RFK Jr. says FDA has become a ‘sock puppet’ in meeting with staff

The Food and Drug Administration has become a “sock puppet” of the industries it regulates, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said Friday, telling workers at the beleaguered agency that those industries have exerted too much influence on regulatory decisions for too long.

In a roughly 27-minute speech, Kennedy – the nation’s top health official – also said the “deep state is real,” according to transcripts of his speech and a recording obtained by the Washington Post. He urged employees to blow the whistle on their bosses if they believe superiors are approving “something that shouldn’t be approved.” And he urged employees to “break away from the bureaucracy.”

Kennedy also attempted to rally the staff around his Make America Healthy Again agenda, which is aimed at reducing chronic disease and childhood illness.

But his remarks came as morale among some rank-and-file staff has sunk in recent weeks after widespread layoffs. Some FDA staffers privately expressed frustration over the tone of Kennedy’s remarks.

Kennedy’s Department of Health and Human Services slashed several thousand staff from the roughly $7 billion FDA, which is charged with overseeing the safety of vaccines, medicines and medical devices; the majority of the U.S. food supply; tobacco products; and more.

Senior career leaders also were removed from their positions. The Trump administration forced out Peter Marks, the nation’s top vaccine regulator, last month, and others, like Brian King, the head of the tobacco center, was reassigned.

In a written statement to the Post, HHS said Kennedy “is telling the truth that many Americans already know: for too long, the FDA has been captured by the very industries it is supposed to regulate. Calling this out and encouraging radical transparency is not controversial – it’s leadership.” Kennedy, the statement said, “will continue pushing for a culture at HHS that serves the public, not corporate interests or internal politics. The era of rubber-stamping and silence is over.”

The cuts came during FDA Commissioner Marty Makary’s first full week in charge of the agency. Makary acknowledged the staff cuts as he introduced Kennedy and pledged that scientists, reviewers, inspectors and administrative staff would have the resources they needed to do their jobs.

“There have been some changes as all of you are extremely aware of,” Makary, a Johns Hopkins surgeon and former Fox News contributor, said. “Thank you for your patience in those changes.”

Kennedy also leaned into topics he has often discussed, such as the need to tighten a loophole that allows chemicals in the U.S. food supply and rates of autism in the United States.

Kennedy said HHS would soon be releasing preliminary data showing that 1 in 31 children have autism. At a Cabinet meeting Thursday, Kennedy vowed to discover the causes of autism by September, raising alarms among researchers who warn that accurate research is a lengthy process and suspect the effort is designed to blame vaccines.

In his remarks, Kennedy also sought to connect his personal experiences with his professional goals. He moved between topics such as pesticides endangering the predatory birds he watched in his youth in Washington, D.C., to childhood food allergies.

He also sought to link his family’s experience in public service, such as his aunt Eunice Kennedy Shriver’s role launching the Special Olympics, to his ambitions to tackle autism.

“I spent 200 hours at Wassaic Home for the Retarded when I was in high school,” he said, apparently referring to what was once known as the Wassaic State School for the Mentally Retarded in New York. It closed in 2013.

“So I was seeing people with intellectual disability all the time,” Kennedy said. “We never saw anybody with autism.”

Kennedy closed his remarks by riffing on the CIA’s work with psychedelic drugs and invoked the Milgram experiment. That infamous test conducted by Yale University psychologist Stanley Milgram in 1961 induced ordinary people to inflict pain on others.

The health secretary suggested that FDA officials should not see themselves as subject to government authorities that could harm people.

“You’re not here to take orders. You’re here to make our children healthy,” Kennedy said, according to a transcript of his remarks.