Newly confirmed Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. says he has a “generic list” of people he wants removed from his department.
“I have a list in my head … we have a generic list of the kind of people that — if you’ve been involved in good science, you have got nothing to worry about,” Kennedy said during an appearance on Fox News’ “The Ingraham Angle” on Thursday night.
“If you care about public health, you’ve got nothing to worry about. If you’re in there working for the pharmaceutical industry, then I’d say you should move out and work for the pharmaceutical industry,” he added.
Amid reports of staff bracing for potentially broad cuts affecting HHS, which employs roughly 90,000 employees across its health agencies, Kennedy pushed back on the idea of tens of thousands of cuts but signaled he would push for some removals.
The new HHS head mentioned those involved in past nutrition guidelines and those he alleged were “involved in the amyloid plaque scandals that derailed Alzheimer’s treatment for 20 years” as examples of the types of individuals he would want to “move.”
Kennedy, a longtime vaccine critic, is one of President Trump’s newest Cabinet secretaries after the Senate voted mostly on party lines to confirm him as the nation’s top health official on Thursday.
The Senate voted 52-48 to install him as HHS secretary, with Sen. Mitch McConnell (Ky.) being the lone Republican to vote against him.
When the host asked Kennedy what he would do about abortifacient drugs, he said President Trump has not made a decision about the issue yet.
“What he’s asked me to do is study the safety and study the safety signals,” Kennedy said.
