White House Official Booed at Conference for Defending HHS Cuts

Calley Means, a White House adviser working on implementing Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s chronic disease agenda, was booed, shouted down and laughed at during a health conference while defending mass layoffs at the agency.

Means forcefully pushed back at the unusually vocal crowd at the Politico Health Care Summit in Washington, DC, Wednesday. The event occurred one day after the HHS began implementing a directive from RFK Jr. to dismiss 10,000 workers, including senior leaders who oversaw drug reviews, tobacco products and scientific research.

“You can paint breathless stories with anecdotes all ...