LoginRFK Jr. insists upcoming ‘Make America Healthy Again’ report won’t target farming
Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. testifies before a Senate Appropriations subcommittee on Tuesday, May 20, 2025. (Screenshot from committee webcast)
WASHINGTON — U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. testified before Congress on Tuesday that a major report due out later this week from his agency will not disparage farmers or a commonly used pesticide.
Kennedy, who has long been critical of certain aspects of modern agriculture and processed food, at a U.S. Senate hearing urged lawmakers to read the widely anticipated “Make America Healthy Again” report once it’s published Thursday, but didn’t go into details about any possible recommendations.
“Everybody will see the report,” Kennedy said. “And there’s nobody that has a greater commitment to the American farmer than we do. The MAHA movement collapses if we can’t partner with the American farmer in producing a safe, robust and abundant food supply.”
His comments followed stern questioning from Mississippi Republican Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith, who said she had read news reports from “reliable sources” that the MAHA Commission’s initial assessment “may unfairly target American agriculture, modern farming practices and the crop protection tools that roughly 2% of our population relies on to help feed the remaining 98%.”
“If Americans lose confidence in the safety and integrity of our food supply due to the unfounded claims that mislead consumers, public health will be at risk,” Hyde-Smith said. “I’ve said this before, and it’s worth saying again, countries have gone to war over many things — politics, religion, race, trade, natural resources, oil, pride, you name it — but threaten a nation’s food supply and allow people to go hungry. Let’s see what happens then.”
Hyde-Smith, who was her home state’s commissioner of agriculture and commerce from 2012 to 2018, probed Kennedy about his past work in environmental law and whether he might be inserting “confirmation bias” into the forthcoming report.
She asked Kennedy if he would try to change the current approval for glyphosate, a commonly used herbicide, that she referred to as “one of the most thoroughly studied products of its kind.”
“We’re talking about more than 1,500 studies and 50-plus years of review by the EPA and other leading global health authorities that have affirmed its safety when used as directed,” Hyde-Smith said. “Have you been able to review thousands of studies and decades of scientific review in a matter of months?”
Kennedy responded that her “information about the report is just simply wrong.”
“The drafts that I’ve seen, there is not a single word in them that should worry the American farmer,” Kennedy said.
Hyde-Smith continued her questioning and told Kennedy that it would be “a shame if the MAHA commission issues reports suggesting, without substantial facts and evidence, that our government got things terribly wrong when it reviewed a number of crop protection tools and deemed them to be safe.”
Home energy program in Maine
Several other Republicans on the Senate Appropriations Labor-HHS-Education Subcommittee raised concerns during the two-hour hearing about how Kennedy has run HHS since they confirmed him in February.
Maine Sen. Susan Collins, chairwoman of the full Appropriations Committee, brought up the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program, or LIHEAP, which the Trump administration has called on Congress to eliminate.
“The LIHEAP program, which we’ve talked about, is absolutely vital for thousands of older Mainers and low-income families,” Collins said. “It helps them avoid the constant worry of having to choose between keeping warm, buying essential foods and medications and other basic necessities.”
Kennedy sought to distance himself from the president’s budget request, saying that he understands “the critical, historical importance of this program.”
“President (Donald) Trump’s rationale and (the Office of Management and Budget’s) rationale is that President Trump’s energy policies are going to lower the cost of energy … so that everybody will get lower cost heating oil,” Kennedy said.
NIH indirect costs
Subcommittee Chairwoman Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va., brought up several issues with Kennedy, including efforts to change how much the National Institutes of Health provides to medical schools and research universities for Facilities and Administrative fees, often called indirect costs.
NIH sought to set that amount at 15% across the board for any institution that receives a research grant from the agency, a significantly lower amount than many of the organizations had negotiated over the years, bringing about strong objections from institutions of higher education.
That NIH policy has not taken effect as several lawsuits work their way through the federal court system.
Kennedy indicated NIH has figured out a way to help medical schools and research universities pay for items like gloves, test tubes and mass spectrometers, particularly at state schools.
“In the public universities, we are very much aware that those universities are using the money well, that it is absolutely necessary for them. And we’re looking at a series of different ways that we can fund those costs through them,” Kennedy said. “But not through the independent, indirect cost structure, which loses all control, which deprives us of all control of how that money is spent.”
Kansas Sen. Jerry Moran, a Republican, brought up the measles outbreak and pressed Kennedy on whether HHS needed additional resources to help his home state and others get the virus under control.
Kennedy testified the “best way to prevent the spread of measles is through vaccination” and that HHS has been urging “people to get their MMR vaccines.”
South Dakota grant on mine safety
South Dakota Sen. Mike Rounds called on Kennedy to continue fixing issues created earlier this year when HHS fired people working on mine safety issues at the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health.
“My office has learned that staff at NIOSH’s Spokane mining research division have been laid off. This office focuses on the unique challenges of Western mining operations that are often more geologically complex and exposed to harsher conditions,” Rounds said. “This division provides critical technical support for institutions like the South Dakota School of Mines and Technology, which recently received a $1.25 million grant to improve underground mining safety. However, the grant has now been canceled due to loss of oversight from the Spokane office.
“This is not just a missed opportunity, it undermines our ability to meet national security goals tied to mineral independence and supply chain resilience.”
Kennedy testified that he’s been able to bring back 238 workers at the agency and said he would work with Rounds to address ongoing issues.
Pledge to fund Head Start, but no dollar amount
Alabama Sen. Katie Britt, a Republican, asked Kennedy about news reports earlier this year that HHS would ask Congress to zero out funding for Head Start, one of numerous programs left out of the administration’s skinny budget request. Head Start provides early learning, health, family and development programs for free for children from low-income families.
Kennedy testified that eliminating Head Start would likely not be in the full budget request, which is set to be released later this year, though the White House budget office has not said when. He said it would ask Congress to fully fund the program, but didn’t share a dollar amount.
“There’s 800,000 of the poorest kids in this country who are served by this program. It not only teaches the kids preschool skills — reading, writing and arithmetic — before they get to prepare them for school. But it also teaches the parents and teaches them how to be good parents.”
Kennedy said there are challenges faced by the Head Start program that he hopes to change during the next four years, including the quality of the food.
“The food they’re serving at Head Start is terrible. You need to change that,” Kennedy said. “We’re poisoning the poorest kids from their youngest years, and we’re going to change that.”
