RFK Jr. Can

Washington-During an audience of the Senate Committee on Wednesday, Senator Angela Alsobrooks (D-MD.) He had a strange clash with the Secretary of Health and Human Services, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., about the mass cuts he has supervised in his agency, including staff.

“You left it very clear here today you are not aware of the absolutely incredible scientists and researchers that you have fallen cruelly,” Alsobrooks said.

“I didn’t shoot any scientist who works,” Kennedy said.

“That, sir, is not true either,” Alsobrooks replied.

“It’s true,” Kennedy repeated

“It’s not true,” said Alsobrooks, continuing.

He made the same statement when Maryland’s senator then presented a 30 -year program that he eliminated at his agency, the Safe To Sleep campaign, together with all his staff. He said it again to Senator Bill Cassidy (R-La.), President of the committee, at the beginning of the hearing.

“The cuts we have made to date are administrative cuts. As far as I know, we have not fired any scientist who works,” Kennedy said. “There are some people who were scientists who were doing it or in the administration … who lost their jobs. But in terms of work scientists, our policy was to ensure that none of them were lost and that research continues.”

That sounds good. But it is not true either. Kennedy has been shooting hundreds, if not thousands, of scientists and researchers who do critical work in several agencies under HHS. It is not even as if he had been doing this in secret; It has been widely reported for months.

Under its direction, the National Institutes of Health, the main biomedical research agency in the world, 1,200 deleted employees In February. A doctor behind the award -winning research on Parkinson’s disease was among the Nih’s main scientists expelled In April. The main scientific leaders of the National Institute of Allergies and Infectious Diseases and in Food and Medicines Administration were reallocated to the remote regions of the Indian health service. Key scientists who work in Aviar Flu at the Veterinary Medicine Center They were firedas was almost A dozen high -ranking scientists In NIH that worked in neuroscience.

The centers for disease control and prevention last month carried out massive shots that included a group of scientists who Traumatic brain injury research. Even more CDC scientists They were fired After all their laboratory, the outbreaks of STIs and hepatitis were eliminated.

It is not clear if Kennedy is intentionally lying on not fireing scientists or does not understand the scope of the damage to HHS, or if this is a matter of semantics. Maybe he is bristling in the verb “fire” to describe how he has been aggressively saying goodbye to scientists of his employment or ordering scientists to renounce their work.

An HHS spokesman did not initially respond to a request for comments. A day after this story was published, HHS Press Secretary Emily Hilliard sent a statement on Friday that only repeated Kennedy’s claim in the committee, Leartim.

“As the secretary said, ‘NIH controls about 70 percent of the global funds for biomedical research. The cuts we have made to date are administrative cuts. As far as I know, we have not fired any labor scientist, labor scientists, the people who are really doing science. Hilliard.

Alsobrooks said Kennedy is lying, even when he is so absurdly obvious.

“I think RFK Jr. clearly believes that the more he tells him a lie, the more he becomes the truth,” he told News themezone on Thursday.

Kennedy’s statement that HHS scientists have maintained their jobs “flying to the reality that there are hundreds of NIH scientists, CDC and FDA who have lost their work as part of their plan to review the department.”

AP

Maryland’s senator should know. NIH is based in its state, and has been listening to scientists, constituents, for months that have lost their work or subsidies in several HHS agencies. She heard some of those fired scientists after Wednesday’s audience, when Kennedy insisted that he had not fired them.

“One is working specifically, or was working, before his premature termination, in Parkinson, and the other was working on doing a critical investigation into hepatitis,” said Alsobrooks. “They heard the lie, you know, or misrepresentation, if we call it, when he said that the scientists who work had not been fired when, in fact, they have been.”

News themezone listened to some federal scientists fired after Kennedy’s audience too. One, who had been an epidemiologist who worked in infectious diseases, said Kennedy dismissed them together with his entire team, that he was dozens of epidemiologists and health scientists.

“RFK seems unknown to which programs were really affected by the [Reduction in Force]”Said this scientist, who requested anonymity to speak freely.

When asked what they did with Kennedy’s repeated statements that he had not fired any “scientist who works”, this dismissed scientist simply said: “It’s not true.”

“This has consequences for public health since the programs are suddenly eliminated or severely reduced,” they said. “It also severely affects the thousands of scientists who suddenly lost our careers and faced a challenging labor market with so many public health cuts that damage our field.”

“RFK Jr. clearly believes that the more he tells him a lie, the more he becomes the truth.”

– Senator Angela Alsobrooks (D-Md.)

A local chapter of the American Federation of Government employees, a union that represents more than 700,000 federal employees and workers of the DC government, caught Kennedy’s comments and withdrew with data and graphics.

“We found that approximately 1,586 officials affected by the RIF were scientists, medical professionals, veterinary professionals, engineers and other Stem leaders,” says a Wednesday publication on the local AFGE website 2883. “These cuts were scientific, non -administrative and not ‘fraud, waste and abuse.”

Its website offers many data related to HHS cuts, including personnel cuts on CDC. A picture, for example, offers an approximate estimate of the number of health scientists who have been fired in mid -March: 605.

Alsobrooks said he hopes that any federal federal scientist who has heard Kennedy’s claims know that she and other senators see through their nonsense and plan to continue highlighting the damage it is causing.

“We know the truth,” he said. “That’s what these audiences are treated, exposing these bad and letting the public understand the consequences of disastrous decisions and dangerous decisions taken by Secretary Kennedy. And we will continue to do so.”