Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. visited Arizona on Thursday to meet with state leaders and speak at the Western Governors Association’s winter meeting.
He spent much of that time rehashing his regular talking points about combatting chronic disease and processed food additives.
He called chronic disease the “most existential threat” facing the country.
“And malpractice at my agencies is that we cannot definitively define what it is, because they haven't been doing their jobs,” said Kennedy, who previously blamed poor diet, environmental toxins and other factors for chronic disease in kids. Critics say major efforts to research and respond to chronic disease have also been cut on Kennedy’s watch.
Kennedy also spent some of his time responding to Democratic Hawaii Gov. Josh Green’s concerns about Kennedy’s vaccine policies as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention revived a debunked theory linking vaccines to autism.
Green, a doctor, said fights over vaccine policies amongst officials are undermining public confidence.
“Just that doubt, if it drops us 10% or 15%, could cause real damage that we never intended or could cause policy change de facto, because people see us fighting and they see us unable to execute the policy that has to be out there,” Green said.
RFK Jr. defended his positions, claiming he is only trying to ensure Americans make informed decisions about vaccines. He said he wants to, “allow people to make individual choices about what their schedule is, what is best for their health, for their children's health.”
Green initially said the governors were most interested in hearing about the Rural Health Transformation Program, a $50 billion fund the Republican tax cut and funding bill dedicated to rural hospitals.
States will find out at the end of this year how much they’re being awarded.
Green said early in the day that Kennedy’s presence provides an opportunity for the state leaders to make their cases for grant funding, which the governors hope their states can use to backfill incoming Medicaid cuts.
But Kennedy offered little in the way of clarity about the fund, only saying the state's applications for the money are currently going through an independent review.
“The applications are, for the most part, extraordinary,” he said. “And it's an independent review process that is supposed to be free of any kind of political manipulation or pressure, and so I kind of have to maintain my distance from it.”
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