Remarks from Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. 5.07.2026
What this video covers
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. appears at the City Club of Cleveland on May 7, 2026, for a moderated forum conversation and audience Q&A about his agenda as secretary of Health and Human Services. Asked about his biggest wins, Kennedy centers chronic-disease prevention and describes changes to dietary guidance, food programs, drug pricing, and rural health. Audience members then press him on addiction treatment, research funding, food affordability, antidepressant withdrawal, and the newborn hepatitis B vaccine recommendation.
Key points
- Kennedy argues that chronic disease is now the department’s central problem, saying the United States carries an exceptional burden of chronic and allergic conditions and that COVID showed how that burden can aggravate an infectious-disease crisis.
- On food policy, Kennedy says the new Dietary Guidelines place more emphasis on protein and are being carried into USDA programs, SNAP, WIC, the Indian Health Service, school food, and military dining; he also criticizes limited nutrition training in medical schools and supports state SNAP waivers that exclude soda and candy.
- Kennedy says HHS is closing the GRAS loophole he associates with chemical additives and food dyes, tightening attention to contaminants such as cadmium and lead in baby formula, and developing a red-yellow-green front-of-package label to help shoppers judge foods quickly.
- On drug prices, Kennedy credits President Trump’s calls to manufacturers and most-favored-nation agreements with pressuring companies to cut U.S. prices and reshore production; he cites Ozempic at $1,350 in New Jersey versus $88 in London and points consumers to TrumpRx to compare cash prices with insurance.
- Kennedy presents the $50 billion Rural Health Transformation Fund as a way to keep rural hospitals open and rebuild local capacity, with state applications directed toward integration, telehealth, infrastructure repairs, community health centers, residencies, and clinician retention.
- In the addiction Q&A, Kennedy describes an interagency recovery effort involving HHS and SAMHSA alongside housing, education, and labor agencies, and he proposes paying rehabilitation providers for sustained sobriety over time instead of a fee-for-service cycle he says rewards relapse.
- Pressed on NIH funding and antidepressants, Kennedy says funding decisions run through Congress, argues that too much research money has gone to what he calls unfocused studies and genetic explanations rather than environmental causes of chronic disease, and says HHS has urged caution on antidepressant prescribing while developing deprescribing protocols.
- Questioner Patricia Kellner challenges universal newborn hepatitis B vaccination; Kennedy defends the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices’ changed recommendation, argues that the birth dose lacked adequate placebo-controlled safety testing, favors focusing on high-risk groups, and cites Denmark as an example.