At a Senate Health Committee hearing on Wednesday, Sen. Ashley Moody (R-FL) questioned HHS Sec. RFK Jr. about
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00:00Senator Moody.
00:02Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
00:04And thank you for being here.
00:06I think it is wonderful that we are doing this hearing.
00:10Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
00:12And I believe this is the HELP Committee's first HHS budget
00:16hearing in more than two decades.
00:18And certainly, I don't think this afternoon has been easy on you.
00:22And we are grateful that you're willing to answer the hard questions.
00:25Thank you, Senator Moody.
00:26And have the difficult discussions because if I heard you correctly,
00:31you know, the 60%, 50%, whatever increase in the last five years in your agency,
00:38you said reflected or resulted in people getting sicker and more people dying.
00:43And we have to do more than just think throwing money at something is going to solve a problem.
00:50And I am grateful for everyone that's stepping up on the cabinet and saying,
00:55I want to do this job in a deliberate way that's going to deliver for the people.
00:59That means more than just coming here to Washington and throwing money at problems
01:04and spending taxpayer money without giving a lot of deliberate forethought to results.
01:09And I think that's what you've been trying to say here today.
01:12And I appreciate you tackling this because not many people would want to brave this job,
01:18certainly at this moment in time.
01:20And as our nation is spiraling out of control and more and more debt and more and more spending,
01:26we have got to be responsible for the future stability and success of this country.
01:31So thank you. I start there.
01:33I also note that in some of the numbers that we saw in this proposal,
01:39there wasn't much information in terms of asking for more money.
01:43I'm assuming that you're not asking for money specifically related to the FDA.
01:47And I wanted to focus on a few things.
01:49And I believe your approach is probably going to be how can we be better?
01:53How can we use the resources we have to do more for the American people,
01:56deliver on their health without spending more money?
01:59And one of those ways I believe in the FDA would be to tackle Chinese illicit vapes.
02:07I think 60% of their vape market that are in no way regulated.
02:10We have no idea what are in these things.
02:12Chemical ridden vapes all over the United States being bought by all of our kids.
02:18I would ask that you dig into that and look at that.
02:22I know the FDA has been backlogged and the excuse kept, you know,
02:27excuses kept coming out on why they weren't following through and enforcing this thing.
02:31Meanwhile, we have more and more kids that are vaping these chemicals
02:35and we have no idea what's in them.
02:37So would you look at that with your department using the resources that you're asking for today?
02:41Yeah, absolutely. We are looking at it right now.
02:44And during the Biden administration, the FDA slow walked the approvals for U.S. vaping companies.
02:54And the U.S. vaping companies, in my view, were acting very responsibly.
03:01They were putting chips in their vapes that would make sure that young people could not use them.
03:08They were giving good information about addiction.
03:11And they had very extensive labels.
03:16They really went out of their way not to make it attractive to children.
03:20They were slow walk, so they're off the market.
03:23And in order to fill the vacuum, hundreds of Chinese companies came in with these colored, beautifully, you know,
03:33attractive comic books.
03:34Sour grape, watermelon.
03:35Watermelons.
03:36All these flavors are targeted to kids.
03:38They have video games on the vapes that lure kids into addiction.
03:43So you're in tune with that.
03:44And we are going to wipe them out.
03:47We're going to get rid of all of them.
03:48Thank you for that commitment.
03:49As a mother of a teenager and on behalf of all moms of teenagers, I know that vaping was
03:54going on in some of even our elementary and middle schools.
03:57We thank you.
03:58Using the resources that are given to you, if we were just more deliberate and aggressive
04:02in what we're doing within the agency, I think we can make a huge difference.
04:05And I want to direct your attention to one more important issue.
04:08One of the things that drives me crazy is when nonsense regulations are on the books
04:14and they have no benefit whatsoever, but yet they're on the books and businesses are trying
04:18to comply with them.
04:19In our citrus industry, our orange juice producers, there is a regulation that requires a certain
04:25sugar content.
04:26It's called a BRICS standard.
04:28It doesn't affect quality or nutrition at all.
04:30In fact, our oranges now that are being produced in Florida produce slightly less sugar.
04:35But because of this arbitrary standard, producers of orange juice in Florida have now had to
04:41start importing from foreign companies and foreign nations oranges into our country to
04:47mix with our products to deliver orange juice.
04:51The standard, it doesn't affect quality or nutrition.
04:53To raise the sugar content in the orange juice.
04:55We want to lower the sugar content that's required by this regulation.
04:59I'm sure you would not disagree with that.
05:01But would you look into an interim final rule that would lower that slightly to save the
05:06orange juice industry domestically?
05:07Yeah.
05:08Why don't you call Heather Flick, who's behind me, or Hannah Anderson this week and we will
05:15act on that as quickly as we can.
05:17Again, using the resources we have, just being smarter in our approach, we can do a lot
05:21to save a once thriving industry.