threaten people's
lives.
As head of HHS, Kennedy would oversee the National Institutes of
Health, and he would green-light Trump's plan to gut the Agency. He has
made no commitments to protect the critical, lifesaving research that
NIH funds, and maybe that should be no surprise given his years of
attacking basic scientific facts.
Listen to what experts have had to say about what these cuts will
mean for families across America:

People are not able to do their work if there isn't an
infrastructure. This will have a huge impact on health
research in this country.
We're all reeling. This would decimate medical research.
This is a surefire way to cripple lifesaving research and
innovation. America's competitors will relish this self-
inflicted wound.

As one expert said:

If you're a cancer patient in a clinical trial, it is not a
theoretical undertaking, it is treatment.

For so many rare diseases and illnesses where research is already
underfunded, like childhood cancer, researchers have said:

If it's not federal funding, there's nowhere else to go--
that's a real impact on the short [term] and [the] long term.

I don't know how you make that up. These funding cuts are putting
scientists in a position where they have to default on the promises
they made--promises they made to people to join their studies, promises
they made to other researchers to join them, promises they made to
build up the labs and to build up the work that would make a difference
in our world.
When the NIH and the NSF put out their solicitations, they are asking
for critical scientific research to be done on behalf of the American
people. That research cures diseases and saves lives. The institutions
that apply for these solicitations are saying enthusiastically: Yes, we
can do that. Yes, we share that dream. Yes, we believe that we can make
a better product, that we can make a better medicine, that we can make
a better treatment for people who are suffering, and we want to be part
of that.
And now here we are in chaos and confusion, and the U.S. Government
is trying to break that contract. Americans will suffer because of it.
This is Trump's plan for Americans' health, and Kennedy will be a
rubberstamp for whatever Donald Trump wants to do.
Let's talk just a little bit more about that COVID vaccine.
Do you remember how, in the dead of the pandemic, hundreds of
millions of Americans were counting on that vaccine as the light at the
end of the tunnel; how, when we were shut away from our friends and
family and trying to keep ourselves and our communities safe, that
vaccine allowed us to come together again; how that vaccine saved
countless more lives that otherwise would have been lost to COVID?
Well, just make sure you know: Kennedy tried to stop you and your
family from having access to the COVID vaccine.

[[Page S918]]

I will just read a little portion of one of the articles from last
month on this:

Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., President-elect Donald J. Trump's
choice to lead the nation's health agencies, formally asked
the Food and Drug Administration to revoke the authorization
of all--

All--

COVID vaccines during a deadly phase of the pandemic when
thousands of Americans were still dying every week.

Mr. Kennedy filed a petition with the FDA in May 2021, demanding that
officials rescind authorization for the shots and refrain from
approving any COVID vaccine in the interim. Just 6 months earlier, Mr.
Trump had declared the COVID vaccines a miracle. At the time Mr.
Kennedy filed the petition, half of American adults were receiving
their shots. Schools were starting to reopen, and churches were
filling. Estimates have begun to show that the rapid roll-out of COVID
vaccines have already saved 140,000 lives in the United States.
The petition was filed on behalf of the nonprofit that Mr. Kennedy
founded and led, Children's Health Defense, which we talked about
earlier. It claimed the risks of vaccines outweighed the benefits and
that the vaccines weren't necessary because good treatments were
available, including ivermectin and--I just can't believe this--
hydroxychloroquine, which had already been deemed ineffective against
the virus.
The petition received little notice when it was filed. Mr. Kennedy
was then on the fringes of the public health establishment, and the
Agency denied it within months. Public health experts told about the
filing said it was truly shocking.
You know, I want to underscore this one because Mr. Kennedy is saying
now--not only is he saying he is not an anti-vaxxer; he is saying he
wants you to still be able to vaccinate your children if you want to do
that. Yet look at Mr. Kennedy's own actions. Mr. Kennedy tried to stop
all of us--everyone in America--from getting access to the COVID
vaccine. He cites junk science. It was already known to be junk science
at the time that he cites it. He cites junk science in order to say,
not just that he doesn't want to take the vaccine or not just that he
doesn't want to give it to his kids, but he didn't want anybody in
America to be able to get that.
So that is the man that the Republicans will be voting on to decide
whether or not he makes healthcare policy in the United States--someone
who is continuing to line his own pocket with lawsuits against vaccine
manufacturers and someone who has tried to stop at least one vaccine
from being distributed to anyone anywhere in America.
Look, when Kennedy says he doesn't believe in vaccines, which he has
said many times, believe him. When his attempt at fixing his ethics
issue is passing his stake to his son, believe him. When he says he
will do whatever Donald Trump wants on abortion, believe him. Don't
say: No one will let him go that far, because they will let him go that
far.
Republicans voting for Kennedy know exactly who they are voting for--
someone who spreads baseless conspiracy theories, someone who profits
off making our kids sicker, someone who will do whatever Donald Trump
tells him to do, whether it is cutting off cancer research funding or
banning abortion medication.
Let us be very clear: When it comes to your health and your well-
being and the health and well-being of your friends, your family, your
community, Kennedy is disqualified, dangerous, and cannot be given the
power to make critical healthcare decisions. I urge my colleagues to
vote no on his nomination.
I see that Senator Kaine is here. Senator Kaine has been a tireless
partner in the fight to help protect the Nation's healthcare system,
and I appreciate his being here tonight.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Virginia.
Mr. KAINE. Mr. President, I am so happy that I follow my colleague
from Massachusetts. I will build upon some of the points that she has
made, but we have served as colleagues together on the Health,
Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee during earlier terms of
Congress, and you won't find a better champion for the health of the
American public than Senator Warren.
I stand to continue the dialogue about Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., and
his unfitness for the position to which he has been nominated, the
Secretary of Health and Human Services, and I will give you the punch
line but then go into it in some detail.
I don't believe Mr. Kennedy can separate fact from fiction. I don't
believe Mr. Kennedy can separate conspiracy from content. Now, you
wouldn't want someone suffering from that challenge in any position of
leadership at any level of government--local, State, or Federal. But
this particular position, the Secretary of Health and Human Services--
one of the most important positions in the Nation as with respect to
people's physical and mental health, is exactly the wrong kind of a
position for someone who can't tell fact from fiction or content from
conspiracy, because the American public needs to be able to rely on HHS
and other critical Agencies for information that is not just about the
state of their savings account or housing costs. This is about life and
death. This is about life and death.
I want to talk about two elements of Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.--my
colleagues have been going into many of them--that lead me to the
conclusion that here is a guy who can't separate fact from fiction or
conspiracy from content.
The first was ably described by Senator Warren, and that is Mr.
Kennedy's skepticism about vaccines. I know many of my colleagues trod
this ground during speeches today, so I am not going to go into the
breadth of his vaccine skepticism. I am going to talk about one vaccine
in particular that is made in Virginia, Gardasil. I represent the
Commonwealth of Virginia. There is a facility in Elkton, VA, in the
Shenandoah Valley, near Harrisonburg, that makes Gardasil, the vaccine
that has been effective--significantly effective--in preventing and
reducing the incidence of cervical cancer.
Think about it for a minute. Vaccines do a lot of different things,
but a vaccine that can prevent cancer is truly, truly revolutionary.
Cervical cancer and other associated cancers pose very significant
challenges to men and women. In the early 2000s, the FDA approved a
cervical cancer vaccine. There are a number of vaccine manufacturers,
but one of the largest is Merck that manufactures Gardasil in Virginia.
I visited the plant a couple of years back as a member of the Health,
Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee. I went to the plant, and I
talked to the workers and saw the pride that they have in being able to
develop a product that has had such a significant impact around the
world.
When I was Governor of Virginia, with two Republican houses, we acted
to have a mandate around the Gardasil vaccination, around the cervical
cancer vaccination. There are other cancer vaccine manufacturers as
well. By making it mandatory, we enabled people to access it for free.
We allowed any parent or student who didn't want to receive the vaccine
to opt out with no excuse. But we have made it widely available in
Virginia--we are one of three States to have done this--and it has had
a tremendously positive benefit on folks' health.
So this is a relatively new vaccine. I mean, it started and got
approval and began to be deployed significantly about 15 years ago; and
even in 15 years, the results have been remarkable. And I want to just
share with my colleagues and with the public some of the results
between 15 and 20 years of the HPV cervical cancer vaccine. I will give
you results from many countries and from many research institutions and
hospitals to show you that this is not a question of significant
medical controversy.
A publication that is one of the signature healthcare publications in
England is called The Lancet, and there was an article in The Lancet in
February of 2020, titled ``The Impact of HPV Vaccination and Cervical
Screening on Cervical Cancer Elimination.'' This particular article
summarized the study that looked at data from 78 countries. The
researchers who examined this data were from England, China, France,
Canada, and Switzerland.
Their research in analyzing the data of hundreds of thousands of
patients in 78 countries concluded:

High HPV vaccination coverage of girls can lead to cervical
cancer elimination in

[[Page S919]]

most low-income and lower middle-income countries by the end
of the century.

Fancy that--eliminating cancer with a vaccine. This was from the data
from 78 countries.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention website, cdc.gov,
has a section: the ``Impact of the HPV Vaccine'':

Among teen girls, infections with HPV types that cause most
HPV cancers and genital warts have dropped 88 percent
[because of the vaccine].

The American Society of Clinical Oncology, in 2024, published an
article titled ``Effects of HPV vaccination on the development of HPV-
related cancers.'' This is the American society for physicians who work
in the clinical oncology area.
Here is the conclusion they reach:

Males vaccinated for HPV were at decreased odds for HPV-
related cancers. . . . Females vaccinated for HPV had lower
odds for cervical cancers and HPV-related cancers overall.

Let's go to Scotland. The Journal of the National Cancer Institute in
Scotland last year published a study titled ``Invasive Cervical Cancer
Incidence following bivalent HPV vaccination,'' studying the healthcare
results of people following vaccination. This was just published last
year. Let me read you the quote:

No cases of invasive cancer were recorded in women
immunized at 12 or 13 years of age irrespective of the number
of doses. Women vaccinated at 14 to 22 years of age and given
3 doses of bivalent vaccine showed a significant reduction in
incidence compared with . . . unvaccinated women.

Again, those first few words: ``No cases of invasive cancer were
recorded in women'' who were vaccinated and studied in Scotland in this
study that came out in 2024.
Another article in the Lancet looked not at 78 countries, but it
looked at the effects of HPV vaccination programs in England. This
article was published in 2021:

The HPV vaccination program [in the UK] has almost
successfully eliminated cervical cancer in women born since
September 1, 1995.

The elimination of cervical cancer, no cases of invasive cancer.
There was a study done in Australia in 2013 by BMC Medicine. The
article was entitled ``Impact of a population-based HPV vaccination
program on cervical abnormalities.'' This was still relatively early in
the mass vaccination because Gardasil and any other HPV vaccinations
weren't used until the mid-2000s--2007, 2008. Here is the conclusion
reached about the Australians' experience:

Australia was one of the first countries to introduce a
publicly-funded national HPV vaccination program that
commenced in April 2007. . . . [It] significantly reduced
cervical abnormalities . . . within five years of
implementation, with the greatest vaccine effectiveness
observed [in] the youngest women.

The New England Journal of Medicine, which, in many ways, is the gold
standard in the United States, published a study in 2020 about the
effects of vaccination in Sweden:

Among Swedish girls and women 10 to 30 years old,
quadrivalent HPV vaccination was associated with a
substantially reduced risk of invasive cervical cancer at the
population level.

All right, those are the studies by the researchers in the journals,
but I also wondered--you know, I am not a great scientist. I don't
generally read medical journals. But what about our healthcare
institutions that are just in the business of providing health advice
to everyday Americans who are seeking information about their health?
I went to the website of the Mayo Clinic. Here is what mayoclinic.org
says:

HPV vaccine: Who needs it, how it works.

They say on their website: ``Getting vaccinated against HPV helps
prevent cancer in men and women''--period. No qualification, no
waffling, no wobbling. That is the advice that the Mayo Clinic gives to
its patients and to all who go to mayoclinic.org to seek health
information.
The Cleveland Clinic, another internationally known healthcare
provider, my.clevelandclinic.org in 2025, the website says as follows:

The HPV vaccine is an injection that prevents infections of
two types of human papillomavirus. The vaccine lowers your
risk of getting cervical cancer.

MD Anderson Hospital, another internationally known hospital based in
Houston, TX--mdanderson.org. Here is what they say to their patients or
others going to the website to seek advice:

All males and females--

ages 9-26 should get the HPV vaccine. It is a safe and
effective method of protection against HPV infection.

So what I have just done is read you a variety of conclusions from a
variety of researchers and healthcare providers, from a variety of
countries, all pointing to the effectiveness of HPV vaccinations to
prevent HPV infections that lead to cancers and other serious medical
conditions.
But what does Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., say? He has said that the
vaccination is one of the most dangerous vaccines ever created. He has
said that it is dangerous and defective.
On one of his website articles on his blog, he said:

It is inescapable that Gardasil kills girls.

The weight of medical evidence is that this is an effective tool to
prevent cervical cancer. Robert F. Kennedy--with no medical training,
with no scientific research background--claims otherwise. He cannot
separate fact from fantasy, content from conspiracy.
Now, is that just because his brain doesn't wrap itself around facts,
or is there something more serious? I needn't repeat at length what my
colleague Senator Warren said, but she laid out the facts that Robert
F. Kennedy, Jr., has a massive financial stake in lawsuits against the
manufacturer of the HPV vaccine.
In fact, he disclosed it on his ethics form, that if there are
recoveries against HPV manufacturers in lawsuits, he is entitled to 10
percent--10 percent--of the recovery in massive class-action lawsuits.
When we pressed him in the hearing, first he said he wasn't going to
give up that 10-percent stake. But he eventually felt some pressure,
and so he transferred it to his adult son. His family stands to gain
significantly if these lawsuits hit.
As the Secretary of HHS, he would have the ability to have a huge
influence on the Vaccine Injury Compensation Program.
Vaccine manufacturers get an immunity from civil suit until a case
has gone through the vaccine compensation court. That was put in place
many years ago because the number of vaccine manufacturers were in
precipitous free fall. They were going out of business or stopping
making vaccines because they were getting hit with big lawsuits. So
there is a special court that focuses on any arguments against vaccines
in these courts.
He would have significant ability to even remove immunity protection
from the manufacturers of vaccines. And if you remove immunity
protection, the value of lawsuits goes up, and the value of his
family's 10 percent stake goes up.
This should cause everyone serious concern about putting someone in
who stands, without any medical training, against the weight of medical
evidence saying that vaccination against cervical cancer is a
remarkable thing that should be done and that has been successful since
the mid-2000s.

I am going to conclude in a minute because my able colleague from
Colorado is here, but I want to raise one more issue. I want to raise
one more issue.
This inability to tell the difference between fact and fiction and
content and conspiracy would be dangerous enough if it was just about
health information, if it was just about vaccines. That, in and of
itself, should disqualify Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., from being the HHS
Secretary. But this individual's inability to tell the difference
between fact and fiction and between conspiracy and content is not
limited just to health.
In July of 2024, when he was running for President of the United
States, Robert F. Kennedy tweeted this:

My take on 9/11: It's hard to tell what is a conspiracy
theory and what isn't. But conspiracy theories flourish when
the government routinely lies to the public. As President, I
won't take sides on 9/11 or any of the other debates. But I
can promise is that I will open the files and usher in a new
era of transparency.

``I won't take sides on 9/11''--I represent the Commonwealth of
Virginia. The Pentagon was attacked on 9/11. The World Trade Center in
New York

[[Page S920]]

was attacked on 9/11. A plane went down in a farm field in Pennsylvania
on 9/11. A lot of Virginia families lost loved ones that day. I know
people who were in the Pentagon on 9/11 who had to race through a
burning building to go to the childcare center to make sure they could
get their child out and that their child was safe. I don't take it very
well when someone says they won't take sides about 9/11, when someone
admits: ``It's hard to tell what is a conspiracy theory and what
isn't.''
I asked Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.: Is this a common problem for you? I
mean, that is kind of a candid thing to admit: ``It's hard to tell what
is a conspiracy theory and what isn't.''
No, it is not. It is not hard for Virginians to understand what
happened on 9/11. They lost loved ones. They went to funerals. Their
family members never came home. And then, in the aftermath of 9/11, we
were in 20 years of war, where tens of thousands of Virginians were
deployed to battle against al-Qaida, the perpetrators of 9/11, and many
lost their lives then.
``I won't take sides on 9/11''--well, like, what side is there? What
side is he talking about?
I mean, it is a bad thing. Does he think it is a good thing? It was
an attack by Osama bin Laden and al-Qaida. Does he think it was an
inside job or something else?
And why would he even do this? This tweet is dated July 5, 2024. It
was 23 years after 9/11--23 years after 9/11. For some reason, on July
5, he just says: Well, why don't I just share with people that I won't
take sides on 9/11; that I still can't tell, 23 years later, what is a
conspiracy theory and what isn't.
If you cannot tell what happened on 9/11, if you decide to just
freelance an opinion 23 years later and tell the American public--and
he was running for President at the time--I will not take sides on 9/
11, you should not have been nominated for this position in the first
place.
I am finding it very hard to believe that my colleagues in this body,
whom I sat with on the Armed Services Committee, whom I sat with on the
Foreign Relations Committee, who have invested their time and energy in
making investments to battle terrorism around the world, to battle al-
Qaida and other terrorist groups, the group that perpetrated the 9/11
attack--many of my colleagues served in the military and were deployed
in the War on Terror in the aftermath of 9/11. They are now going to be
OK with a guy who says he won't take sides on 9/11; who says he can't
tell the difference between what is a conspiracy theory and what isn't?
This is a very, very dangerous vote that we will cast tomorrow. Of
any position in the Federal Government that needs somebody who can tell
the difference between fact and fiction, conspiracy and content, HHS
Secretary is that position, and Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., so badly flunks
the test of what is needed--careful, reasoned, information that people
can count on--that I urge my colleagues, even if you voted in a
committee, even if you voted on a procedural resolution to move this to
the floor, stop now. You can still stop now. Don't hurt this country.
Don't hurt the health of this country by putting someone in office who
can't even understand what happened on 9/11.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Colorado.
Mr. BENNET. Mr. President, I would like to take this opportunity to
welcome the Presiding Officer to the U.S. Senate. I hadn't had a
chance, really, to do that, as you sit in the chair.
We are now going to get somebody else, but I thank the Presiding
Officer for being here.
(Mr. HUSTED assumed the Chair.)
I also want to thank my colleague from the Commonwealth of Virginia,
Senator Kaine, for his heartfelt remarks.
I think we are through the looking glass in many ways, and there is a
pattern here that is reflected in what you were talking about, this
idea of being able to tell the difference between fact and fiction--
fact and fiction.
I know that when you were the mayor of Richmond, it was probably
pretty important for people who were working with you to know the
difference between fact and fiction. When you were the Governor of the
Commonwealth of Virginia, it probably was pretty important for you to
do that as well.
It does seem like, in President Trump's administration, he is really
at war with the facts and trying to muddle what is fact and fiction, to
be kind about it.
I can't think of a time in the history of this country when families
have wanted to know more about what is real and what is false--with
their kids, what is real and what is false.
I was the superintendent of schools in Denver, as the Senator from
Virginia knows, and it is a great irony that at a time when parents
want their kids to be able to distinguish between what is real and what
is false--because of all the falsehoods that are coming over social
media and other places--the President has decided to nominate the head
of the WWE to be the Secretary of Education in this administration.
You were talking about the inability of Bobby Kennedy to pick which
side he was on when it came to what happened on 9/11. It reminds me
exactly of the situation with Congresswoman Gabbard, who decided over
and over and over again that she was going to choose not America's side
but our adversaries' side, whether it was the chemical weapons in
Syria--I mean, it is hard to even contemplate that--or the fact that at
12:30 at night, or I guess it was 11:30 at night, literally the night
that Putin invaded Ukraine, a country that was at peace, a crossing of
a peaceful border--the first time a tyrant had done that in Europe
since World War II when the United States had led the international and
global order that created these incredibly important institutions, NATO
being one of those. And she had to reach out at 11:30 at night to
basically mimic the talking points from Vladimir Putin. And I am not
saying that she was a Russian spy or anything; I am just saying that it
is the same stuff that he was using. Two days later, the Russian
propaganda television in Moscow was running that stuff on the TV in
Moscow.
So I think it really does matter that people are telling the truth to
the American people and that, where possible, where there are
differences of opinion, that we try to get to the bottom of the truth.
There are a lot of reasons to have differences of opinion. We live in a
democracy, and we have the freedom to have differences of opinion. We
have the freedom to have a different understanding of the facts, but we
need to be pretty certain about that when it comes to public health,
when it comes to healthcare in this country.
Mr. President, we live in the richest country in the world. We are
blessed to live in the richest country in the world. If you look at our
national wealth as a function of our population, there is nobody who is
remotely even close to us. That is the reflection of an economy that
has been much more dynamic than economies across the world, innovation
that is much more dynamic, and, I would say, a culture that is not
beset by corruption in the way many countries around the world are.
But even though we are the richest country in the world and the
richest per capita, shockingly, we have some of the worst health
outcomes of any country that is wealthy. We have the lowest life
expectancy among large, wealthy countries. We have the highest maternal
mortality rate of any other high-income country in the world, and it is
getting worse every single year. We have the highest hospitalization
rates for chronic conditions--like congestive heart failure and
diabetes and asthma--of all our peer countries.
We spend twice as much per capita as any other industrialized country
for worse results. It is a bad deal for patients, and it is a terrible
deal for taxpayers.
This isn't just about our physical health. We have the highest
suicide rate among high-income countries. We have the second highest
drug-related death rate among high-income countries.
We have some of the lowest numbers of mental health practitioners per
capita in many parts of the country. In my own home State of Colorado,
there are entire counties that really don't have any mental health
expertise at all. And at a time when there is an epidemic in our
country, I would say especially among young people, that is a shameful
failure on our part.

Americans in every corner of our country are getting sicker in 2025.

[[Page S921]]

They are spending more on healthcare, they are traveling farther, and
they are waiting longer to see fewer doctors.
The citizens of Colorado, I can tell you, are deeply, deeply unhappy
with our healthcare system--deeply unhappy.
I will actually say I was here when we passed the Affordable Care Act
during the Obama years, and it has not fixed the issues we are facing.
My constituents, when they think about healthcare, they think about
scarcity; they think about the unavailability of drugs that their moms
and dads have been prescribed but they either can't get or they can't
afford even though they have been prescribed.
Unlike other countries around the world, this is a nation where our
senior citizens actually spend their retirement going from pharmacy to
pharmacy to pharmacy to get the drugs they have been prescribed by a
doctor, to be able to get the inhaler that will keep them healthy so
that they don't end up in the emergency room.
This is a country, unlike our competitors, where it is very common
for moms and dads to spend 2 hours or 3 hours or 4 hours on the phone
with an insurance company denying their claim--their legitimate claim--
for their kid.
This is a country, as I mentioned, where we do not have ready access
to mental health care, which people living in other countries far less
wealthy than we are have as a reasonable expectation of being a citizen
of that country.
When we are in the midst of a physical and mental health care crisis
like this, unlike many of the other Cabinet positions we are going to
fill--and for some of them, it is true as well--the Secretary of Health
and Human Services is a job of life and death. That is why Mr.
Kennedy's confirmation, I think, would be so dangerous.
We are on the precipice of allowing a practiced trafficker of vaccine
conspiracy theories--admitted, of these theories--to administer
healthcare to over 29 million children in America who receive routine,
lifesaving vaccines through Medicaid; a man who has made his fame and
fortune by treating our most vulnerable children as his personal
science experiment.
Mr. Kennedy has peddled bunk science that claims vaccines cause
autism, sowing confusion and fear and causing heartbreak among parents
who are now afraid to vaccinate their kids because they are so worried
that it is going to cause autism--that they won't have a vaccine for
their kid for fear of autism. But the failure to get that vaccine means
their kids are exposed to profoundly important childhood and serious
childhood illnesses.
He makes his claims with incredible conviction. He is not shy about
it. He claimed that the measles vaccines ``poisoned an entire
generation of children'' and went further to say that the ``only thing
that cures measles is nutrition and clean water.''
Before the measles vaccine was developed in the 1960s, hundreds of
American kids died every year, and measles is a completely preventable
disease with two vaccines administered in childhood. Without it,
measles can spread like wildfire, leaving behind serious complications
like blindness and encephalitis. We don't know that. We don't remember
that because the pages that are on this floor can't remember a time
when we weren't having the measles vaccine in the United States of
America. It would be a very different world if we hadn't had them, but
we do.
Doctors in sub-Saharan Africa, where measles runs rampant, describe
watching children die from this preventable disease in their dire
warnings they are now sending to the United States.
The CDC warns that kindergarten MMR vaccine rates have dropped below
the 95-percent threshold needed to prevent worldwide measles outbreaks.
As I stand here tonight, as the Presiding Officer sits here tonight,
five States have reported measles cases. An outbreak in Gaines County,
TX, has rapidly grown to 24 reported cases, all of them unvaccinated
children. Nine are in the hospital. Nine of these children are in the
hospital. Vaccine exemptions in Gaines County are among the highest in
the State of Texas. Mr. President, 17.5 percent of Gaines County
kindergartners have vaccine exemptions. That is almost 20 percent.
It is not just Mr. Kennedy's vaccine conspiracies that are of grave
concern, however. He has spent 50 years muddying the waters of
scientific consensus with half-truths and misinformation and bad
science.
In his hearing before the Finance Committee, Mr. Kennedy showed an
alarming inability to answer simple questions about his past
statements. He appeared to have selective memory regarding some of his
most outlandish claims.
I asked him point-blank about his claims that COVID-19 was a
genetically engineered bioweapon--these are his words: genetically
engineered bioweapon--that targets Black and White people but spared
Ashkenazi Jews and Chinese people. He never denied this. He never
denied that he said it and instead pointed to a debunked theory study
as flimsy proof of his claims.
I asked him further, based on what he had said--again, quoting him:

Did you say Lyme disease is a highly likely militarily
engineered bioweapon?

To this he answered:

I probably did.

``I probably did'' say that Lyme disease was a militarily engineered
bioweapon. How can we consider someone for the highest health office in
the country who believes that America's own military engineered Lyme
disease and uses it as a weapon against us? What could go wrong?
He said on his podcast that exposure to pesticides could cause
children to become transgender--a statement he claims not to remember,
but he said it. It is on the record.
He insisted he forgot writing in his own book that ``it's undeniable
that African AIDS is an entirely different disease from Western AIDS''
and could provide no explanation for this false statement either.
Mr. Kennedy likes to talk about the need for more research. In fact,
that was his answer to many of my colleagues' questions. He even told
me to look at an NIH study when I asked him about some of his unfounded
claims about COVID-19.
Now, the NIH, as you know, is under attack tonight as we are here,
and all Mr. Kennedy has to say about that is that he will look into
that.
The NIH is the gold standard worldwide for scientific research and
innovation. The University of Colorado is telling me that the system
could lose $85 million a year in research dollars to study Alzheimer's,
brain injuries, mental illness, and heart disease. If confirmed, Mr.
Kennedy would oversee NIH.
I guess I really think that we could do better than a known peddler
of junk science to run the most important medical research in the
country.
Is a vaccine denier the best we can do for our doctors who are
working around the clock and our nurses, too, in the midst of the worst
flu outbreak in 15 years? Is a man who became a millionaire many times
over by claiming vaccines cause autism the best we really can do for
our kids?
Do we really want parents making a choice that is unsafe for them and
for their communities because people at the highest offices in the
country are making false statements about science? Out of 330 million
Americans, we can surely do better than this.
I appreciate the Presiding Officer's patience.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Jersey.
Mr. KIM. Mr. President, I rise today because there is nothing--
nothing--that keeps a parent up at night like the health of their
child. It doesn't matter if you are a Democrat or a Republican, if you
live in the reddest rural areas or the bluest cities. One of the things
that binds us as Americans, as people, is that every parent looks at
their kids and wants to know that they are doing everything that they
can to keep them safe.
And let me tell you, that is not an easy task. I am a father of a 7-
year-old and a 9-year-old, two little boys, and I every day wonder, am
I doing the right thing for them? Am I being the kind of father that
they deserve? Am I looking out and being thoughtful about what they
eat, about whether or not I am keeping up with their health, and that
they are exercising?
And like most families, I can tell you it is tough to know that you
are always doing the best thing for your kids. But like most families,
we do what we can.

[[Page S922]]

My wife and I, we try our very best. But we don't have all of the
answers.
I mean, how many parents out there, when your kid gets sick and it is
too late in the night to find a way to call the doctor or the nurse,
you are trying to figure out where to turn to for information?
Where do we go when it is that we feel like we have reached the
limits of our own personal knowledge and we need to find a place that
we can trust? And that is what this is about. It is about knowing that
there is someone you can trust when you feel like you don't know where
else to turn, that someone can have your back and you can trust that
they have your best interests at heart.
When we think about our doctors, when we think about our nurses, our
health professionals, when we think about those making decisions in
this great Nation of over 330 million people about our healthcare, we
want to trust those individuals, these people that are making these
decisions.
And I know for the people in New Jersey, over 9 million people there
in the State of New Jersey, they are wondering who they can trust. We
live in tough times. In fact, we live in the time of the greatest
amount of distrust that we have ever seen in modern history of this
country.
And that is most pronounced, most clear when it comes to our health.
And one of those people we need to trust the most in our country is the
person who runs the Department of Health and Human Services.
I rise today because I have met with Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. I have
questioned Mr. Kennedy in committee. I have read his statements and
examined his record, and I want to say here on the floor of the Senate
that he is not someone I can trust with my kids' health. And in good
conscience, I cannot vote for him.
If I cannot trust him with the health of my own kids, how can I ask
the families of 9 million other New Jerseyans to go do it or for
families across our country to trust this man?
I have had the chance to be able to meet him, talk to him in person,
ask him questions, that is more than most anyone in my own State is
going to have a chance to talk to him. I took that as a deep
responsibility to try to use that time and that opportunity to try to
deduce whether or not this man rises to the level of trust that I think
the people of New Jersey and this country deserve.
And I have come to the conclusion that I cannot support Mr. Kennedy
to lead an Agency in charge of our Nation's health. And he has too
often diminished that trust in the very healthcare that he would be in
charge of and too often has spread disinformation about the diseases
and challenges and threats that we face.
Now, what you will hear from his supporters is a story of an advocate
for change. They will tell you that he is fighting against a broken
system, that he simply wants to make America healthy. And, look, I
think all of us, hopefully, can say that we want to make America
healthy, that we care about the health of Americans across this Nation.
And I don't think anyone in this Chamber would disagree that there
are broken problems that we face when it comes to our healthcare, to
our government, to so many aspects of our society.
But, unfortunately, like most things coming out of this current
administration, what we are seeing is corruption and conspiracy
disguised as false promises of change. It is important that we take
this moment to call it out and to expose it, to explain to the American
people why this is a position--the Secretary of Health and Human
Services is a position where trust is so important.
Because if he is confirmed, Mr. Kennedy will have an incredible
platform, well beyond the strong platform that he already has
developed--a bully pulpit. But this would be an official platform of
the United States, of our government, paid for by the taxpayers, to
shape the health of my children and yours.
Let's begin with the Agency he is nominated to lead. HHS employs more
than 80,000 people across the United States and around the world. Their
mission is simple: to enhance the health and well-being of all
Americans. And to put that another way, their job is to make it easier
for parents to sleep at night by making sure their kids can stay
healthy.
Now, I am not going to go over every single one of the 13 operating
divisions of HHS, but let me name a few you have probably heard of. The
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, they are on the frontlines
of preventing the next pandemic; the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid
Services, they operate Medicare, Medicaid; the Children's Health
Insurance Program, otherwise known as CHIP; and the Health Insurance
Marketplaces. All of these provide healthcare for more than 100 million
Americans, including my mother and my father who are under Medicare.
That is about one in three people under the services of the Centers for
Medicare and Medicaid Services.
Then there is the Food and Drug Administration, or the FDA. You
probably know them because when there is some sort of outbreak that
impacts the food supply, they issue the recalls. But they do a lot of
other stuff, too, from approving new medicines to countering
bioterrorism.
Now, those are three of the divisions you have heard of. Maybe you
haven't heard of the National Institutes of Health, an Agency that sits
at the cutting edge of medical research--not just in the Nation but
around the world. Or the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services
Administration, an Agency that does work to combat the real addiction
and mental health crisis our country is facing.
The Lakewood Community Service Corporation, Lakewood, NJ, received a
$2.5 million grant to improve mental health care in one of our State's
fastest growing services. Cape May County Council on Alcoholism and
Drug Abuse received a $300,000 grant to tackle substance abuse issues
in South Jersey, both important causes that my colleagues from both
sides of the aisle can agree to support.
And then, finally, there is the Administration for Children and
Families, and whether you heard of it or not, you or someone you know
probably is touched by it. It is the second largest Agency in HHS, and
it is the Agency that manages temporary assistance for needy families:
Head Start, childcare and foster care programs.
I wanted to outline all of this because I want you to understand the
enormity of the task ahead of the next HHS Secretary. This is not just
someone who can walk in and just say: We need to be healthy again. This
is someone who will be tasked with operating programs on a day-to-day
basis that mean the very life and death of over a third of all
Americans.
So when I say that trust is important, it is not just a buzzword. Who
do you trust with your health? Who do you trust with your children's
health? Who do you trust with your parents' health, as they age and
face challenges of physical and cognitive decline?
Let's look at some of the things that show why we should not trust
Mr. Kennedy. One of the first things that many parents have to deal
with--vaccines. A lot of us have had to hold our kids through those
vaccines. We talk to our pediatricians--people we trust--and they talk
to us about the importance of making sure that our kids are protected.
Mr. Kennedy has used his stature to push lawsuits that he personally
stands to profit from--including over a common vaccine given to
children. And throughout all of this, Mr. Kennedy has claimed that he
is ``not anti-vaccine.'' While it is clear that we cannot trust him,
what is even more clear is that his deception has had a real impact on
the lives of people.
Mr. Kennedy's push to sow distrust in Samoa in 2019 helped lead to a
measles epidemic that claimed the lives of 83 people, mostly children
under the age of 5. While Kennedy said in his hearing that ``We don't
know what was killing them,'' the Samoan Director-General of Health,
Dr. Alec Ekeroma, called his words ``a total fabrication.''
The doctor said that if Mr. Kennedy is confirmed, he would be ``a
danger to us, a danger to everyone.''
That is not someone we can trust.
In a speech on the Senate floor in the 1960s, then-Senator John F.
Kennedy, said that ``the treatment of its older citizens is said by
anthropologists to be one of the most basic tests of how civilized a
society or nation has become.''
I would broaden that test to be our most vulnerable, our neighbors
who are

[[Page S923]]

targeted simply because of who they are.
And when Mr. Kennedy spreads false claims like the COVID-19 virus was
engineered to spare Jewish Americans and Asians, he uses the trust that
he has been given to divide and spread anti-Semitism and anti-Asian
hate.
And when Mr. Kennedy, in response to the questions asked of him by
Members of this body, refused to acknowledge the importance of taking
commonsense steps in our foster care system to protect trans youth, he
uses the trust he has been given to divide and spread hate and fear.
That is not someone we can trust.
My reasons for opposing Mr. Kennedy's nomination don't just come from
the concerns I have for my children; it comes from an understanding I
have from my parents.
A little over 50 years ago, my parents came to America from South
Korea to start a better life. They did so by working to keep Americans
healthy. My father earned his Ph.D. and became a genetic researcher
trying to cure cancer and Alzheimer's. My mother worked as a nurse in
hospital systems across New Jersey.
They worked hard to earn the trust of people around them, their
colleagues, their patients that they had worked on every single day,
but also the trust that they had in the people around them for their
own health.
My father was a polio survivor; my mother struggled with Lyme
disease. They have had their fair share of health struggles. And
through them, I have seen a common denominator that our public health
system only works when we have people working together with trust and
that we the public, in turn, trust them.
But then when I hear Mr. Kennedy say this about Lyme disease. He
said:

Another thing that keeps us from enjoying the outdoors and
keeps us locked inside and the idea that this may have been,
is highly likely to have been a military weapon, and we
cannot say 100 percent for sure, but we do know that they
were experimenting with tics there. Now, the American Lyme
Disease Foundation wrote:
Some claim that Lyme disease was introduced into the
northeastern region of the U.S by a man-made strain that
escaped from a high containment biological warfare lab on
Plum Island.
They said:
However, there is ample evidence to indicate that both the
Ixodes ticks and the bacteria causing Lyme disease were
present in the U.S well before the Plum Island facility was
ever established.''

According to a Washington Post article written by a Professor Sam
Telford, ``It's an old conspiracy theory enjoying a resurgence with
lots of sensational headlines and tweets. Even Congress has ordered
that the Pentagon must reveal whether it weaponized ticks. And it's not
true.''
When it came to the disease of polio that disabled my father since he
was a baby, Mr. Kennedy had this to say about the vaccine that nearly
eradicated polio from the face of the planet. He said the vaccine, for
a period of time, may have led to cancer due to a contamination with a
virus that ``killed many many many many many more people than polio
ever did.''
So with the polio vaccine he said: ``Did it cause more deaths than it
averted? I would say, I don't know.''
And he said this just a year and a half ago.
A large study was published that concluded that the polio vaccine
under concern was not associated with increased rates of cancer, and
other studies showed that the virus of concern was killed by the same
process used to inactivate the polio virus.
And in that same podcast, Mr. Kennedy said:

There is no vaccine that is safe and effective.

Again, this was just a year and a half ago. Now he is coming to us
and saying: I am all for the polio vaccine.
What are the American people left to believe?
Again, our health and our Nation is founded on trust. That is part of
the compact we have as Americans for generations. We want trust for our
families.
As I said, I am a father of two little boys. All I want for them is
to be healthy and happy. They are the reason that I am here in the U.S.
Senate, to take actions to be able to give them the best type of lives,
to give other kids and other grandkids the kind of lives they deserve.
And I worry about the foods that they eat, and I support efforts to
address ultraprocessed foods in America, to try to make sure we can
have Americans eating healthy. But I also want someone who is not going
to shoot from the hip and spread disinformation.
Our healthcare is far from perfect, and we do need major reforms to
get it in a place where it can better serve the American people. We do
need massive changes in the way our healthcare, childcare, elder care,
and nutrition systems are run, but not without trust.
We need research--more and more research--to understand safety and to
power the innovation that will come up with the cures and the medicines
of the future. But, this week, we see efforts to undertake massive cuts
at NIH, cuts that would set back the very research we need to keep
improving our health.
As I conclude here, these efforts to cut and slash our research at
NIH and elsewhere would continue under the leadership of Mr. Kennedy.
HHS Secretary is a big job. We can't just hand it to someone we can't
trust--not for my kids or for my parents or for yours.
I encourage my colleagues, again: Reject this nomination so that
every parent in America can go to sleep having trust in a person tasked
with ensuring that our children will be healthy in the morning.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The majority leader.