Addressing an FDA staff whose morale already has plunged because of thousands of layoffs, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. told employees that they're a "sock puppet" of the industries they regulate, the "deep state" is real, and they should turn in their bosses if they approve "something that shouldn't be approved." Kennedy issued the criticisms in the first visit of his tenure to the Food and Drug Administration on Friday, Politico reports. The speech, intended to introduce Kennedy and the FDA's new commissioner, was not a hit with all employees, who were told they'd have the resources they need despite the dismissals but were not told how. The subjects addressed included:
- Industry influence: "Every institution that's created by human beings" eventually is captured by powerful interests, Kennedy said. That won't happen in HHS, he promised, saying the agency will listen to "dissidents." A spokesperson later told the Washington Post in a statement that "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." Before the election, Kennedy had posted that FDA employees "who are part of this corrupt system" should pack their bags, per NBC News.
- "Deep state": The media calls President Trump paranoid for using this term, Kennedy said. "But the Deep State is real. And it's not, you know, just George Soros and Bill Gates and a bunch of nefarious individuals sitting together in a room and plotting the, you know, the destruction of humanity," he told the staff, according to the transcript.
- Job cuts: FDA Commissioner Marty Makary, who's in his first week on the job, spoke first, promising that scientists, reviewers, inspectors, and administrative staffers would be given the resources to "do your job well" despite the layoffs. And Kennedy last week had said HHS would learn to "do more with less," per Politico. Neither gave details.
- Autism: Saying that autism rates have skyrocketed, Kennedy talked about visits as a teenager to the Wassaic Home for the Retarded in New York. "So I was seeing people with intellectual disabilities all the time. I never saw anybody with autism." Some employees thought he was using a derogatory term, though that was the institution's name at the time. Kennedy promised to release "new data" from the CDC on autism soon, per the Post.
- CIA mind games: By the end of his speech, Kennedy was discussing the CIA's past work with psychedelic drugs. Apparently trying to encourage employees' adherence to his mandate to make the nation healthier, he brought up the Milgram experiment—the infamous 1961 test that led people to inflict pain on others.
One FDA staffer's immediate reaction was this is just the beginning, per NBC. "Sadly, the rhetoric is likely to continue for his entire tenure because he believes that we're all sellouts for industry," adding, "In reality, many industries dislike the level of safety that we hold submissions to." (More
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