Terri Sewell

An Alabama congresswoman on Thursday slammed Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. over comments from two years ago suggesting Black children taking ADHD medication be “reparented.”

Kennedy denied to Rep. Terri Sewell, D-Birmingham, that he made the remarks during a 2024 podcast interview.

“In a 2024 podcast interview, you suggested that Black children on ADHD medication should be ‘reparented.’ You said every Black kid is now just standardly put on Adderall, SSRIs, benzos, which are known to induce violence, and that those children are going to have to go somewhere to get ‘reparented,’” Sewell told Kennedy during the secretary’s testimony Thursday before the House Ways and Means Committee.

“There is a lot to unpack in that comment,” Sewell continued.

The congresswoman also expressed outrage at the comment given that Kennedy has no medical experience.

“Mr. Secretary, you’ve already admitted you’re not a board-certified physician and you already admitted you did not go to medical school. Have you ever ‘reparented,’ or parented, I should say, a Black child?

“I don’t even know what that phrase means,” Kennedy responded. “I’m not gonna answer something that I didn’t say.”

After Sewell replied that Kennedy “absolutely said it,” the secretary responded, ‘I’d like to hear the recording. It doesn’t make any sense. I don’t even know what it means."

“I don’t either,” Sewell said. “That’s why I’m asking.”

“So, to be clear, you’re not a doctor, you have no medical degree and you have no formal medical training. And you have never parented a Black child,” Sewell said.

“And yet you are suggesting that the federal government should take Black children away from their families and reparent them? And send them off to some wellness farm instead of providing them with evidence-based medical care,” she continued.

Kennedy accused Sewell of “making stuff up.” The congresswoman denied that claim, and her office later provided footage of Kennedy’s appearance on the “High Level Conversations” podcast where he spoke about his plans to open “wellness farms” in rural areas of the country where all Americans addicted to drugs can be treated.

“Either legal drugs or illegal drugs, psychiatric drugs, which every Black kid is now just standard put on Adderall, SSRIs, benzos, which are known to induce violence. And those kids are gonna have a chance to go somewhere and be ‘reparented,’” Kennedy tells podcast host 19 Keys at the 1-hour, 25-minute mark of the footage.

At the hearing, Sewell asked, “Mr. Secretary, in your opinion, what factors should the federal government consider when reparenting a Black child who has been on ADHD or ADD” medications."

“I don’t know what you are talking about, congressman,” Kennedy replied.

Sewell noted the history of Black children being taken away from their families in America, spanning slavery through the welfare system.

“Mr. Secretary, for Black families in the United States, the issue of family separation is not new,” Sewell said. “Our nation has a long and painful history of separating Black children from their families.”