Senate Panel Quizzes HHS Chief Over NIOSH, Disease Research, Other Cuts

NBC News: RFK Jr. Grilled On Health Department Funding Cuts At His 3rd Congressional Hearing This Month
Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. returned to Capitol Hill for his third congressional hearing in a week to face more heated questions from lawmakers about the drastic funding cuts his department has made as part of President Donald Trump's efforts to reduce the size of the federal government. Tuesday's hearing before a Senate Appropriations subcommittee centered on Trump's 2026 budget request for the Department of Health and Human Services, and within minutes, lawmakers expressed concerns about specific programs and funding that would be cut if the proposed budget passes. (Lebowitz, 5/20)

CBS News: RFK Jr. Tells Farmers, GOP Not To Worry About His Report Targeting Pesticides
Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. sought Tuesday to reassure farmers and one Republican senator about his upcoming report on how pesticides are driving up rates of childhood chronic diseases, acknowledging that chemicals like glyphosate that he has long criticized are widely used for growing crops in the U.S. "I have said repeatedly throughout this process, that we cannot take any step that will put a single farmer in this country out of business," Kennedy said at a hearing of the Senate Appropriations Committee. "There's a million farmers who rely on glyphosate. 100% of corn in this country relies on glyphosate. We are not going to do anything to jeopardize that business model." (Smith, 5/20)

CNN: Kennedy Said A ‘Team’ Is In Milwaukee To Help With Lead Contamination. The City Says That’s Not True 
US Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. told a Senate subcommittee on Tuesday that the federal government has “a team in Milwaukee” helping the city address a lead crisis in its schools. The city says that that’s not true and that it’s still not receiving requested aid from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s childhood lead poisoning experts to deal with the ongoing contamination. (Goodman, 5/20)

On the World Health Organization —

Politico: RFK Jr. Calls For Global Health Cooperation Outside The World Health Organization
Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on Tuesday called on other countries to work with the U.S. on global health outside of the World Health Organization, as he rejected the pandemic agreement WHO members just adopted. “We want to free international health cooperation from the straitjacket of political interference by corrupting influences of the pharmaceutical companies, of adversarial nations and their [non-governmental organization] proxies,” Kennedy said in prerecorded video remarks aired Tuesday at the World Health Assembly in Geneva, an annual gathering of top health officials from WHO member countries. (Paun, 5/20)

The Washington Post: China Expands Global Influence With $500 Million WHO Donation
China has pledged to give $500 million to the World Health Organization as Beijing is set to replace the United States as the group’s top state donor, expanding China’s global influence in the wake of Washington’s retreat from international cooperation. Chinese Vice Premier Liu Guozhong told the World Health Assembly (WHA) that his country was making the contribution to oppose “unilateralism,” a trait Beijing often ascribes to Washington as relations between the two powers deteriorate. (Kuo and Chiang, 5/21)

In other health news from the Trump administration —

Bloomberg: HHS Demands Drugmakers’ US Prices Match What Similar Nations Pay
The US Department of Health and Human Services is demanding that pharmaceutical companies cut drug prices to the lowest price offered to nations with economies that are similar to the US’s, the agency announced Tuesday. Earlier this month, President Donald Trump threatened drugmakers with regulatory action if they do not lower their prices to be more in line with what other developed countries pay. As part of that announcement, the White House directed HHS to release details on what prices the administration is hoping to achieve. (Cohrs Zhang, 5/20)

The 19th: USDA Program Connecting Small Farms With Food Banks Is Ending
Oaks and Sprouts, Tonni and Graham Oberly’s family farm, got the email from the Ohio Association of Foodbanks just after five o’clock on the first Friday in March. The U.S. Department of Agriculture, or USDA, had notified the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services that it was ending a program that gave state, tribal and territorial governments federal dollars to stock food pantries from farms within a 400-mile radius. (Becker, 5/20)