Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., whose drastic overhaul of the federal health apparatus has left scientists and patients reeling, will face a demand from the Republican chairman of the Senate health committee on Wednesday to explain to Americans how his reforms “will make their lives easier, not harder.”
Mr. Kennedy will testify on Capitol Hill for the first time as health secretary, appearing back to back before the House and the Senate to promote President Trump’s budget for the Department of Health and Human Services. But he will also be asked to defend the huge reductions he has already imposed on research grants and jobs, which key Democrats have condemned as part of what they call Mr. Trump’s “war on science.”
Mr. Trump has published only the broad outlines of his budget plan, which calls for deep cuts to the National Institutes of Health and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Mr. Kennedy is expected to say that the cuts will save money “without impacting critical services,” according to remarks he intends to deliver to the House Appropriations Committee.
The budget blueprint, Mr. Kennedy’s remarks say, “recognizes the fiscal challenges our country faces today, and the need to update and redirect our investments to meet the needs of a rapidly changing world.”
The remake of the health department, engineered in part by Elon Musk and his team at the Department of Government Efficiency, includes cutting 20,000 jobs — one quarter of the health work force. It also collapses entire agencies, including those devoted to mental health and addiction treatment, and emergency preparedness, into a new, ill-defined “Administration for a Healthy America.”
Senator Bill Cassidy, the Louisiana Republican and health committee chairman, is expected to call on Mr. Kennedy to articulate “a clearly defined plan or objective,” according to an excerpt from his prepared remarks. Mr. Cassidy voted to confirm Mr. Kennedy despite intense misgivings about his views on vaccines.
Mr. Cassidy asked Mr. Kennedy to testify about the job cuts at the health department last month, but the secretary did not appear.
“Much of the conversation around H.H.S.’s agenda has been set by anonymous sources in the media and individuals with a bias against the president,” Mr. Cassidy’s remarks say. “Americans need direct reassurance from the administration, from you Mr. Secretary, that its reforms will make their lives easier, not harder.”
That may be a tall order. A recent poll by KFF, a nonpartisan health policy research organization, found that a majority of the public opposed major cuts to staff and spending at the nation’s health agencies. A majority of Americans said the Trump administration was “recklessly making broad cuts to programs and staff, including some that are necessary for agencies to function.”
In anticipation of the hearing, Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont, the ranking member on the health committee, released a report on Tuesday that accused Mr. Trump of waging an “unprecedented, illegal and outrageous attack on science and scientists.” The report found, for instance, that Mr. Trump cut cancer research by 31 percent over the first three months of this year, compared to the same time frame last year.
“Trump’s war on science is an attack against anyone who has ever loved someone with cancer,” Mr. Sanders said in a statement. “The American people do not want us to slash cancer research in order to give more tax breaks for billionaires.”
Mr. Kennedy, one of the nation’s most vocal vaccine skeptics, is also likely to face questions about his management of a measles outbreak that began in West Texas, which has killed two unvaccinated children and one adult, and has now sickened more than 1,000 people in 30 states, according to the C.D.C.
Mr. Kennedy has offered only a tepid endorsement of vaccination. He has acknowledged that vaccines are an effective way of preventing the spread of measles. But he has insisted that the choice to vaccinate should be voluntary.
He has instead promoted treating the disease after infection with alternative therapies, including cod liver oil, which contains vitamin A — a remedy that doctors said had sickened some children who took too much of it.
In the House, where Mr. Kennedy will appear before the Appropriations Committee, Democrats will argue that he and Mr. Trump and Mr. Musk are destroying “the crown jewels of our health system,” according to a Democratic aide who spoke on condition of anonymity to preview lawmakers’ remarks.
Representative Rosa DeLauro, the top Democrat on the Appropriations Committee, is likely to focus on cuts to scientific studies aimed at understanding and developing treatments for diseases such as cancer, Alzheimer’s disease and diabetes. The aide said that cutting basic research funded by N.I.H. is “destroying the pipeline of future medical treatments.”
Democrats will also press Mr. Kennedy on how the cuts are affecting clinical trials.
Senator Patty Murray, Democrat of Washington, who serves on the health committee but is also the top Democrat on the Appropriations Committee, hosted a round-table discussion last week at Seattle Children’s Research Institute to put a spotlight, her office said, on “what’s at stake for patients and families as Trump takes a wrecking ball to this research.”
In an emailed statement on Tuesday, Ms. Murray complained that Mr. Kennedy was “overdue to testify” after “no-showing” when Mr. Cassidy invited him in April.
Sheryl Gay Stolberg covers health policy for The Times from Washington. A former congressional and White House correspondent, she focuses on the intersection of health policy and politics.
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