CSPAN - Washington Journal Dr. Georges Benjamin

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Feb. 4, 2025 01:33-02:00 - CSPAN

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Washington Journal Dr. Georges Benjamin

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greta brawner

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greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Joining us this morning is Dr. Georges Benjamin, Executive Director of the American Public Health Association.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Sir, remind us of your group, what are its goals, and who funds it?
unidentified		Well, we're the nation's national association of people interested in public health and professional society that's been around since 1872.
unidentified		We're funded from membership dues, revenue from our annual meeting, revenue from our publications, and some grants, including federal grants.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Who are your members?
unidentified		They're people that work at state and local health departments, teach and do research at our nation's academic health centers, public interest groups like members of the Heart Association and Diabetes Association, and other nonprofits that are interested in health, a lot of them small.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		As the executive director of the American Public Health Association, is RFK Jr. qualified to serve as Health and Human Services Secretary?
unidentified		We believe he's the wrong guy for this job.
		We do not believe that he has the proper training, the management skills, and the judgment in many ways to really do this job well.
		And we saw that on full display during the two hearings that he had this week.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Talk about proper training.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		What is needed?
unidentified		Somebody with a background in health.
		Someone, even if you're, you know, we've had a lot of attorneys in that job, but they all had some health experience.
		They've been legislators or they had a broad health experience in healthcare financing or health insurance.
		He does not have that.
		He is an environmental lawyer that has been in a very, very narrow focused area.
		Now, environment is important for your health, but he doesn't have the broad range of skills that are necessary for this job.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		And management skills.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		You cited that.
unidentified		Yeah, HHS is almost a $2 trillion agency with 80,000 employees and 13 operating divisions.
		It covers everything from before you're born to when you pass away.
		And it's complex.
		And he, at most, has managed a couple organizations on their board, I think at their peak with $25, $30 million budget, which is really even what we call a rounding error in the budget for the Department of Health and Human Services.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Critics of RFK Jr. His testimony this week on Capitol Hill believe he does not know how Medicare and Medicaid work.
		Do you share that concern?
		And what do you point to from his testimony?
unidentified		Oh, absolutely.
		He confused Medicare with Medicaid.
		Of course, you know, Medicare is our nation's program for seniors, people basically over age 65 and older.
		Medicaid is one of the many programs that we have for people whose incomes are around 138% of the federal poverty level.
		And it doesn't have premiums.
		It doesn't have very many co-payments, if any.
		Sometimes you have to pay a co-payment for some medications, but it's like a dollar or two.
		He talked, you know, disparagingly about the outcomes, the clinical outcomes from the Medicaid program.
		It turns out that if you have Medicaid, you have to get pretty good coverage.
		You got extraordinary benefits.
		And all the studies that look at Medicaid show that it improves our health.
		And we have to have a natural experiment in our country where we have 10 states that have not expanded Medicaid.
		And when you compare the health care outcomes from those states that have expanded Medicare, I'm sorry, expanded, I'm doing it now myself, expanded Medicaid versus those states that have not expanded Medicaid, you get better outcomes in those states that have expanded Medicaid.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		What were your takeaways when you heard R.F. Kid Jr. testifying about vaccines and his past statements on vaccines?
unidentified		Yeah, he says he's not anti-vaccine and that he just wants vaccines to be safe.
		But his record is unchallenged.
		Well, his record is clear that he has spent his whole adult lifetime disparaging vaccines.
		He said that vaccines are not safe, they're not effective.
		He has filed motions to get vaccines pulled from the market.
		He even had the hubris to try to pull the COVID vaccine during the middle of the COVID outbreak when people were dying each and every day.
		So, you know, his statements about not being anti-vaccine are disingenuous.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		If not, Robert Kennedy, then, for this job, is there a high-profile Republican that you would like the president to nominate instead?
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Who could do the job?
unidentified		Now, you know, anybody I say they won't get the job, right?
		So let me target my friends, you know, Scott Gottley, Bobby Jendel, Bob Redfield, who's to run the CDC.
		You know, those are highly qualified Republicans who know health policy.
		You know, those are people that, you know, have good clinical skills or good health policy skills.
		You know, this is not against people on a partisan basis.
		We were very, very supportive of Alex Zazar, for example, when he was appointed as Secretary of Health and Human Services.
		This is about getting somebody that can protect the health of the American people.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		I'm referring to the first Trump administration, Alex Azar, who served then as Health and Human Services Secretary.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		When it comes to public health policy, what are you watching during these first few days of the Trump administration?
unidentified		You know, the challenge and the tragedy here is that it's been absolute chaos.
		You know, it took me a while to name acting directors, but I think some of the most damaging things is that they have stopped communication of people in the agency, even routine communications, sharing of information, sharing data.
		We hear they're scrubbing websites and taking things off of websites.
		You know, we're in the middle of a H5, a major H5N1, that's bird flu outbreak, and yet the proper data that needs to go out to the states for them to manage the outbreak is not happening really in a meaningful way.
		They stopped all funding the other day, as you know, it was a big boo-ha-ha about that.
		We were one of the organizations that did sue them and to get them to rescind that.
		That process is still going on.
		But while they partially pulled back that information, they've made it more confusing.
		And they actually sent out notices just the other day telling for all work to stop on any diversity, equity, and inclusion grants.
		So they just made the problem more confusing, and people really don't know what to do.
		And that is at not just the federal level, but that's at the state and local level.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		On H5N1, why is this an important issue for the public health and their safety?
unidentified		Well, you know, obviously bird flu can be a very lethal infection.
		So we're very worried that it will mutate to a form that will be spread person to person and, of course, you know, kill lots of people.
		We're very, very worried about that because we know that that's the trajectory of bird flu.
		We've seen that type of outbreak before.
		And of course, we just got over COVID, which was a very, very bad outbreak.
		But I think the other thing is just think about the number of farmers in middle America and in California who are losing their livestock, chickens, ducks, cows, particularly our milk cows, who are being impacted by this.
		And if anyone doesn't really understand why they're being impacted, look at the price of eggs and look at the availability of eggs.
		This administration needs to get their hands around this in an all-of-government response or it's going to get worse.
		People is a problem for sure.
		I worry about the people.
		That's the one I really worry about the most.
		But right now, the livelihood of so many Americans in middle America is being impacted and they are at sleep at the switch.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		In what way?
unidentified		You know, they haven't talked to any of us.
		You know, they need civil society to make this happen.
		They've frozen a lot of the funds that people need to make this happen.
		They haven't, they're, you know, sitting on the data that we need to make data-driven decisions.
		You know, they've not filled, as far as I know, the Pandemic Preparedness Office, which is the single point of contact to create an all-of-government response to these kinds of infectious outbreaks.
		Sleep at the switch.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		All right, let's get to calls.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Deborah, Westchester, Ohio, Republican.
unidentified		Yes, good morning.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Morning.
unidentified		I am concerned about our nutrition for our children.
		My parents had a daycare, and I ran the CACFP program, which I'm sure our guest is familiar with.
		But that program is mandated in daycares, but it's only offered K through 12.
		So somewhere, and then in the fall of 2008, we changed SNAP.
		We added sugary soft drinks, cakes, candy, all of that back.
		So now we're in a position where we know, we all know, anyone in the medical field, we all know that that was a terrible decision.
		And as a matter of fact, in the Department of Agriculture, when you go to my plate, you see that we have 20% protein, 20% fruits, 30% grains, 30% vegetables.
		So we are, we have to make a major change and we have to change SNAP back to what it was.
		But it's going to be so difficult because now that people can buy any foods, and I don't understand why we ever did that or why the public health officials didn't stand up and scream and prevent that from happening.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		All right, Deborah, let's get a response.
unidentified		Yeah, let me thank Deborah for her work and your advocacy.
		You're absolutely right.
		We did stand up and scream in many quarters.
		I can tell you that I remember when Michelle Obama was trying to improve the quality of school lunches in our schools, we got a lot of pushback by that.
		And of course, big food is a major political force.
		And I know that the president, President Trump, has said he wants to make Americans healthy again.
		And that's something that I think everyone in this country can get behind.
		But we need to use it in a science-driven way.
		And that means we've got to take on big food.
		And if we can do that and some, you know, tobacco and get people more physically active and, you know, get the salt out of our diets, we'll be a lot healthier.
		By the way, we've tried to get soda taxes and to try to reduce consumption of sugary beverages.
		And we have been stopped in most jurisdictions have tried to do that.
		But I applaud you for your efforts.
		And I look forward to hopefully working with groups like yours and people like you to make that happen.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		All right.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Paulie's next in St. Petersburg, Florida, Independent.
unidentified		Hi, Dr. Benjamin.
		How are you doing?
		Hi.
		Hi.
		My history is my education was in public health way back in the early 90s, mid-90s.
		And I went on to work in public health on the border of the United States and Mexico, Nogala specifically.
		And that was pre-9-11.
		And my experience has been that I worked hard.
		I was eager and enthusiastic as a, you know, a representative for public health at that time, but have been pretty disillusioned by how I've watched things unfold on a macro scale.
		It's specifically 9-11.
		After that, we developed a, what was a disaster?
		There was a massive program that was started down there to deal with like terrorism type thing and bioterrorism, that sort of thing.
		And my experience, and this was a good, you know, 30 years ago, was that it was, you know, pretty pathetic.
		And here we are 30 years later.
		And now we see, you know, plane disasters, et cetera, et cetera, and the media will hyper-focus on things of that nature.
		But I don't feel like there's anything legitimately actually occurring in the world.
		I'm pretty disillusioned.
		I think that these confirmation hearings are all performative.
		I think that these people are going to get passed through.
		It's just drama for the media to waste time and get views, et cetera, et cetera.
		And I just do not feel like there is any legitimate movement to genuinely protect the health of people, not just in this country, but in the world.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		All right, Polly, we'll get a response.
unidentified		Yeah, you know, I'm an emergency physician, and I was actually the Secretary of Health in Maryland on 9-11 and doing the anthrax letters.
		And we have this terrible tendency to, when something bad happens, to throw a lot of money at it for public health.
		And then the event goes away, and then the money goes away, and we never build any long-term capacity to address the things that we need to address.
		We also don't build long-term capacity.
		We make this false trade-off between managing the real leading causes of death that kill us every day, heart disease, lung disease, kidney disease, obesity, substance misuse.
		And we don't build that infrastructure and then we trade off.
		We play hot potato with the money and move the money around and still building long-term capacity so that we can identify any new threat that enters the community, respond to it in an effective way.
		Every new administration that comes in throws out the old people, brings in new people, and don't build on the successes of the old group.
		And the truth of the matter is, you can never be successful as a nation.
		We spend over $5 trillion as a nation on health, and we're at the bottom of the rankings of other industrialized nations.
		We actually know the solution to that.
		And so, my appeal, I think what you're saying is we need to, you know, finally decide seriously we're going to do that.
		That does mean some tough political decisions.
		In my mind, that means getting the right person at the Department of Health and Human Services who can sit by the president's side and give him the best advice that he can so he can make sound decisions in moving our nation forward.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		We'll go to Ohio.
		Dave is there.
		Good morning to you, Republican.
unidentified		Good morning, Doctor.
		The health system has been politicized since 1986 when they decided to hold the manufacturers harmless from lawsuit on manufacturing vaccines.
		And it's been terrible since then.
		It's almost like an oligarchy because now if you get injured by a vaccine, you can't sue in front of a jury of their peers.
		You have to go to a special master.
		And if he decides to give you some money, it comes out of taxpayer funds.
		So we needed somebody like Kenny to unravel that rigged system.
		And to give you an example, how dangerous the system is, I'd like to know if you're aware in 2014 when the women in Kenya were subjected to a tetanus virus, which was intentionally spiked with an infertility agent.
		Worldwide knows about this.
		And the Catholic Church of Kenya brought this to light.
		And the worst thing is not that they're done, which is terrible to the people in Kenya, but the system.
		In other words, you can put anything natural in with a virus, in with a vaccine, and make your body reject something natural.
		So now you can develop peanut allergies, you can develop anything.
		So I'd like to know your response to that.
		Yeah, thank you.
		I don't know the particular issue you're talking about.
		And I'm always very cautious to do a lot of research before I respond to accusations around that kind of thing.
		But in terms of exactly a particular situation with a particular vaccine or experience, let me do say that our nation decided that one of the best ways from a policy perspective to move our nation forward was to have a vaccine compensation program, which is what we do have.
		We've got a very robust system to both do studies to make sure vaccines are safe and effective.
		Once they're on the market, to do post-market surveillance, it means we follow up on that.
		We have a very low bar for reporting things that people might be concerned about.
		Those get studied.
		And once we do that, then we make informed decisions.
		And sometimes we have taken therapeutics, not just vaccines, but other drugs off the market when we looked at it and thought that the risk of someone taking a vaccine or other therapeutic wasn't worth it.
		So I think we've got a good system.
		My issue with Mr. Kennedy is he's not the right guy to do this.
		There are a lot of people who've talked about trying to enhance a vaccine safety system in this country.
		Some folks at Johns Hopkins got a series of ideas on how to do it, but he's not the guy to do it.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Dr. Georges Benjamin is our guest here this morning, Executive Director of the American Public Health Association.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Anthony, you are next for our guest in Miller Place, New York, Democratic Color.
unidentified		Dr. Benjamin, can you please explain why Marion Gruber and Philip Krause, senior officials at the Food and Drug Administration, resigned their positions, their tenured positions, due to the implementation and the government overreach by the Biden administration to mandate vaccines for children?
		And can you also explain why it is that the Congress and the Senate, as well as their entire staff, are exempted from said vaccines that you seem to want to shove down the throats of the American taxpayers?
		My body, my choice, I refuse to consume vaccinations.
		I do not want my health care delivered me by way of a hypodermic needle, sir.
		So can you please explain why those senior officials resigned their positions in protest to the Biden administration's government overreach with regard to vaccination children?
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		All right, Anthony.
unidentified		Yeah, you know, one of the benefits of being an American is you get to walk, you know, walk with your feet when you disagree with policy.
		And so, you know, anyone who wants to do that is certainly welcome to do that.
		I was in the camp with people that felt that we should encourage people very strongly to get vaccinations.
		And because of the early signs of the morbidity and mortality from the COVID vaccine, I was in the camp and my organization encouraged people very strongly.
		And we eventually got into the mandate camp because we were very much concerned about the fact that we would have a real problem.
		As you know, we lost over a million people from COVID, and many of them were people disproportionately from our minority communities.
		It does impact kids.
		Kids, fortunately, were not as impacted as older adults, but it does absolutely impact kids.
		And so we did recommend that children be vaccinated as well.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		We'll go to Michael, Salisbury, Massachusetts, Republican.
unidentified		Hey, good morning.
		Hey, how are you doing?
		Not too bad, not too bad.
		I'm just curious why everyone's against Kennedy, because all he wants to do is make the United States healthy again and the world.
		Everyone's against it because he wants to expose the mandates of the job.
		I don't date men.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		All right, Dr. Benjamin?
unidentified		Yeah, you look, you know, I'm opposed to him, I think, for very concrete reasons.
		As I said, not properly trained, doesn't have the management experience, has expressed lots of disinformation.
		And I'm in the camp that believes that he was responsible for the outbreak in Samoa, at least partially responsible for that, where there were many, many deaths, including deaths among children.
		I think that there are many people who can lead our nation to improve our health.
		You know, having had a job like this at the state level, I know the job and I know what qualities it takes to do that job, and I don't think he's the guy.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Any areas where you agree with Mr. Kennedy?
unidentified		I agree that we need to pay a lot more attention to chronic diseases, but not at the expense of insectic diseases because they're interlinked.
		I also, of course, disagree with him, obviously, on his stand on vaccines.
		I disagree with his demonizing federal workers who get up every day and go to work.
		I disagree with his assertions around fluoride when used in the proper doses.
		I absolutely disagree with his recommendation to drink raw milk in the middle of a bird flu outbreak.
		I believe pasteurized products are the safest.
		And that's my professional advice, you know, to people.
		And, you know, you have a right to do what you do.
		I get that.
		And I'm not going to tell you not to drink raw milk.
		Well, I'm going to tell you not to drink raw milk, but I'm not going to stand in the way and stop you because, A, I don't have one of those jobs that I could do that anyway.
		But I'm going to give you as much information as I can.
		Hopefully, you'll make a good decision based on the information that I give you that is factual.
		And then if you don't, you know, that's up to you.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Helen, Shirley, New York, Independent.
unidentified		Hello.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Hi, Helen.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		We're listening to you.
unidentified		Okay, I want to ask you, son, you guys are talking about all these, you know, like diseases and stuff, like the vaccines and stuff.
		I want to ask you something.
		Wouldn't it also be with the weather, you know, the weather that changes and stuff, you know, like the climate change, the air that we breathe, and the oil that is spilled?
		Doesn't it got a lot to do with health also, but he still wants to drill, drill, drill, baby?
		Dr. Benjamin, what about Clara Daniel?
		Yeah, climate change is real is impacting our health today.
		Wildfires, intensified hurricanes, floods, you know, severe weather.
		This is all because we are burning fossil fuels, increasing carbon in our environment.
		And we understand the science.
		It's unequivocal right now that this is true.
		And it does impact our health.
		And so, you know, we still have people living under blue tarts in the southern part of our country because their property was destroyed from the several hurricanes we had last year.
		And by the way, hurricane season will come again this year.
		I don't know what it will look like, but it will come back this year because it comes every year.
		And the wildfires that we saw were the result of this severe drought that they've had on the west coast of our country.
		And then, of course, the wildfires, as you know, just devastated and there was a real tragedy.
		And we're going to have to do something about that.
		But the air that came from that caused numerous respiratory problems in California.
		The health department was intimately involved in trying to protect people.
		By the way, people were wearing masks.
		You know, we had this fight about wearing masks.
		Weren't no arguments about wearing masks out west.
		And even the wildfires in Canada we had, remember those wildfires we had in Canada last year, what brought bad air to the northeast part of our country?
		That's all due to climate change.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Dr. Benjamin, thank you very much for your time this morning.
		If our viewers want to learn more, they can go to apha.org.
		Thank you for the conversation.
unidentified		Thank you, Greta.
		I appreciate being here.
		Live Tuesday on C-SPAN at 10 a.m. Eastern, the Senate Finance Committee will vote on the nomination of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to be Secretary of Health and Human Services.
		Then at noon, the U.S. House will work on several bills, including a measure on the operation, security, and maintenance of the 9-11 Memorial and Museum, and another bill that would require the Agriculture and Interior Departments to evaluate the use of new aerial wildlands firefighting technology.
		On C-SPAN 2 at 9 a.m. Eastern, Politico hosts a discussion on tariffs and U.S. trade policy.
		Then at 11, Senate lawmakers will hold confirmation votes for Doug Collins to be Secretary of Veterans Affairs and Pam Bondi to be Attorney General.
		And on C-SPAN 3, live at 1030 Eastern, the Senate Judiciary Committee will hold a hearing on a proposal to permanently classify fentanyl as a Schedule I drug.

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