RFK Jr. defends slashing almost a quarter of all staff at the health department: ‘When we consolidate them, Democrats say they’re eliminating them’

WASHINGTON (AP) — Republicans and Democrats alike on Wednesday questioned the deep staffing cuts, research funding freezes and drastic policy changes that U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has made in a few short months at the helm of the nation’s health department.

Kennedy, who was to sit before the Senate’s health committee later in the day, appeared at a House appropriations hearing to defend the White House’s requested budget for his agency. The request...