Kennedy

When it comes to vaccines, virtually nothing that comes out of Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s mouth is true.

The man in charge of the nation’s health and well being is impervious to science, expertise and knowledge. His brand of arrogance is not just dangerous, it is lethal. Undermining trust in vaccines, he will have the blood of children around the world on his hands.

Scratch that.

He already does, as he presides over the second largest measles outbreak in this country since the disease was declared “eliminated” a quarter century ago.

“Vaccines have become a divisive issue in American politics,” Kennedy wrote the other day in a Wall Street Journal essay, “but there is one thing all parties can agree on: The U.S. faces a crisis of public trust.”

The lack of self-awareness would be funny if it weren’t so tragic.

Over the past two decades or so, Kennedy has done more than almost any other American to destroy the public’s trust in vaccines and science. And now he’s bemoaning the very thing he has helped cause.

Earlier this month, Kennedy fired the 17 medical and public health experts of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices — qualified doctors and public health experts — and replaced them with a group of (mostly) anti-vaxxers in order to pursue his relentless, ascientific crusade.

On Thursday, at its first meeting, his newly reconstituted council voted to ban the preservative thimerosal from the few remaining vaccines that contain it, despite many studies showing that thimerosal is safe. On that point, even the Food and Drug Administration website is blunt: “A robust body of peer-reviewed scientific studies conducted in the U.S. and other countries support the safety of thimerosal-containing vaccines.”

“If you searched the world wide, you could not find a less suitable person to be leading healthcare efforts in the United States or the world,” psychiatrist Allen Frances told NPR on Thursday. Frances, who chaired the task force that changed how the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, or DSM, defines autism, published an essay in the New York Times on Monday explaining why the incidence of autism has increased but is neither an epidemic nor related to vaccines.

“The rapid rise in autism cases is not because of vaccines or environmental toxins,” Frances wrote, “but is rather the result of changes in the way that autism is defined and assessed — changes that I helped put into place.”

But Kennedy is not one to let the facts stand in the way of his cockamamie theories. Manufacturers long ago removed thimerosal from childhood vaccines because of unfounded fears it contained mercury that could accumulate in the brain and unfounded fears about a relationship between mercury and autism.

That did not stop one of Kennedy’s new council members, Lyn Redwood, who once led Children’s Health Defense, the anti-vaccine group founded by Kennedy, from declaring a victory for children.

“Removing a known neurotoxin from being injected into our most vulnerable population is a good place to start with making America healthy again,” Redwood told the committee.

Autism rates, by the way, have continued to climb despite the thimerosal ban. But fear not, gullible Americans, Kennedy has promised to pinpoint a cause for the complex condition by September!

Like his boss, Kennedy just makes stuff up.

On Wednesday, he halted a $1-billion American commitment to Gavi, an organization that provides vaccines to millions of children around the world, wrongly accusing the group of failing to investigate adverse reactions to the diptheria vaccine.

“This is utterly disastrous for children around the world and for public health,” Atul Gawande, a surgeon who worked in the Biden administration, told the New York Times.

Unilaterally, and contrary to the evidence, Kennedy decided to abandon the CDC recommendation that healthy pregnant women receive COVID vaccines. But an unvaccinated pregnant woman’s COVID infection can lead to serious health problems for her newborn. In fact, a study last year found that babies born to such mothers had “unusually high rates” of respiratory distress at or just after birth. According to the CDC, nearly 90% of babies who were hospitalized for COVID-19 had unvaccinated mothers. Also, vaccinated moms can pass protective antibodies to their fetuses, who will not be able to get a COVID shot until they are 6 months old.

What else? Oh yes: Kennedy once told podcaster Joe Rogan that the 1918 Spanish flu epidemic was “vaccine-induced flu” even though no flu vaccine existed at the time.

He also told Rogan that a 2003 study by physician scientist Michael Pichichero, an expert on the use of thimerosal in vaccines, involved feeding babies 6 months old and younger mercury-contaminated tuna sandwiches, and that 64 days later, the mercury was still in their system. “Who would do that?” Kennedy demanded.

Well, no one.

In the study, 40 babies were injected with vaccines containing thimerosal, while a control group of 21 babies got shots that did not contain the preservative. None was fed tuna. Ethylmercury, the form of mercury in thimerosal, the researchers concluded, “seems to be eliminated from blood rapidly via the stools.” (BTW, the mercury found in fish is methylmercury, a different chemical, which can damage the brain and nervous system. In a 2012 deposition for his divorce, which was revealed last year, Kennedy said he suffered memory loss and brain fog from mercury poisoning caused by eating too much tuna fish. He also revealed he has a dead worm in his brain.)

Kennedy’s tuna sandwich anecdote on Rogan’s podcast was “a ChatGPT-level of hallucination,” said Morgan McSweeney, a.k.a. “Dr. Noc,” a scientist with a doctorate in pharmaceutical sciences, focusing on immunology and antibodies. McSweeney debunks the idiotic medical claims of non-scientists like Kennedy in his popular social media videos.

Speaking of AI hallucinations, on Tuesday, at a congressional committee hearing, Kennedy was questioned about inaccuracies, misinformation and made up research and citations for nonexistent studies in the first report from his Make America Healthy Again Commission.

The report focused on how American children are being harmed by their poor diets, exposure to environmental toxins and, predictably, over-vaccination. It was immediately savaged by experts. “This is not an evidence-based report, and for all practical purposes, it should be junked at this point,” Georges C. Benjamin, executive director of the American Public Health Assn. told the Washington Post.

If Kennedy was sincere about improving the health of American children he would focus on combating real scourges like gun violence, drug overdoses, depression, poverty and lack of access to preventive healthcare. He would be fighting the proposed cuts to Medicaid tooth and nail.

Do you suppose he even knows that over the past 50 years, the lives of an estimated 154 million children have been saved by vaccines?

Or that he cares?

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LONDON — U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. says the country is pulling its support from the vaccines alliance Gavi, saying the organization has “ignored the science” and “lost the public trust.”

A video of Kennedy’s short speech was shown to a Gavi meeting in Brussels on Wednesday, where the organization that has paid for more than 1 billion children to be vaccinated through routine immunization programs was hoping to raise at least $9 billion for the next five years.

Kennedy, a longtime vaccine skeptic, mentioned Gavi’s partnership with the World Health Organization during COVID-19, accusing them of silencing “dissenting views” and “legitimate questions” about vaccine safety. His speech also cast doubt on the diphtheria, tetanus and pertussis vaccine — which WHO and other health agencies have long deemed to be safe and effective.

Gavi said in a statement Thursday that its “utmost concern is the health and safety of children,” adding that any decision it makes on vaccines to buy is done in accordance with recommendations issued by WHO’s expert vaccine group.

Some doctors in the United States criticized the decision. Dr. Paul Offit, director of the Vaccine Center at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, said it was “incredibly dangerous” and warned that defunding immunization would put millions of children at risk.

Gavi is a public-private partnership including WHO, UNICEF, the Gates Foundation and the World Bank, and it is estimated that the vaccination programs have saved 18 million lives. The United States has long been one of its biggest supporters; before President Donald Trump’s reelection, the country had pledged $1 billion through 2030.

In just under four minutes, Kennedy called on Gavi “to justify the $8 billion America has provided in funding since 2001,” saying officials must “consider the best science available, even when that science contradicts established paradigms.” Kennedy said until that happens, the U.S. won’t contribute further to Gavi.

The health secretary zeroed in on the COVID-19 vaccine, which WHO, Gavi and other health authorities have recommended for pregnant women, saying they are at higher risk of severe disease. Kennedy called that a “questionable” recommendation; his U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recently stopped recommending it.

He also criticized Gavi for funding a rollout of a vaccine to prevent diphtheria, tetanus and pertussis in poorer countries, saying he’d seen research that concluded that young girls who got the vaccine were more likely to die from all other causes than children who weren’t immunized.

Gavi said scientists had reviewed all available data, including any studies that raised concerns, and that the diphtheria, tetanus and pertussis vaccine has “played a key role in helping halve childhood mortality.”

Some observational studies have shown that vaccinated girls do have a higher death rate compared to unvaccinated children, but there is no evidence the deaths are caused by the vaccine. But Offit said the studies cited by Kennedy were not convincing and that research examining links between vaccinations and deaths did not prove a causal connection.

“There’s no mechanism here which makes biological sense for why the [diphtheria, tetanus and pertussis vaccine] might result in more children dying,” Offit said.

Doctors Without Borders on Thursday predicted “countless children will die from vaccine-preventable diseases” as a result of the U.S. withdrawing support for Gavi.

“To invoke misleading and inaccurate claims about vaccine safety as the pretext for cutting all global vaccine funding is cruel and reckless,” said Mihir Mankad, the charity’s global health advocacy and policy director in the U.S. “When we vaccinate in the community, parents line up for hours to give their children a chance to be protected from these deadly diseases.

“For these children, vaccination programs … are a matter of life and death.”

Kennedy’s recorded speech to Gavi came on the same day that his reconstituted U.S. vaccine advisory panel met for the first time. He fired the previous 17-member panel this month and replaced it with a seven-member group that includes several vaccine skeptics.

Cheng writes for the Associated Press. The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

NEW YORK — All 17 experts recently dismissed from a government vaccine advisory panel published an essay Monday decrying “destabilizing decisions” made by U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. that could lead to more preventable disease spread.

Kennedy last week announced he would “retire” the entire panel that guides U.S. vaccine policy. He also quietly removed Dr. Melinda Wharton — the veteran Centers for Disease Control and Prevention official who coordinated the committee’s meetings.

Two days later, he named eight new people to the influential panel. The list included a scientist who criticized COVID-19 vaccines, a leading critic of pandemic-era lockdowns and someone who worked with a group widely considered to be a leading source of vaccine misinformation.

“We are deeply concerned that these destabilizing decisions, made without clear rationale, may roll back the achievements of U.S. immunization policy, impact people’s access to lifesaving vaccines, and ultimately put U.S. families at risk of dangerous and preventable illnesses,” the 17 panelists wrote in the Journal of the American Medical Assn.

The new committee is scheduled to meet next week. The agenda for that meeting has not yet been posted, but a recent federal notice said votes are expected on vaccinations against flu, COVID-19, HPV, RSV and meningococcal bacteria.

In addition to Wharton’s removal, CDC immunization staff have been cut and agency experts who gather or present data to committee members have resigned.

One, Dr. Lakshmi Panagiotakopoulos, resigned after 12 years at CDC, disclosing her decision early this month in a note to members of a COVID-19 vaccines work group. Her decision came after Kennedy decided — without consulting the vaccine advisers — to pull back COVID-19 vaccination recommendations for healthy children and pregnant women.

“My career in public health and vaccinology started with a deep-seated desire to help the most vulnerable members of our population, and that is not something I am able to continue doing in this role,” she wrote in a message viewed by the Associated Press.

Those CDC personnel losses will make it hard for a group of new outside advisers to quickly come up to speed and make fact-based decisions about which vaccines to recommend to the public, the former committee members said.

“The termination of all members and its leadership in a single action undermines the committee’s capacity to operate effectively and efficiently, aside from raising questions about competence,” they wrote.

A spokesperson for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services did not respond to the JAMA commentary, but instead pointed to Kennedy’s previous comments on the committee.

Kennedy, a leading voice in the anti-vaccine movement before becoming the U.S. government’s top health official, has accused the committee of being too closely aligned with vaccine manufacturers and of rubber-stamping vaccines.

The Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, created in 1964, makes recommendations to the CDC director on how vaccines that have been approved by the Food and Drug Administration should be used. CDC directors almost always approve those recommendations, which are widely heeded by doctors and guide vaccination programs.

ACIP policies require members to state past collaborations with vaccine companies and to recuse themselves from votes in which they had a conflict of interest, but Kennedy has dismissed those safeguards as weak.

Stobbe writes for the Associated Press.

JAMES MADDISON and his long-time girlfriend Kennedy Alexa have heartwarmingly revealed they’re expecting a second set of twins.

The couple started dating in 2020 and welcomed their first child, son Leo, into the world the following year.

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England international Maddison and his model other half had twins – Delilah and Rome – just days after the midfielder joined Tottenham in the summer of 2023.

And they’ve remarkably conceived a second set of twins, the odds of which are a massive ONE IN 50,000.

They revealed they’re expecting again in a touching holiday montage video on both their Instagram accounts.

In the video, Alexa, 30, proudly showed off her bump, which her little ones adorably kissed, as she dipped her toes into the sea.

The video ended with Maddison, 28, writing “twins again” and “Maddison twins part 2” in the sand.

Their joint caption read: “Beyond blessed! Bring on the chaos.”

The couple were showered with well-wishes seconds after sharing the video.

One of their followers wrote: “I’M CRYING!!!!! KENNEDY!!! Congratulations!!!!!!! You look like an angel.

JOIN SUN VEGAS: GET £50 BONUS

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“Ahhhh, omg literal tears so happy for you and your beautiful family.”

Another said: “Maddison X5 LOVE LOVE LOVE, congratulations both!!”

And another said: “OMG INCREDIBLE. Congratulations!!!!! Xxx”

One remarked: “So excited!! The chaos will be worth it.”

Another chimed in: Maddison’s 5-a-side invitational.”

Several of Maddison’s club and international team-mates chimed in, including Jude Bellingham, who wrote: “Congratulations.”

Jordan Henderson commented: “Congrats, sheriff.”

Jack Grealish also commented, writing: “Congrats both. Unbelievable.”

Dominic Solanke chimed in: “Beautiful chaos!”

And Pedro Porro and Micky van de Ven both chimed in with love heart eye emojis.

NEW YORK — U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on Wednesday named eight new vaccine policy advisers to replace the panel that he abruptly dismissed earlier this week.

They include a scientist who researched mRNA vaccine technology and became a conservative darling for his criticisms of COVID-19 vaccines, a leading critic of pandemic-era lockdowns, and a professor of operations management.

Kennedy’s decision to “retire” the previous 17-member Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices was widely decried by doctors’ groups and public health organizations, who feared the advisers would be replaced by a group aligned with Kennedy’s desire to reassess — and possibly end — longstanding vaccination recommendations.

On Tuesday, before he announced his picks, Kennedy said: “We’re going to bring great people onto the ACIP panel — not anti-vaxxers — bringing people on who are credentialed scientists.”

The new appointees include Vicky Pebsworth, a regional director for the National Assn. of Catholic Nurses. She has been listed as a board member and volunteer director for the National Vaccine Information Center, a group that is widely considered to be a leading source of vaccine misinformation.

Another is Dr. Robert Malone, the former mRNA researcher who emerged as a close adviser to Kennedy during the measles outbreak. Malone, who runs a wellness institute and a popular blog, rose to prominence during the COVID-19 pandemic as he relayed conspiracy theories around the outbreak and the vaccines that followed. He has appeared on podcasts and other conservative news outlets where he’s promoted unproven and alternative treatments for measles and COVID-19.

He has claimed that millions of Americans were hypnotized into taking the COVID-19 shots and has suggested that those vaccines cause a form of AIDS. He’s downplayed deaths related to one of the largest measles outbreaks in the U.S. in years.

Malone told the Associated Press he will do his best “to serve with unbiased objectivity and rigor.”

Other appointees include Dr. Martin Kulldorff, a biostatistician and epidemiologist who was a co-author of the Great Barrington Declaration, an October 2020 letter maintaining that pandemic shutdowns were causing irreparable harm. Dr. Cody Meissner, a former ACIP member, also was named.

Abram Wagner of the University of Michigan’s school of public health, who investigates vaccination programs, said he’s not satisfied with the composition of the committee.

“The previous ACIP was made up of technical experts who have spent their lives studying vaccines,” he said. Most people on the current list “don’t have the technical capacity that we would expect out of people who would have to make really complicated decisions involving interpreting complicated scientific data.”

He said having Pebsworth on the board is “incredibly problematic” since she is involved in an organization that “distributes a lot of misinformation.”

Kennedy made the announcement in a social media post on Wednesday.

The committee, created in 1964, makes recommendations to the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. CDC directors almost always approve those recommendations on how vaccines that have been approved by the Food and Drug Administration should be used. The CDC’s final recommendations are widely heeded by doctors and guide vaccination programs.

The other appointees are:

• Dr. James Hibbeln, who formerly headed a National Institutes of Health group focused on nutritional neurosciences and who studies how nutrition affects the brain, including the potential benefits of seafood consumption during pregnancy.
• Retsef Levi, a professor of operations management at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who studies business issues related to supply chain, logistics, pricing optimization and health and healthcare management. In a 2023 video pinned to an X profile under his name, Levi called for the end of the COVID-19 vaccination program, claiming the vaccines were ineffective and dangerous despite evidence they saved millions of lives. Levi told the AP he would try to help inform “public health policies with data and science, with the goal of improving the health and wellbeing of people and regain the public trust.”
• Dr. James Pagano, an emergency medicine physician from Los Angeles.
• Dr. Michael Ross, a Virginia-based obstetrician and gynecologist who previously served on a CDC breast and cervical cancer advisory committee. He is described as a “serial CEO and physician leader” in a bio for Havencrest Capital Management, a private equity investment firm where he is an operating partner.

Of the eight named by Kennedy, perhaps the most experienced in vaccine policy is Meissner, an expert in pediatric infectious diseases at Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center, who has previously served as a member of both ACIP and the Food and Drug Administration’s vaccine advisory panel.

During his five-year term as an FDA adviser, the committee was repeatedly asked to review and vote on the safety and effectiveness of COVID-19 vaccines that were rapidly developed to fight the pandemic. In September 2021, he joined the majority of panelists who voted against a plan from the Biden administration to offer an extra vaccine dose to all American adults. The panel instead recommended that the extra shot should be limited to seniors and those at higher risk of the disease.

Ultimately, the FDA disregarded the panel’s recommendation and approved an extra vaccine dose for all adults.

In addition to serving on government panels, Meissner has helped author policy statements and vaccination schedules for the American Academy of Pediatrics.

ACIP members typically serve in staggered four-year terms, although several appointments were delayed during the Biden administration before positions were filled last year. The voting members are all supposed to have scientific or clinical expertise in immunization, except for one “consumer representative” who can bring perspective on community and social facets of vaccine programs.

Kennedy, a leading voice in the anti-vaccine movement before becoming the U.S. government’s top health official, has accused the committee of being too closely aligned with vaccine manufacturers and of rubber-stamping vaccines. ACIP policies require members to state past collaborations with vaccine companies and to recuse themselves from votes in which they had a conflict of interest, but Kennedy has dismissed those safeguards as weak.

Most of the people who best understand vaccines are those who have researched them, which usually requires some degree of collaboration with the companies that develop and sell them, said Jason Schwartz, a Yale University health policy researcher.

“If you are to exclude any reputable, respected vaccine expert who has ever engaged even in a limited way with the vaccine industry, you’re likely to have a very small pool of folks to draw from,” Schwartz said.

The U.S. Senate confirmed Kennedy in February after he promised he would not change the vaccination schedule. But less than a week later, he vowed to investigate childhood vaccines that prevent measles, polio and other dangerous diseases.

Kennedy has ignored some of the recommendations ACIP voted for in April, including the endorsement of a new combination shot that protects against five strains of meningococcal bacteria and the expansion of vaccinations against RSV.

In late May, Kennedy disregarded the committee and announced the government would change the recommendation for children and pregnant women to get COVID-19 shots.

On Monday, Kennedy ousted all 17 members of the ACIP, saying he would appoint a new group before the next scheduled meeting in late June. The agenda for that meeting has not yet been posted, but a recent federal notice said votes are expected on vaccinations against flu, COVID-19, HPV, RSV and meningococcal bacteria.

A HHS spokesman did not respond to a question about whether there would be only eight ACIP members, or whether more will be named later.

Stobbe writes for the Associated Press. Associated Press reporters Matthew Perrone, Amanda Seitz, Devi Shastri and Laura Ungar contributed to this report. The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Science and Educational Media Group and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

US President Trump-appointed Health Secretary and vaccine sceptic will replace panel with his own selections.

United States Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert Kennedy Jr has purged a 17-member panel at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) that provides expertise on vaccines.

Kennedy, who before taking a position in the administration of President Donald Trump was a vocal anti-vaccine activist, has said he will replace the panel with his own picks.

“Today, we are prioritising the restoration of public trust above any specific pro- or anti-vaccine agenda,” Kennedy said. “The public must know that unbiased science – evaluated through a transparent process and insulated from conflicts of interest – guides the recommendations of our health agencies.”

Kennedy’s reorganisation of the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) is the latest move by the Trump administration to shake up US health practices, sometimes by pushing ideas that depart strongly from the existing scientific consensus on issues such as vaccinations and fluoride.

“That’s a tragedy,” a former chief scientist of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), Jesse Goodman, said of the firings.

“This is a highly professional group of scientists and physicians and others … It’s the kind of political meddling that will reduce confidence rather than increase confidence.”

The HHS said that all 17 members of the panel were selected during the administration of former President Joe Biden, and that keeping them on would have prevented Trump from choosing the majority of the panel’s members until 2028.

The department said that the ACIP will convene its next meeting on June 25-27. While the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approves vaccinations for public use, the ACIP reviews data in public meetings before voting on whether to recommend a vaccine.

NEW YORK — Speaking out 20 years after his daughter drowned in Sen. Edward M. Kennedy’s car at Chappaquiddick, the father of Mary Jo Kopechne says she did not die in vain because her death “kept the senator from becoming President.”

“He was worried about himself, not Mary Jo,” Joseph Kopechne said in an interview in the July issue of Ladies Home Journal.

Miss Kopechne, 28, died July 19, 1969, when a car driven by Kennedy ran off a bridge at night and plunged into a pond on Massachusetts’ Chappaquiddick Island. She had been a campaign worker for Kennedy’s brother, Robert.

Kennedy said he freed himself from the car and tried to rescue his passenger. But it took him 10 hours to report the accident. He pleaded guilty to leaving the scene of an accident and lost his license for a year.

In the interview, Miss Kopechne’s mother, Gwen Kopechne, 71, said other women who attended a party with Kennedy and Miss Kopechne before the accident “were shut up.”

“I think there was a big cover-up and that everybody was paid off,” she said.

The Kopechnes received a settlement of $140,904, of which $90,904 came from the senator and $50,000 from his insurance company.

The couple had two brief meetings with Kennedy after the accident, Mrs. Kopechne said. “I don’t think he seemed upset either time we saw him,” she said, “and I don’t remember him saying he was sorry.”

Kennedy has expressed regret for Miss Kopechne’s death on numerous occasions.

Mrs. Kopechne said Kennedy has telephoned the couple periodically.

The former chairman of the Los Angeles County Sheriff Civilian Oversight Commission is under investigation for alleged retaliation against a Sheriff’s Department sergeant who faced scrutiny for his role in a unit accused of pursuing politically motivated cases.

Sean Kennedy, a Loyola Law School professor who resigned from the commission this year, received notification from a law firm that said it had “been engaged by the Office of the County Counsel to conduct a neutral investigation into an allegation that you retaliated against Sergeant Max Fernandez,” according to an email reviewed by The Times.

Kennedy and other members of the commission questioned Fernandez last year about his connections to the Sheriff’s Department’s now-disbanded Civil Rights and Public Integrity Detail, a controversial unit that operated under then-Sheriff Alex Villanueva.

Kennedy said the commission’s inquiry into Fernandez appears to be what landed him in the crosshairs of the investigation he now faces. Kennedy denied any wrongdoing in a text message Thursday.

“I was just doing my job as an oversight official tasked by the commission to conduct the questioning at an official public hearing,” he wrote.

Last week, Kennedy received an email from Matthias H. Wagener, co-partner of Wagener Law, stating that the county had launched an investigation.

“The main allegation is that you attempted to discredit Sergeant Fernandez in various ways because of his role in investigating Commissioner Patti Giggans during his tenure on the former Civil Rights & Public Corruption Detail Unit,” Wagener wrote. “It has been alleged that you retaliated for personal reasons relating to your relationship with Commissioner Giggans, as her friend and her attorney.”

The Office of the County Counsel confirmed in an emailed statement that “a confidential workplace investigation into recent allegations of retaliation” is underway, but declined to identify whom it is investigating or who alleged retaliation, citing a need to “ensure the integrity of the investigation and to protect the privacy of” the parties.

“In accordance with its anti-retaliation policies and procedures, LA County investigates complaints made by employees who allege they have been subjected to retaliation for engaging in protected activities in the workplace,” the statement said.

The Sheriff’s Department said in an email that it “has no investigation into Mr. Kennedy.”

Reached by phone Thursday, Fernandez said that he doesn’t “know anything about” the investigation and that he has not “talked to anybody at county counsel.”

“This is the first I’m hearing about it,” he said. “Who started this investigation? They haven’t contacted me. I don’t know how that got into their hands.”

In a phone interview, Kennedy described the inquiry as “extraordinary.”

“I think that this is just the latest in a long line of Sheriff’s Department employees doing really anything they can to thwart meaningful oversight,” Kennedy said. “So now we’re at the point where they’re filing bogus retaliation complaints against commissioners for doing their jobs.”

Kennedy resigned from the Civilian Oversight Commission in February after county lawyers attempted to thwart the body from filing an amicus brief in the criminal case against Diana Teran, who served as an advisor to then-L.A. County Dist. Atty. George Gascón.

The public corruption unit led several high-profile investigations during Villanueva’s term as sheriff, including inquiries into Giggans, the Civilian Oversight Commission, then-L.A. County Supervisor Shelia Kuehl and former Times reporter Maya Lau.

One of the unit’s investigations involved a whistleblower who alleged that the Metropolitan Transportation Authority unfairly awarded more than $800,000 worth of contracts to a nonprofit run by Giggans, a friend of Kuehl’s and vocal critic of Villanueva. The investigation made headlines when sheriff’s deputies with guns and battering rams raided Kuehl’s Santa Monica home one early morning in 2022.

The investigation ended without any criminal charges last summer, when the California Department of Justice concluded that there was a “lack of evidence of wrongdoing.”

Asked Thursday about the claim that Kennedy — who served as a lawyer for her while she was being investigated by the public corruption unit — interrogated Fernandez as a form of retaliation, Giggans called it “bogus” and said Fernandez “was subpoenaed because of his actions as a rogue sheriff’s deputy.”

Lau filed a lawsuit last month alleging the criminal investigation into her activities as a journalist violated her 1st Amendment rights. California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta ultimately declined to prosecute the case against Lau.

Critics have repeatedly alleged that Villanueva used the unit to target his political enemies, a charge the former sheriff has disputed.

In October, Kennedy and other members of the Civilian Oversight Commission spent five hours interrogating Fernandez and former homicide Det. Mark Lillienfeld about the public corruption unit, of which they were members.

Kennedy questioned Fernandez’s credibility during the exchange, asking about People vs. Aquino, a ruling by an appellate court in the mid-2000s that found he had provided false testimony during a criminal trial that was “deliberate and no slip of the tongue.”

Fernandez argued that he had “never lied on the stand,” adding that “that’s ridiculous, I’m an anti-corruption cop.”

Fernandez also fielded questions about whether he was a member of a deputy gang. Critics have accused deputy cliques of engaging in brawls and other misconduct.

Fernandez said he was not in a deputy gang or problematic subgroup. But he acknowledged that he drew a picture of a warrior in the early 2000s that he got tattooed on his body.

A lieutenant tattooed with that image previously testified that it is associated with the Gladiators deputy subgroup, of which Fernandez has denied being a member.

Kennedy also asked Fernandez about a 2003 incident in which he shot and killed a 27-year-old man in Compton. Fernandez alleged the man pointed a gun at him, but sheriff’s investigators later found he was unarmed.

In a 2021 memo to oversight officials, Kennedy called for a state or federal investigation into the Civil Rights and Public Integrity Detail and its “pattern of targeting” critics of the Sheriff’s Department.

Then-Undersheriff Tim Murakami responded in a letter, writing that the memo contained “wild accusations.”

On May 30, Wagener questioned Kennedy about “why I examined Max Fernandez about his fatal shooting of a community member, his Gladiators tattoo, his perjury in People v. Aquino, and why he put references to people’s sexual orientation in a search warrant application,” Kennedy wrote in a text message Thursday. “I told him I was just asking questions that relate to oversight.”

Robert Bonner, chair of the Civilian Oversight Commission, provided an emailed statement that called the investigation into Kennedy “extremely troubling and terribly ironic.”

“The allegation itself is rich,” Bonner wrote. “But that [it is being] given any credence by County Counsel can only serve to intimidate other Commissioners from asking hard questions.”

California and three other states petitioned the U.S. Food and Drug Administration Thursday to ease its new restrictions on the abortion pill mifepristone, citing the drug’s proven safety record and arguing the new limits are unnecessary.

“The medication is a lifeline for millions of women who need access to time-sensitive, critical healthcare — especially low-income women and those who live in rural and underserved areas,” said California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta, who filed the petition alongside the attorneys general of Massachusetts, New York and New Jersey.

The petition cites Senate testimony by Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. last month, in which Kennedy said he had ordered FDA administrator Martin Makary to conduct a “complete review” of mifepristone and its labeling requirements.

The drug, which can be received by mail, has been on the U.S. market for 25 years and taken safely by millions of Americans, according to experts. It is the most common method of terminating a pregnancy in the U.S., with its use surging after the Supreme Court overturned Roe vs. Wade in 2022.

The Supreme Court upheld access to the drug for early pregnancies under previous FDA regulations last year, but it has remained a target of anti-abortion conservatives. The Trump administration has given Kennedy broad rein to shake up American medicine under his “Make America Healthy Again” banner, and Kennedy has swiftly rankled medical experts by using dubious science — and even fake citations — to question vaccine regimens and research and other longstanding public health measures.

At the Senate hearing, Kennedy cited “new data” from a flawed report pushed by anti-abortion groups — and not published in any peer-reviewed journal — to question the safety of mifepristone, calling the report “alarming.”

“Clearly, it indicates that, at very least, the label should be changed,” Kennedy said.

Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) on Monday posted a letter from Makary to X, in which Makary wrote that he was “committed to conducting a review of mifepristone” alongside “the professional career scientists” at the FDA.

Makary said he could not provide additional information given ongoing litigation around the drug.

The states, in their 54-page petition, wrote that “no new scientific data has emerged since the FDA’s last regulatory actions that would alter the conclusion that mifepristone remains exceptionally safe and effective,” and that studies “that have frequently been cited to undermine mifepristone’s extensive safety record have been widely criticized, retracted, or both.”

Democrats have derided Kennedy’s efforts to reclassify mifepristone as politically motivated and baseless.

“This is yet another attack on women’s reproductive freedom and scientifically-reviewed health care,” Gov. Gavin Newsom said the day after Kennedy’s Senate testimony. “California will continue to protect every person’s right to make their own medical decisions and help ensure that Mifepristone is available to those who need it.”

Bonta said Thursday that mifepristone’s placement under the FDA’s Risk Evaluation and Mitigation Strategy program for drugs with known, serious side effects — or REMS — was “medically unjustified,” unduly burdened patient access and placed “undue strain on the nation’s entire health system.”

He said mifepristone “allows people to get reproductive care as early as possible when it is safest, least expensive, and least invasive,” is “so safe that it presents lower risks of serious complications than taking Tylenol,” and that its long safety record “is backed by science and cannot be erased at the whim of the Trump Administration.”

The FDA has previously said that fewer than 0.5% of women who take the drug experience “serious adverse reactions,” and deaths are exceedingly rare.

The REMS program requires prescribers to add their names to national and local abortion provider lists, which can be a deterrent for doctors given safety threats, and pharmacies to comply with complex tracking, shipping and reporting requirements, which can be a deterrent to carrying the drug, Bonta said.

It also requires patients to sign forms in which they attest to wanting to “end [their] pregnancy,” which Bonta said can be a deterrent for women using the drug after a miscarriage — one of its common uses — or for those in states pursuing criminal penalties for women seeking certain abortion care.

Under federal law, REMS requirements must address a specific risk posed by a drug and cannot be “unduly burdensome” on patients, and the new application to mifepristone “fails to meet that standard,” Bonta said.

The states’ petition is not a lawsuit, but a regulatory request for the FDA to reverse course, the states said.

If the FDA will not do so nationwide, the four petitioning states asked that it “exercise its discretion to not enforce the requirements” in their states, which Bonta’s office said already have “robust state laws that ensure safe prescribing, rigorous informed consent, and professional accountability.”

A growing coalition of HIV prevention organizations, health experts and Democrats in Congress are sounding the alarm over sweeping Trump administration cuts to HIV/AIDS prevention and surveillance programs nationally, warning they will reverse years of progress combating the disease and cause spikes in new cases — especially in California and among the LGBTQ+ community.

In a letter addressed Friday to Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Rep. Laura Friedman (D-Glendale) and 22 of her House colleagues demanded the release of HIV funding allocated by Congress but withheld by the Trump administration. They cited estimates from the Foundation for AIDS Research, known as amfAR, that the cuts could lead to 143,000 additional HIV infections nationwide and 127,000 additional deaths from AIDS-related causes within five years.

Friedman said the effects would be felt in communities small and large across the country but that California would be hit the hardest. She said L.A. County — which stands to lose nearly $20 million in annual federal HIV prevention funding — is being forced to terminate contracts with 39 providers and could see as many as 650 new cases per year as a result.

According to amfAR, that would mark a huge increase, pushing the total number of new infections per year in the county to roughly 2,000.

“South L.A. and communities across California are already feeling the devastating impacts of these withheld HIV prevention funds. These cuts aren’t just numbers — they’re shuttered clinics, canceled programs, and lives lost,” Friedman said in a statement to The Times.

As one example, she said, the Los Angeles LGBT Center — which is headquartered in her district — would likely have to eliminate a range of services including HIV testing, STD screening, community education and assistance for patients using pre-exposure prophylaxis, or PrEP, a medicine taken by pill or shot that can greatly reduce a person’s risk of becoming infected from sex or injection drug use.

A list reviewed by The Times of L.A. County providers facing funding cuts included large and small organizations and medical institutions in a diverse set of communities, from major hospitals and nonprofits to small clinics. The list was provided by a source on the condition of anonymity in order to be candid about the funding of organizations that have not all publicly announced the cuts.

The affected organizations serve a host of communities that already struggle with relatively high rates of HIV infection, including low-income, Spanish speaking, Black and brown and LGBTQ+ communities.

According to L.A. County, the Trump administration’s budget blueprint eliminates or reduces a number of congressionally authorized public health programs, including funding cuts to the domestic HIV prevention program and the Ryan White program, which supports critical care and treatment services for uninsured and underinsured people living with HIV.

The county said the cuts would have “an immediate and long-lasting impact” on community health.

Dozens of organizations and hospitals, such as Children’s Hospital of Los Angeles, are bracing for the disruption and potential vacuum of preventative services they’ve been providing to the community since the 1980s, according to Claudia Borzutzky, the hospital’s Chief of Adolescent and Young Adult Medicine.

Borzutzky said without the funding, programs that provide screening, education, patient navigation and community outreach — especially for at-risk adolescents and young adults — will evaporate. So, too, will free services that help patients enroll in insurance and access HIV prevention medications.

Patients who “face a variety of health barriers” and are often stigmatized will bear the brunt, she said, losing the “role models [and] peer educators that they can relate to and help [them] build confidence to come into a doctor’s office and seek testing and treatment.”

“We are having to sunset these programs really, really quickly, which impacts our patients and staff in really dramatic ways,” she said.

Answers to queries sent to other southern California health departments suggested they are trying to figure out how to cope with budget shortfalls, too. Health officials from Kern, San Bernardino and Riverside counties all said the situation is uncertain, and that they don’t yet know how they will respond.

Friedman and her colleagues — including fellow California representatives Nancy Pelosi, Judy Chu, Gilbert Cisneros Jr., Robert Garcia, Sam Liccardo, Kevin Mullin, Mark Takano, Derek Tran and George Whitesides — said they were concerned not only about funding for programs nationwide being cut, but also about the wholesale dismantling or defunding of important divisions working on HIV prevention within the federal government.

They questioned in their letter staffing cuts to the National Center for HIV, Viral Hepatitis, STD, and Tuberculosis Prevention at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, as well as “the reported elimination” of the Division of HIV Prevention within that center.

In addition to demanding the release of funds already allocated by Congress, the representatives called on Kennedy — and Dr. Debra Houry, deputy director of the CDC — to better communicate the status of ongoing grant funding, and to release “a list of personnel within CDC who can provide timely responses” when those groups to whom Congress had already allocated funding have questions moving forward.

“Although Congress has appropriated funding for HIV prevention in Fiscal Year 2025, several grant recipients have failed to receive adequate communication from CDC regarding the status of their awards,” Friedman and her colleagues wrote. “This ambiguity has caused health departments across the country to pre-emptively terminate HIV and STD prevention contracts with local organizations due to an anticipated lack of funding.”

The letter is just the latest challenge to the Trump administration’s sweeping cuts to federal agencies and to federal funding allocated by Congress to organizations around the country.

Through a series of executive orders and with the help of his billionaire adviser Elon Musk’s “Department of Government Efficiency” and other agency heads, Trump in the first months of his second term has radically altered the federal government’s footprint, laying off thousands of federal workers and attempting to claw back trillions of dollars in federal spending — to be reallocated to projects more aligned with his political agenda, or used to pay for tax cuts that Democrats and independent reviewers have said will disproportionately help wealthy Americans.

California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta’s office has repeatedly sued the Trump administration over such moves, including cuts and layoffs within Health and Human Services broadly and cuts to grants intended to make states more resistant to infectious disease specifically — calling them unwise, legally unjustifiable and a threat to the health of average Americans.

LGBTQ+ organizations also have sued the Trump administration over orders to preclude health and other organizations from spending federal funding on diversity, equity and inclusion programs geared toward LGBTQ+ populations, including programs designed to decrease new HIV infections and increase healthy management of the disease among transgender people and other vulnerable groups.

“The orders seek to erase transgender people from public life; dismantle diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility initiatives; and strip funding from nonprofits providing life-saving health care, housing, and support services,” said Jose Abrigo, the HIV Project Director of Lambda Legal, in a statement. The legal group has filed a number of lawsuits challenging the Trump administration cuts, including one on behalf of the San Francisco AIDS Foundation and other nonprofits.

Trump has defended his cuts to the federal government as necessary to implement his agenda. He and his agency leaders have consistently said that the cuts target waste, fraud and abuse in the government, and that average Americans will be better served following the reshuffling.

Kennedy has consistently defended the changes within Health and Human Services, as well. Agency spokespeople have said the substantial cuts would help it focus on Kennedy’s priorities of “ending America’s epidemic of chronic illness by focusing on safe, wholesome food, clean water, and the elimination of environmental toxins.”

“We aren’t just reducing bureaucratic sprawl. We are realigning the organization with its core mission and our new priorities in reversing the chronic disease epidemic,” Kennedy has said. “This Department will do more — a lot more — at a lower cost to the taxpayer.”

Kennedy has repeatedly spread misinformation about HIV and AIDS in the past, including by giving credence to the false claim that HIV does not cause AIDS.

As recently as June 2023, Kennedy told a reporter for New York Magazine that there “are much better candidates than H.I.V. for what causes AIDS,” and he has previously suggested that environmental toxins and “poppers” — an inhalant drug popular in the gay community — could be causes of AIDS instead.

None of that is supported by science or medicine. Studies from around the world have proven the link between HIV and AIDS, and found it — not drug use or sexual behavior — to be the only common factor in AIDS cases.

Officials in L.A. County said they remained hopeful that the Trump administration would reverse course after considering the effects of the cuts — and the “detrimental impacts on the health and well-being of residents and workers across” the county if they are allowed to stand.

For some folks, this summer will be a time of relaxation: picnics, barbecues, vacation. For others, a mad scramble between work and swim meets, baseball tournaments or shopping before shelves go bare and the Trump tariffs price everything beyond reach.

For Kamala Harris, it’s a time for deciding.

The former vice president is expected to spend a chunk of her summer weighing various options — whether to retire from politics after more than 20 years seeking elected office, whether to mount a 2026 bid for California governor or whether to make a third attempt at the White House in 2028.

According to several who’ve spoken with Harris, she is genuinely undecided, torn between concern and affection for her home state and an undimmed desire to be president.

Of the three options, the most pressing is whether to enter the race to replace her fellow Democrat, the term-limited Gavin Newsom, as governor.

The contest is already well underway — 10 serious (broadly speaking) candidates have so far announced their candidacies. While Harris’ near-universal name recognition and nationwide fundraising base allow her to wait longer than others, a serious gubernatorial bid will take more than a few months to mount.

That forces a decision and a public announcement sooner rather than later.

If she does run, one thing Harris must avoid at all costs is anything that bespeaks arrogance, entitlement or anything less than a 100% commitment to serving as governor. It’s not hard to imagine one of her first utterances as a candidate would be pledging to serve a full four-year term and vowing not to use the office as an interim step toward another presidential bid.

Failing that, voters have every reason to send Harris packing. California doesn’t need another governor with a wandering political eye.

Another imperative Harris faces is offering a compelling reason why she wants to be governor. Seeking the office for the same reason climbers tackle Mt. Everest — because it’s there — won’t do.

History offers a lesson.

In November 1979, Massachusetts Sen. Ted Kennedy was preparing to launch an upstart bid for president against the unpopular incumbent, Jimmy Carter. He gave a television interview that was so legendarily awful it’s become an object lesson in how not to start a campaign.

Asked why he wanted to be president, Kennedy paused at length, appearing stricken. He then unspooled a long-winded, curlicued, two-minute response that mentioned natural resources, technology, innovation, productivity, inflation, energy, joblessness and the economy, among other things. His answer was lucid as a fog bank and inspiring as a stalk of celery.

“Kennedy was on a rocket ship,” said Dan Schnur, a veteran communications strategist and political science professor, who uses the Kennedy interview as part of his curriculum at USC, Pepperdine and UC Berkeley. Carter was in dreadful shape, Kennedy was political royalty and the enthusiasm for his candidacy at the Democratic grassroots “looked like it was going to sweep him to the nomination.

“And then he did that one interview,” Schnur recollected, “and he couldn’t answer the most basic question.”

Though Kennedy ended up giving Carter a stiff challenge, he never fully recovered from leaving that terrible impression.

Harris should take heed.

A recent poll by the L.A. Times and UC Berkeley gave her a 50% approval rating among California voters, which is not exactly a number to beat the band. Still, she would enter the governor’s race as a heavy favorite to at least make the runoff under the state’s top-two election system. If a Republican nabbed the second spot, Harris would be strongly positioned to win in November, given California’s strong Democratic leaning.

But, again, neither is a reason for Harris to be governor.

Some of those close to the former vice president wonder how much she really wants, or would enjoy, the job.

In 2015, when the governorship and a U.S. Senate seat both came open, Harris — the state’s attorney general at the time — opted to seek the latter. Her reasons were both personal, involving family considerations, and professional, given the platform and opportunities afforded a member of the Senate.

In short, Harris has never burned with a passion to be California governor.

That makes it all the more important for her to explain — clearly and convincingly — why she’d want to be elected.

“She’s got to give some affirmative reason why she’s running and why it would be good for the voters of California,” Schnur said. “And it’s not just a matter of constructing several words into a sentence.

“It’s not hard for someone as smart as Kamala Harris and her team to concoct a lab-tested phrase that tests well,” he went on. “The challenge isn’t typing out a sentence. It’s developing a core purpose that can then be explained in a sentence.”

Harris has all summer to look inward and figure that out. If she can’t, California voters should choose someone else for their next governor.

SOUTHERN SECTION SOFTBALL PLAYOFFS

SATURDAY’S RESULTS

SECOND ROUND

DIVISION 1

Norco 13, Oaks Christian 1

Chino Hills 4, Huntington Beach 0

La Mirada 12, Roosevelt 4

Ayala 3, Murrieta Mesa 2

Sherman Oaks Notre Dame 12, El Segundo 10

El Modena 7, Rosary Academy 5

Temescal Canyon 8, Valley View 0

Etiwanda 3, La Habra 1

DIVISION 2

California 3, Capistrano Valley 0

Great Oak 7, Downey 1

JSerra 5, Sonora 3

Palos Verdes 11, Linfield Christian 7

Ganesha 4, Millikan 0

Santa Margarita 13, Vista Murrieta 3

Los Alamitos 7, Whittier Christian 3

La Serna 4, Redondo Union 2

DIVISION 3

Yorba Linda at Valencia, Monday

Arlington 4, Cerritos Valley Christian 1

St. Paul 6, Alta Loma 2

Marina 7, San Clemente 0

Kennedy at Royal, Monday

Aquinas 5, Tesoro 2

Mission Viejo 14, Ramona 3

Westlake 7, Chaminade 2

DIVISION 4

Santa Monica 7, Duarte 3

Long Beach Poly 11, South El Monte 1

Harvard-Westlake 5, Foothill 3

Dos Pueblos 10, Colton 2

Indio 4, Northview 2

El Toro 14, Quartz Hill 7

Hemet 2, Segerstrom 1

Elsinore at Warren, Monday

DIVISION 5

St. Bonaventure 4, Muir 3

Patriot 10, Kaiser 2

Irvine at Highland, Monday

Riverside North 9, Western Christian 8

Cerritos 11, Placentia Valencia 1

Canyon Springs 5, Grace 1

West Ranch 12, Bishop Montgomery 5

Lancaster at Wiseburn Da Vinci, Monday

DIVISION 6

Cantwell-Sacred Heart 2, South Pasadena 1

University 10, Coastal Christian 2

Ramona Convent 13, Granite Hills 7

Pasadena Poly at La Salle, Monday

Adelanto 11, Norwalk 1

San Jacinto 14, Eisenhower 3

Katella 7, Vasquez 4

Rio Hondo Prep 16, St. Monica 6

DIVISION 7

El Monte 9, Garey 7

Westminster 14, Fillmore 8

Rancho Mirage 23, Hesperia Christian 10

Edgewood 10, Sacred Heart LA 3

Silverado 16, Rialto 4

Los Amigos at Culver City, Monday

Lakeside 9, Yucca Valley 6

Riverside Notre Dame 5, San Bernardino 1

DIVISION 8

Orange 3, Tustin 2

Cathedral City 15, Bethel Christian 6

United Christian Academy12, Banning 11

Nuview Bridge at Lennox Academy, Monday

Hawthorne 17, Rancho Alamitos 8

Calvary Baptist 14, Academy of Careers & Exploration 0

Hueneme 13, Loara 0

Downey Calvary Chapel 10, St. Genevieve 8

WEDNESDAY’S SCHEDULE

(Games at 3:15 p.m. unless noted)

QUARTERFINALS

DIVISION 1

Chino Hills at Norco

Ayala at La Mirada

El Modena at Sherman Oaks Notre Dame

Etiwanda at Temescal Canyon

DIVISION 2

California at Great Oak

JSerra at Palos Verdes

Ganesha at Santa Margarita

La Serna at Los Alamitos

DIVISION 3

Arlington vs. Valencia / Yorba Linda

Marina at St. Paul

Aquinas vs. Kennedy / Royal

Mission Viejo at Westlake

DIVISION 4

Long Beach Poly at Santa Monica

Harvard-Westlake at Dos Pueblos

El Toro at Indio

Elsinore / Warren at Hemet

DIVISION 5

Patriot at St. Bonaventure

Riverside North vs. Highland / Irvine

Canyon Springs at Cerritos

West Ranch vs. Lancaster / La Canada

DIVISION 6

University at Cantwell-Sacred Heart

Ramona Convent vs. Pasadena Poly / La Salle

Adelanto at San Jacinto

Katella at Rio Hondo Prep

DIVISION 7

Westminster at El Monte

Edgewood at Rancho Mirage

Silverado vs. Los Amigos / Culver City

Riverside Notre Dame at Lakeside

DIVISION 8

Cathedral City at Orange

Nuview Bridge / Lennox Academy at United Christian Academy

Hawthorne at Calvary Baptist

Hueneme at Downey Calvary Chapel

Note: Semifinals (all divisions) May 24; Finals (all divisions) May 30-31.

SOUTHERN SECTION BOYS VOLLEYBALL PLAYOFFS

FRIDAY’S RESULTS

FINALS

At Cerritos College

DIVISION 1

Mira Costa d. Huntington Beach, 25-19, 22-25, 25-19, 29-31, 15-11

At Mater Dei

DIVISION 2

Mater Dei d. Peninsula, 20-25, 25-17, 25-13, 25-19

At Crossroads

DIVISION 8

Wildwood d. Katella, 3-0

SATURDAY’S SCHEDULE

FINALS

At Cerritos College

DIVISION 3

Orange Lutheran vs. Tesoro, 10 a.m.

DIVISION 5

Esperanza vs. Kennedy, 12:30 p.m.

DIVISION 9

CAMS vs. Downey Calvary Chapel, 3 p.m.

DIVISION 6

Quartz Hill vs. El Toro, 6 p.m.

At Santa Barbara

DIVISION 4

Sage Hill vs. Santa Barbara, 1 p.m.

WASHINGTON — Democrats and Republicans alike raised concerns on Wednesday about deep staffing cuts, funding freezes and far-reaching policy changes overseen by U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

A bipartisan group of lawmakers questioned Kennedy’s approach to the job, some saying that he has jeopardized vaccine uptake, cancer research and dental health in just a few short months.

In combative and at times highly personal rejoinders, Kennedy defended the Trump administration’s dramatic effort to reshape the sprawling, $1.7-trillion-a-year agency, saying it would deliver a more efficient department focused on promoting healthier lifestyles among Americans.

“There’s so much chaos and disorganization in this department,” Kennedy said on Wednesday during the Senate hearing. “What we’re saying is let’s organize in a way that we can quickly adopt and deploy all these opportunities we have to really deliver high-quality healthcare to the American people.”

During tense exchanges, lawmakers — in back-to-back House and Senate hearings — sometimes questioned whether Kennedy was aware of his actions and the structure of his own department after he struggled to provide more details about staffing cuts.

“I have noted you’ve been unable, in most instances, to answer any specific questions related to your agency,” said Sen. Angela Alsobrooks, a Maryland Democrat.

The secretary, in turn, pushed back — saying he had not had time to answer specific questions — and at points questioning lawmakers’ own grasp of health policy.

Kennedy testified to explain his downsizing of the department — from 82,000 to 62,000 staffers — and argue on behalf of the White House’s requested budget, which includes a $500-million boost for Kennedy’s “Make America Healthy Again” initiative to promote nutrition and healthier lifestyles while making deep cuts to infectious disease prevention, medical research and maternal health programs.

He revealed that he persuaded the White House to back down from one major cut: Head Start, a federally funded preschool program for low-income families across the country.

But lawmakers described how thousands of job losses at the health department and funding freezes have impacted their districts.

One Washington state mother, Natalie, has faced delays in treatment for Stage 4 cancer at the National Institutes of Health’s Clinical Center, said Democratic Sen. Patty Murray. The clinical center is the research-only hospital commonly known as the “House of Hope,” but when Murray asked Kennedy to explain how many jobs have been lost there, he could not answer. The president’s budget proposes a nearly $20-billion slash from the NIH.

“You are here to defend cutting the NIH by half,” Murray said. “Do you genuinely believe that won’t result in more stories like Natalie’s?” Kennedy disputed Murray’s account.

Democrat Rep. Bonnie Watson-Coleman of New Jersey asked “why, why, why?” Kennedy would lay off nearly all the staff who oversee the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program, which provides $4.1 billion in heating assistance to needy families. The program is slated to be eliminated from the agency’s budget.

Kennedy said that advocates warned him those cuts “will end up killing people,” but that President Trump believes his energy policy will lower costs. If that doesn’t work, Kennedy said, he would restore funding for the program.

Sen. Lisa Murkowski, a Republican of Alaska, said those savings would be realized too late for people in her state.

“Right now, folks in Alaska still need those ugly generators to keep warm,” she said.

Murkowski was one of several Republicans who expressed concerns about Kennedy’s approach to the job throughout the hearings.

Like several Republicans, Rep. Chuck Fleischmann of Tennessee praised Kennedy for his work promoting healthy foods. But he raised concerns about whether the secretary has provided adequate evidence that artificial food dyes are bad for diets. Removing those food dyes would hurt the “many snack manufacturers” in his district, including the makers of M&M’s candy, he said.

Rep. Mike Simpson, a dentist from Idaho, said Kennedy’s plan to remove fluoride recommendations for drinking water alarms him. The department’s news release on Tuesday, which announced the Food and Drug Administration plans to remove fluoride supplements for children from the market, wrongly claimed that fluoride “kills bacteria from the teeth,” Simpson noted. He explained to Kennedy that fluoride doesn’t kill bacteria in the mouth but instead makes tooth enamel more resistant to decay.

“I will tell you that if you are successful in banning fluoride … we better put a lot more money into dental education because we’re going to need a lot more dentists,” Simpson added.

Kennedy was pressed repeatedly on the mixed message he’s delivered on vaccines, which public health experts have said are hampering efforts to contain a growing measles outbreak now in at least 11 states.

Responding to Sen. Chris Murphy, a Democrat of Connecticut, Kennedy refused to recommend that parents follow the nation’s childhood vaccination schedule, which includes shots for measles, polio and whooping cough. He, instead, wrongly claimed that the vaccines have not been safety tested against a placebo.

Sen. Bill Cassidy, a Republican of Louisiana and chairman of the health committee, had extracted a number of guarantees from Kennedy that he would not alter existing vaccine guidance and work at the nation’s health department. Cassidy, correcting Kennedy, pointed out that rotavirus, measles and HPV vaccines recommended for children have all been tested in a placebo study.

As health secretary, Kennedy has called the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine — a shot given to children to provide immunity from all three diseases — “leaky,” although it offers lifetime protection from the measles for most people. He’s also said they cause deaths, although none has been documented among healthy people.

“You have undermined the vital role vaccines play in preventing disease during the single, largest measles outbreak in 25 years,” independent Sen. Bernie Sanders said.

Seitz writes for the Associated Press.

May 14 (UPI) — Health and Human Services Secretary Robert Kennedy Jr. defended proposed 2026 budget reductions during separate House and Senate committee budget hearings on Wednesday.

Kennedy started the morning by fielding questions from members of the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, Education and Related Agencies.

Chairman Rep. Robert Aderholt, R-Ala., opened the hearing by acknowledging President Donald Trump‘s efforts to enforce the border and its effect on community health and safety.

“The president’s success in securing our border directly benefits public health by reducing the incoming flow of illicit drugs, like fentanyl, which has fallen by 54% since this time last year,” Aderholt said. “That’s no small thing.”

He also commended the Trump administration for reducing the number of unaccompanied minors crossing the border and said he wants to hear Kennedy’s ideas for reforming the Department of Health and Human Services and its sub-agencies.

‘Disastrous’ program funding reductions

Ranking Member Rep. Rose DeLauro, D-Conn., was less conciliatory and referred to the Trump administration’s budget request for the Department of Health and Human Services as “disastrous.”

DeLauro said the proposed budget would reduce funding for health programs by $33 billion.

The proposed HHS budget for the 2026 fiscal year is $93.8 billion, which is a 26.2% reduction from the current budget and includes funding reductions across most programs.

“I view it as a disgrace,” DeLauro said. “Under your budget proposal, Americans would die needless and preventable deaths.”

DeLauro cited funding cuts to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and accused Kennedy and the Department of Government Efficiency Director Elon Musk of “eliminating entire divisions without consideration for what is being lost.”

The cuts “affect families and communities” and “are dangerous,” DeLauro said.

Kennedy said his goal is to make America healthy again by focusing on the “chronic disease epidemic.”

HHS also seeks to deliver more effective and efficient services for Americans who rely on Medicaid, Medicare and other programs while reducing costs for taxpayers, Kennedy said.

During the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee budget hearing Wednesday afternoon, Kennedy said states and localities can do a better job of responding to disasters at the state and local levels than the federal government.

He cited Florida’s success in handling hurricanes Helene and Milton last year, with no lives lost there, as an example and said the federal government should focus on national disasters.

Drug prices and healthcare as a human right

Sen. Bernie Sanders, D-Vt., asked Kennedy if he is willing to work to make drug prices in the United States the lowest in the world, to which Kennedy said he is.

Sanders then asked Kennedy if healthcare is a “human right.”

Kennedy said healthcare is not part of the rights enumerated in the Constitution and called it more of a philosophical matter.

Sanders responded by saying “every other country guarantees healthcare” as a right and said Americans don’t want the choice to be uninsured or not have the ability to see a doctor.

Kennedy said “Obamacare” is not working and he and President Trump want to enable everyone to be insured and have access to quality healthcare.

Sanders then cited proposed cuts to programs that serve middle-class and poor Americans and claimed they would end healthcare coverage for 13 million Americans.

Kennedy said the cuts only are for waste and denied they would affect coverage for Americans.

Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., followed Sanders and cited examples of wasteful programs that the proposed budget would eliminate.

They include a recent study on the effects of cocaine on lab rats and another study that showed about half of biological males who medically transition to female believe they can get pregnant, the senator said.

Gain-of-function research and COVID-19

Paul also said bipartisan support exists for better controlling gain-of-function research on Ebola, avian flu and other infectious diseases and the potential dangers they pose to Americans.

The senator cited a research study that would put Ebola in an aerosol as a potential biological weapon, which he said could be potentially very dangerous to the general public.

Paul asked Kennedy if HHS would be transparent in gain-of-function research regulations and protect Americans from potentially deadly outbreaks.

Kennedy said HHS would be “absolutely transparent” in regulating gain-of-function research and “bring the public in on the debate.”

He also said National Institutes of Health research “almost certainly” caused the COVID-19 pandemic through gain-of-function research.

Lack of access to critical care

Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., said she opposes staffing reductions at the NIH and cited a constituent with stage-four cancer who recently was told her treatment would be delayed by four weeks due to staffing shortages.

Kennedy offered to intervene on that person’s behalf and ensure she receives needed care right away.

Sen. Tammy Baldwin, D-Wis., accused Kennedy of “hiding information” from the American people and asked if he believes lead poisoning is a problem.

Kennedy said he thinks it’s a very serious problem, but Baldwin said “the entire lead-poisoning program staff has been fired.”

She asked if Kennedy intends to eliminate the program that helps communities address lead poisoning, which he said will not happen.

She also said HHS has provided about $1 billion less in Head Start program funding and asked why there are funding delays.

“There should not be any delays,” Kennedy said. “The funding is there.”

He suggested staffers who want to make the Trump administration look bad are slowing down disbursements for Head Start and similar programs.

The House and Senate hearings were held before a vote on a proposed 2026 federal government budget measure that Trump has referred to as “one big, beautiful bill.”

Protesters arrested for disrupting hearing

While the Senate hearing was underway, Ben & Jerry’s co-owner and co-founder Ben Cohen and six others were arrested for disrupting the hearing, Axios reported.

Cohen and the others were protesting the United States’ support of Israel in its war with Hamas in Gaza.

The protesters yelled, “RFK kills people with hate!” before Capitol Police escorted them from the room.

They were arrested and charged with crowding, obstructing proceedings or incommoding.

Some protesters also were charged with assaulting a police officer or resisting arrest, but Cohen was not among those so charged.