GOP Senator Todd Young Presses RFK Jr. Over Slow Development Of Long Covid Therapeutics

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4 months ago

At today's Senate Finance Committee hearing, Sen. Todd Young (R-IN) grilled HHS Sec. Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

Transcript

00:00Thank you very much. Senator Young. Welcome to the committee, Mr. Secretary. It's my intention

00:09not to raise my voice and to give you an opportunity to respond to an inquiry. I'm going to begin with

00:16long COVID. It shouldn't be a surprise to you during each of our meetings we've discussed

00:21my interest in making sure our government does its part to address this challenge which afflicts

00:28by most recent estimates over 20 million Americans. They have been diagnosed. There are a number

00:35of others we know that go undiagnosed. Over 400 million people worldwide suffer from this

00:42at a cost of $1 trillion a year which is roughly 1% of global GDP. This we know has had impacts

00:53on participation in the workforce, therefore our own GDP. So it's serious on a number of

01:01fronts. It's my hope we can come up with some therapeutics for this condition. One of the

01:08real barriers to that is seeing that we are able to launch more clinical trials. And I

01:18want to get your update on how the clinical trials are going, what plans you might have

01:22in the works to increase the number of clinical trials as it pertains to long COVID.

01:29Yeah, Senator, there was a project funded, a long COVID project at NIH. There was a huge amount

01:37of money spent on it. It yielded nothing.

01:41I agree with that.

01:42Right. And I think you know that we are doing now a different approach. We're launching a long

01:48COVID consortium. We're bringing together the best doctors in the country who have developed

01:54reputations for being able to treat long COVID. And one of them is a doctor that actually...

02:00Dr. Bruce Patterson.

02:01Yeah, Bruce Patterson. And then Dr. Jordan Vaughn, also from Florida. There's a number of

02:07them who are doing spectacular things where patients are reporting extraordinary progress.

02:13We want to get them all involved in all in one room. We want to identify the protocols that are

02:18working. This is something that did not happen during COVID. It was all ivory tower science and

02:26the doctors who are on the ground were ignored. The same thing happened during the HIV crisis.

02:32Yes.

02:32And we're trying to do something different.

02:34You mentioned ivory tower. And so that's a segue into a statistic that I've become familiar with

02:44over the years. It takes roughly 18 years for proven interventions, pharmacological or other types of

02:51medical interventions to make their way out into the field. If we assume, I think a conservative

02:56estimate, 12 to 15 years until we have any really acceptable therapeutics for a long COVID,

03:03that's a cheerful estimate, plus the 18 years until it finds its way into clinical practice. People

03:10roughly my age will pass, actuarially speaking. They will pass before there's any acceptable

03:19therapeutics. So we need to accelerate our current activities. Can you give me a couple of

03:25things you're going to do to ensure that we accelerate our development of therapeutics?

03:31I mean, the best solution is the same kind of solutions that we should have been pursuing

03:37during COVID, which is off-the-shelf approved drugs that are there already.

03:47Yes. It was recently reported that all the major pharma companies, I'm sorry if there's one good

03:53student exception, are serving as barriers to clinical trials.

03:59It's bizarre. It is bizarre that that's happening.

04:02Okay, you're the secretary of HHS. Will you be cracking down on this lack of cooperation?

04:07Yes. Yes.

04:08Thank you. Yes.

04:09Thank you so much. Will you also be exploring research partnerships with other countries,

04:15seeing as I've established this is a global challenge?

04:19Yes. That's what we should have done during HIV. That's what we should have done during COVID.

04:24Yes. Will you also be exploring whether ARPA-H, which has different research sort of protocols

04:31than NIH. NIH is very good at what they do, but it takes them a really long time to prove

04:38things because of their rigorous process. ARPA is more practical, right? And so one could

04:47imagine ARPA-H tackling this challenge. Will you be encouraging-

04:52I'm absolutely open to that, Senator.

04:55Okay. Will you be working with me and other members of the committee on your aggressive

05:00strategy as it continues to be articulated?

05:03Yeah, and looking for good ideas everywhere.

05:05Okay. The last thing I'd like to briefly touch on with the chairman's indulgence is just recognizing

05:11the president's leadership as it relates to the appropriate use of civil commitment to deal

05:18with homelessness challenges, mental health challenges, etc. He's taking a look at these

05:23practices. This can be a difficult conversation for so many of us, but I think it is worth considering

05:30whether government can play a more assertive role in helping people off the streets who have

05:35serious mental illness, get off the streets, receive the sort of treatment they really

05:40need to be healthy. Can you provide some very brief thoughts on this topic? And maybe then

05:47I could follow up with a phone call.

05:51On the topic of-

05:52Civil commitment.

05:53Yeah.

05:54It's-

05:56We can follow up, Mr. Secretary.

05:58It's mainly happening in the states, so I want to hear your ideas on it, if there's something

06:04that you've-

06:05Yeah, I think the president said, you know, we ought to take a look at it. If there's somebody

06:08in 20 degree below zero temperatures consistently in Washington, D.C., and they're believed to

06:16perhaps have mental health challenges, might we consider how to offer them care in a controlled

06:25setting rather than allowing them to freeze to death? Might that be humane as we consider

06:30our application of our laws?

06:31Perhaps the two of you can follow up on that with you.

06:32Yeah.

06:33All right.

06:34And-

06:35.

GOP Senator Todd Young Presses RFK Jr. Over Slow Development Of Long Covid Therapeutics

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