During the second day of Senate confirmation hearings for Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) nominee Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., U.S. Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-Auburn) questioned the Trump pick on his stances on health, vaccines, food additives and the country’s relationship with pharmaceuticals.
Tuberville has publicly supported RFK Jr. since the health care and environmental advocate dropped his independent presidential campaign and backed now-President Donald Trump.
Following RFK Jr.’s twist on Trump’s MAGA slogan, Tuberville recently joined U.S. Sen. Roger Marshall (R-Kan.) in forming the Congressional Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) Caucus to focus on promoting health in America.
Thursday’s hearing before the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee was predictably full of remonstrations from Democratic lawmakers. However, Tuberville emphasized his admiration for RFK Jr.’s ambitions to improve America’s overall health while bashing his colleagues for not having the same fervor when confirming former HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra.
“Thank you for bringing the light to what this is all about,” Tuberville said. “It's about the health in our country. There might have been a half a dozen people in the last Health and Human Services nominee, nobody was interested. A lawyer who worked from home in California—didn’t do a damn thing in terms of what we needed when COVID was in full steam.”
“So, thank you. Thank you for getting our young people involved. My two boys, 28 and 30, a year ago or so were gonna vote for you for President of the United States. You know why? Because you're trying to save their group of people from the chemicals and the things that we have in our food. They're fired up about it. And you brought light to that. And thank God you've done that. You brought importance to what we're doing," he added.
Tuberville went on to ask RFK Jr. about the perceived overprescribing of medication for Americans, specifically ADHD medication for children.
“You know, I coached for 40 years,” Tuberville said. “In the last four or five years I coached, I'd never seen the run on drugs our young people are being given by doctors across this country. We have an attention deficit problem in this country. You know, attention deficit, when you and I were growing up, our parents didn't use a drug, they used a belt and whipped our butts, you know, and told us to sit down. Nowadays, we give them Adderall and Ritalin like candy across college campuses and high school campuses. Mr. Kennedy, what are we gonna do about that?”
“Today, 15% of American kids are on Adderall,” RFK Jr. responded. “And there's clearly a major problem with over-prescription, not just with our children, with our entire population. We have 4.2% of the world's population, and we take fifty percent of the pharmaceutical drugs. And there's a recent study by Peter Gotzsche, who is one of the founders of the Cochrane Collaboration, that showed that prescription drugs are now the third largest cause of death in our country after cardiac arrest or colon cancer. We're not getting healthier. Americans are getting less and less healthy.”
Next, Tuberville turned his attention to vaccines. RFK Jr. has often been misrepresented in his criticisms of vaccines, especially when he entered the conversation surrounding COVID-19. Among many criticisms, RFK Jr. has claimed that we over-administer vaccines in early childhood, that most vaccines have not had proper safety vetting, and that the current vaccination schedule for newborns needs to be amended.
“And you brought to light the vaccines over the last couple of years,” Tuberville said. “I'll have my first granddaughter here in a couple of weeks, and my son and his wife have done their research about vaccines. And she's not going to be a pin cushion. We're not going to allow that to happen. But you brought that up, as you and I talked about with vaccines—let's empower scientists to do their job. You know, don't just do something for the pharmaceutical companies. So, I appreciate you doing that.”
Finally, Tuberville turned to food additives, which RFK Jr. has also long targeted.
This month, FDA officials granted a 2022 petition filed by two dozen food safety and health advocates urging the agency to revoke authorization for Red Dye No. 3 for use in America’s food supply.
SEE: Tuberville, Britt applaud FDA banning Red Dye No. 3 – 'It’s definitely a step in the right direction
In addition to Red Dye No. 3, Tuberville asked RFK Jr. what other ingredients he intends to look at should he be confirmed. The potential HHS secretary responded by taking a less-than-veiled shot at lawmakers, implying their complicity in allowing corporate influence in regulatory agencies like the FDA.
“We have 10,000 ingredients in our food in this country because the FDA employs a standard called the GRAS standard,” RFK Jr. responded. “And it looks at any new chemical as innocent until proven guilty. Europe, they have 400 ingredients in their foods. Kellogg's makes fruit loops for the United States alone. It is loaded with a red dye, blue, a yellow dye, and many, many other ingredients. They make the same product for Canada [with] all vegetable dyes. And for Europe, if you eat a McDonald's French fry in this country, it has 11 ingredients. You eat the same product in Europe, it has three. We are allowing these companies because [of] their influence over this body, over our regulatory agencies, to mass poison American children. And that's wrong. It needs to end, and I believe I'm the one person who's able to end it.”
To connect with the author of this story or to comment, email craig.monger@1819news.com.
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