Kathleen Sebelius:
Well, unfortunately, Amna, to me, it’s another indication of how little Senator — Secretary Kennedy understands about this massive agency.
HHS is intertwined with state governments, with local governments, with tribal governments. And it’s not just about losing some nameless, faceless bureaucrat in Washington, D.C. What the massive layoff will mean is that you lose expertise, you lose timeliness, you lose an opportunity to get not only the best products to market in a very fast manner, but a food outbreak that could occur anywhere in the country.
That’s part of the FDA’s job, is that they work with industry to quickly get those foods off the market, so my kid doesn’t get harmed by the peanut butter. Here in the heartland, in Kansas, we’re going to lose health employees from the CDC who have been working closely with our local health offices to monitor outbreaks, to keep vaccines up to date, to make sure that data is shared from state to state.
Those employees are all over the country. They will suddenly be gone. We’re going to go into hurricane and tornado season very shortly. The first people on the ground when a disaster hits are from the CDC. They make sure the water is safe, so people can go back and relocate.
We’re talking about real impact at every point in the country. And, unfortunately, after six weeks, my guess is Kennedy has not only not visited the 13 divisions, but he really doesn’t know or doesn’t care what the people do.
