A hearing before the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Health came screeching to a halt on Tuesday after the GOP chair asked Robert F. Kennedy, the Human Services Secretary, to retract a comment he made accusing a Democratic member’s stance on vaccines of being influenced by money from pharmaceutical companies.
Kennedy was giving testimony at the hearing in order to defend the administration’s budget request, which features a slashing of spending within the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).
“Rep. Frank Pallone (D-N.J.), ranking member of the Energy and Commerce Committee, used his time to blast the firings at HHS and the apparent lack of transparency under Kennedy’s tenure so far. He and other Democrats said many of their letters to the HHS have gone unanswered, with Pallone counting 10 of his letters receiving no response,” The Hill reported.
Pallone stated that the lack of transparency on Kennedy’s part extended to changes being made to the federal vaccine approval process.
“You have made a number of major decisions about vaccines. And … there’s been no public comment process or public accountability on that either. What are you afraid of?” he asked him during the hearing. “I mean, with regard to vaccines, are you just afraid of receiving public comments on proposals where you just think these are fringe views that are contrary to the views of most scientists?”
“The bottom line is here, we have no transparency. We have no response. You feel no responsibility to Congress whatsoever, and you just continue this ideology that’s anti science, anti vaccine. That’s all I see. I see nothing else,” Pallone continued.
Kennedy wasted no time opening verbal fire on Pallone in retaliation, saying, “Congressman Pallone, 15 years ago, you and I met. You were, at that time, a champion of people who had suffered injuries from vaccines. You were very adamant about it. You were the leading member of Congress on that issue.”
“Since then, you’ve accepted $2 million from pharmaceutical companies in contributions, more than any other member of this committee,” he added. “And your enthusiasm for supporting the old [Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices], which was completely rife and pervasive with pharmaceutical conflicts, seems to be an outcome of those contributions.”
🚨 HOLY SMOKES! RFK Jr. goes BERSERK on Democrat Congressman Pallone for being entirely bought by Big Pharma.
“You’ve accepted $2 MILLION from pharmaceutical companies, more than ANY other member of this committee!”pic.twitter.com/COhYuPi4gG
— Eric Daugherty (@EricLDaugh) June 24, 2025
Rep. Diana DeGette (D-Colo) was not pleased with Kennedy’s response to Pallone, raising a point of order right away, stating the Kennedy was “impugning Mr. Pallone.”
Subcommittee Chair Buddy Carter (R-Ga.) asked that the clock be paused. After a brief back and forth with committee members and staffers, he acknowledged it was a valid point of order and asked Kennedy to retract his remarks about Pallone.
Kennedy retracted his words.
While he may have retracted his comments, OpenSecrets, Pallone did indeed receive close to $2.2 million from the pharmaceutical/health products industry since 1988, which is when he first became a member of Congress.
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