00:00The chair now recognizes Mr. Garcia from California.
00:05Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
00:07I want to first begin by thanking all of our witnesses for being here and for your testimony,
00:12obviously for all the comments that we've heard here from both sides of the aisle in the committee.
00:18I do think that it's ironic that we're holding a hearing on restoring the trust in the FDA
00:25while we're ignoring the single biggest threat to public health today,
00:29which is, of course, is Donald Trump's health secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
00:35Now, together with Elon Musk, RFK Jr. is actively undermining the institutions
00:40that protect public health and the safety of all Americans.
00:43Now, we know that RFK Jr. already has a history of outrageous medical opinions
00:48and a dangerous anti-vax record.
00:51Now, let's just look at the measles alone.
00:53Before the measles vaccine, we know that measles would kill 400 to 500 American children annually.
01:00Now, after, of course, that vaccine was released, that number fell to almost nothing.
01:05But now, with RFK's anti-vax movement growing and his dysfunction at HHS,
01:11we've seen over 600 confirmed measles cases across 22 jurisdictions,
01:16and that, of course, is not a coincidence.
01:20We also know that this is also just the beginning.
01:24This committee is not serious about actually taking on the public health threat of measles,
01:29which, by the way, our measles cases today is 50 times higher than we have trans athletes in college sports,
01:36yet they obsess about that every single day.
01:40The committee is obsessed with things that don't matter but not the public health of actual Americans and children.
01:46By the way, children are now actually dying.
01:48And we know that, of course, that's just the beginning.
01:50RFK Jr. has said that 5G and Wi-Fi can cause brain damage, ADHD, radiation sickness.
01:56He's said that pesticides are actually turning people transgender.
02:00He's even questioned whether HIV causes AIDS.
02:03He's made comments, of course, that alkyl nitrite, better known as poppers,
02:07the sum is the actual cause of AIDS.
02:09He said during a campaign event that 100% of the people who died,
02:13the first thousand who had AIDS, were people who were addicted to poppers.
02:16In his 2021 book and 2023 interview with the New York Times and New York Magazine,
02:21he repeated claims that questioned the causes of AIDS despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary.
02:27In my opinion, RFK Jr. has been and will always be a tinfoil hat conspiracy theorist.
02:33He should be nowhere near, anywhere near HHS, medical opinion, and our research in this country.
02:40Now, Dr. Kessler, I hate to have to even ask you this, but is there any serious medical evidence that HIV does not cause AIDS?
02:47No.
02:50And that's exactly why these cuts by Doge and RFK Jr. to HIV research treatment prevention are so dangerous.
02:56Public health experts warn that these actions will set us back decades.
03:00Now, despite Donald Trump's 2019 State of the Union promise to end the HIV epidemic,
03:04we've seen over 800 million in HIV research actually cut.
03:09HHS, the Office of Infectious Disease and HIV Policy has been shuttered.
03:13CDC surveillance efforts have been gutted.
03:16PEPFAR, the Global Fund, all, of course, life-saving initiatives are being dismantled.
03:21Now, Dr. Kessler, you led the effort to fast-track approval for life-saving AIDS programs.
03:26Can you just briefly, in a sentence, explain how Doge is going after the work?
03:31I also chaired the board of the Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation.
03:40You know, with President Bush, the son, that was, I mean, the goal was to stop mother-to-child transmission throughout the world of HIV.
03:54It was the moral conscience of this nation, right?
03:58Global health is, relies on America, and that has been drastically cut.
04:07That's absolutely right, sir.
04:09And we also know that RFK Jr., while this is happening globally and here back home,
04:13he's fired 10,000 people from his agency and then claimed that 2,000 of those was actually a mistake.
04:20So, firing people, claiming they're a mistake, gutting the agency, taking away support from life-saving programs,
04:27spreading anti-vaccine conspiracy theories, that's what RFK Jr. right now is all about.
04:33And these aren't just mistakes, either life or death decisions.
04:37Critical staff have been lost.
04:39Experts overseeing medicines, food safety, and medical devices, as we know, have been shut or let go.
04:45And we're incredibly concerned.
04:46I want to read this quote by former FDA Commissioner Robert Califf.
04:50Quote,
04:51The FDA, as we've known, is finished.
04:54With most of the leaders, institutional knowledge, and a deep understanding of product development and safety
04:59no longer being employed,
05:01it is totally unacceptable that Congress is doing nothing to prevent, of course,
05:04this absolute destruction of our public health infrastructure.
05:07We need to stop this now.
05:09And with that, I yield back.
05:11I just have to comment, Mr. Garcia, in all good faith.
05:17The predecessor for the ranking member, Mr. Raskin, said that those of us who wondered if COVID came from the lab at Wuhan, we were conspiracy terrorists.
05:30And when we started suggesting that maybe former President Biden was in mental decline, that we were conspiracy terrorists.
05:38And now, you know, there's just books coming out by all these Democrat journalists every day saying what we had wondered, too.
05:46I'm not defending or trashing what you said about Robert F. Kennedy.
05:51It's just that, you know, conspiracy theories are in the eyes of the beholder.
05:57Sir, do you think that children should be getting the measles vaccine?
06:01That children should be receiving the measles vaccine?
06:04All my children are vaccinated.
06:06And do you think that we should be getting vaccinated for COVID?
06:09Well, I think there's a lot of questions about COVID that we need answered.
06:14But measles, yes.
06:15And again, our current HHS secretary is an anti-vax conspiracy theorist.
06:22And that is a fact.
06:24He caused a measles outbreak in another country that caused the death.
06:29Absolutely.
06:30No, he did not.
06:32He absolutely did.
06:33That's a lie.
06:34RFK did not cause a measles outbreak.
06:37You sound ignorant.
06:38That's ignorant and that's a lie.
06:40No, I'm for choice.
06:42I'm for parents and people choosing.
06:45That was my fault.
06:46Mr. Chairman, am I recognized?
06:48Am I recognized?
06:49Our witnesses were snoozing.
06:51So I had to spice it up a little bit.
06:53Wake up.
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