WASHINGTON — Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. highlighted nutrition and food safety in opening remarks before lawmakers on Thursday but left out references to overhauling the vaccination schedule and identifying the causes of autism.
The omission from Kennedy’s remarks at the first of his two Congressional hearings on Thursday is the latest sign that the nation’s top health official is avoiding some of his most controversial positions ahead of November’s midterm elections.
Two sources familiar with the matter told Reuters the White House recently urged health officials to redirect policy discussions toward more popular topics, as President Donald Trump and his Republican Party seek to shore up support for their slim majorities in Congress.
Kennedy, a longtime anti-vaccine activist, faced a setback last month after a court ruling derailed key elements of his efforts to rewrite vaccine policy.
He appeared on Thursday before the House of Representatives Ways and Means Committee and is scheduled to appear later in the day before the House Appropriations Committee’s health subcommittee to discuss the health component of the Trump administration’s 2027 budget proposal. Next week, he faces five more hearings before House and Senate panels.
Proposed health budget faces pushback
The budget requests $111 billion for the Department of Health and Human Services, a 12.5% cut from current levels, including a $5 billion cut to the National Institutes of Health and the elimination of a low-income energy assistance program. Several key Republicans, including Senate Appropriations Committee Chair Susan Collins, have already criticized the cuts as unnecessary.
Democrats on the Ways and Means panel pressed Kennedy on rising health care costs, his undermining of confidence in vaccines, management of fraud and his stewardship of the nation’s largest measles outbreak in decades.
Mike Thompson of California asked Kennedy if he has a medical or public health degree, to which Kennedy responded he does not.
"Yet you are overruling doctors, scientists and public health experts across our country. Your dangerous conspiracy theories are undermining safe and effective vaccines," Thompson said.
"Mr. Secretary, you shouldn’t be in this office," he added.
In his opening remarks before the committee, Kennedy emphasized achievements under his "Make America Healthy Again" initiative and other administration priorities, including efforts on nutrition, food safety, drug prices, fraud prevention, and cutting children’s access to gender-related care.
"We stand at a generational turning point, our children of the sickest generation in modern history, and decades of failed policy captured agencies and profit-driven systems have caused it. Parents across the country demanded change, and we are delivering it," Kennedy said.
"Secretary Kennedy speaks about a broad range of issues that affect the health and well-being of American families, and his statement reflects the priorities Americans consistently say matter most to them, from chronic disease prevention, childhood nutrition, food quality, and affordable health care," said Department of Health and Human Services spokesman Andrew Nixon when asked about the omission of vaccines from a copy of Kennedy’s written opening remarks uploaded by one of the panels.
Nixon did not address whether Kennedy plans to bring up vaccines or autism during the hearing, or if the White House had asked him to shift his focus to more popular policies ahead of the election.
Navigating competing constituencies
The Trump administration faces a delicate balancing act, standing by millions of MAHA supporters who helped re-elect the president in 2024 but are now upset by Trump’s order to boost pesticide production, while managing low support among the wider public for Kennedy’s anti-vaccine platform.
Kennedy, who co-founded the anti-vaccine group Children’s Health Defense, has during his tenure pushed to reduce the number of recommended childhood vaccines, overhauled a CDC advisory panel of independent vaccine experts, and pledged to identify the cause of autism.
Kennedy and his supporters have repeatedly linked autism to vaccines, a theory long debunked by science, at times with Trump’s explicit backing.
Pollsters and strategists expect health care costs to be a primary issue for voters this November.
