US Health and Human Services Director Robert F. Kennedy Jr. told the Senate subcommittee Tuesday that he has a “Milwaukee team” to help the federal government deal with the school’s leading crisis. The city says it is not true and does not receive the assistance requested by the US Center for Childhood Lead Poisoning Specialists in Disease Control and Prevention to address ongoing pollution.
At a hearing of the Senate Budget Subcommittee to consider the President’s HHS budget request in 2026, Kennedy submitted questions that have already been cut by the federal health agency about the program and staff.
CNN reported in April that the CDC had rejected requests for assistance with lead exposure in aging buildings at Milwaukee Public Schools after the agency’s lead experts were cleaned up in extensive cuts in U.S. healthcare facilities. Kennedy and HHS say the government is planning to continue its work in preventing and surveillance of lead poisoning in the new American administration, not the CDC.
CDC experts have not been rehired.
“Nothing has been re-employed from our lead program or department,” Dr. Eric Svenden, director of the Department of Environmental Health Sciences and Practice, told CNN on Tuesday.
“We continue to fund the program, and we have a team in Milwaukee who is involved in the analysis of Milwaukee and our analysis of Milwaukee, and we’re involved in the analysis of Milwaukee and Milweekee,” Kennedy responded to a question from Sen. Jack Reed of D-Rhode Island’s Childhood Lead Poisoning Prevention Program.
Caroline Reinwald, a spokesman for the Milwaukee City Health Department, said Kennedy’s statement was “inaccurate.”
“The Milwaukee City Health Department has not received federal epidemiological or analytical support related to the MPS lead hazard crisis. Our formal EPI assistance request has been denied by the CDC,” she wrote in an email from CNN.
Reinwald said the department was recently supported by a lab technician at CDC’s Laboratory Leadership Services who was there from May 5 to May 16th.
“This support was requested independently of the MPS crisis and was part of another existing need to expand the lab’s long-term capabilities for lead testing,” Reinwald said. Beyond school pollution, the city has an ongoing program to test and repair leads in aged homes.
Earlier this month, CNN’s Chief Medical Correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta asked city health committee member Dr. Michael Traitis if the agency has enough resources to accomplish what it needs to be.
“We have enough teams now,” Totoraitis said. “I think the long-term research into potential chronic exposures of students in the district is part of what we were really looking for in the CDC to help us. Unfortunately, HHS fired the entire team due to blood exposure as a child.
“These are the best and brightest minds in these areas around lead poisoning, and are no longer here.”
Andrew Nixon, communications director for HHS, says the CDC is supporting the Milwaukee Health Organization lab.
In response to the health department’s request, he said in a statement Tuesday: “The CDC is helping to validate new lab instrumentation used for environmental lead testing. (Milwaukee Lab) staff will focus on lead responses and other regular testing, while the CDC will support test verification, laboratory quality control, and regulatory requirements documentation installed in new laboratory equipment.”
The city says that the CDC Lab technicians have left and are not expected to return. At this time, no further support from the CDC is expected.
“MHD is proud of the team currently serving Milwaukee families, managing the usual caseloads while also dealing with major crisis at MPS schools. We welcomed federal support, but without that we will continue to move forward,” Reinwald said in a statement.
At the end of Tuesday’s hearing, Wisconsin Sen. Tammy Baldwin, a Democrat, issued a statement to “correct the record.”
“There are no staff members on the ground deployed in Milwaukee to deal with the lead exposure of children at school. There are no staff left in the CDC office because they were all fired,” Baldwin said. I told Kennedy. “I look forward to working with you to reestablish it. It sounds like you have a commitment to it, but you need staff to make it work.”