Confronted with an announcement he made on a podcast in 2024 calling for Black kids on ADHD treatment to be “re-parented,” Well being and Human Companies (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. instructed a Home committee on Thursday to not consider their lyin’ ears.
Throughout an alternate with Rep. Terri Sewell, an Alabama Democrat, Kennedy mentioned he didn’t recall making the assertion and accused Sewell of “simply making stuff up.”
The file, nevertheless, says in any other case.
“Each Black child is now simply customary placed on Adderall, SSRIs, benzos, that are identified to induce violence,” Kennedy mentioned on the 19Keys on-line present, when he was working for the Democratic presidential nomination. “And people youngsters are going to have an opportunity to go someplace and get re-parented — to dwell in a group the place there’ll be no cellphones, no screens. You’ll even have to speak to folks.”
Pending finances cuts
The alternate with Sewell, who referred to as Kennedy’s remarks “disturbing,” got here throughout the HHS secretary’s at occasions contentious testimony earlier than the Republican-controlled Home Methods and Means Committee. In his first look earlier than Congress this 12 months, Kennedy praised the company’s work to vary the nation’s dietary pointers and reduce waste, fraud, and abuse.
Kennedy additionally claimed that the administration’s overhaul has led to improved drug worth negotiations which have decreased costs, however a Senate committee report launched Thursday finds that drug costs have really continued to skyrocket.
Whereas the committee’s Republicans praised Kennedy as “a breath of contemporary air” for emphasizing vitamin and general well being, Democrats slammed him for the Trump administration’s plan to chop roughly 12% from his division’s 2027 finances. The discount would carve greater than $100 billion from the company that gives healthcare companies to all People.
House vitality help threatened
Together with slashing $5 billion from the Nationwide Institutes of Well being, the nation’s world-class well being and biomedical analysis group, the proposed cuts would additionally get rid of a program that gives house heating and vitality help to virtually 6 million households. It could additionally slash budgets for federal applications that assist feed low-income households and youngsters.
Kennedy additionally took hearth for modifications to the vaccine schedule — a transfer that the courts have sidetracked for now that has been halted by a authorized injunction — and a collection of measles outbreaks that unfold by South Carolina and Texas earlier this 12 months.
Kennedy’s remarks about separating Black kids who’ve attention-deficit/hyperactivity dysfunction (ADHD) and different psychological well being points from their mother and father drew substantial warmth.
‘Re-parenting controversy’
Pressed by Sewell, Kennedy continued to disclaim he mentioned something of the kind, however a number of social media customers reposted the unique recording of Kennedy touting his plan for “wellness farms.” He additionally introduced up the concept greater than as soon as — together with throughout an interview with the Excessive Stage Conversations podcast.
On the listening to, Sewell pressed Kennedy: “Have you ever ever re-parented — or parented, I ought to say — a Black baby?”
Kennedy responded that he didn’t “even know what that phrase means” and denied he made the comment. “I’m not going to reply one thing I didn’t say,” Kennedy mentioned. “You’re simply making stuff up.”
Sewell insisted she was “completely not making this up, Mr. Secretary.” Even now, she mentioned, Black kids and their mother and father are separated extra typically than white households “not due to their higher hurt, however due to longstanding bias and built-in institutionalism.”
To counsel that Black households “are usually not able to elevating their very own kids is deeply offensive, sir,” she mentioned.
