Health Care

Newsom demands answers from RFK Jr. over past comments about Black children on ADHD meds being ‘re-parented’

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by Ryan Mancini - 04/17/26 10:08 PM ET

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by Ryan Mancini - 04/17/26 10:08 PM ET

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California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) on Friday said he demands answers from Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. regarding comments the secretary made in an interview in 2024 about Black children on certain Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) medications being “re-parented.”

“We’ve known RFK Jr. has been unfit to serve as Secretary, but these resurfaced remarks reflect a racist mentality that is absolutely unacceptable for a leader charged with protecting the health of 341 million Americans,” Newsom said in a statement.

“We cannot go numb to the insanity of this federal administration,” he added. “The Secretary must be held accountable for his deeply disturbing comments.”

Kennedy’s remarks came during a 2024 interview with wellness and productivity influencer 19Keys on the online show “High Level Conversations,” where the two talked about Black men and mental health.

Kennedy, less than two months before he dropped out of the 2024 presidential race, said “every Black kid is now, just as a standard, put on adderall, [selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors], benzos, which are known to induce violence.”

“And those kids are going to have a chance to go somewhere and get re-parented, to live in a community where there’ll be no cell phones, no screens, you’ll actually have to talk to people,” he said.

Kennedy added that the “basis” for this community came from an experience a family member had living in San Patrignano, an addiction treatment program in Italy.

“The people come out of there and they are extraordinarily productive workers,” he later said. “So they get a second chance at life. They get re-parented, they understand how to have relationships, how to have intimacy, how to be honest and all these work skills to take care of themselves, to steward themselves and their own lives.”

In Newsom’s statement condemning Kennedy’s comments, he compared them with remarks made by Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) Administrator Dr. Mehmet Oz about the Armenian community in northern Los Angeles County. Oz claimed that the lettering outside Armenian hospice centers suggested they were run by a “Russian Armenian mafia.” The governor filed a civil rights complaint against Oz in January.

Kennedy’s 2024 remarks resurfaced Thursday when he testified before the House Ways and Means Committee. Rep. Terri Sewell (D-Ala.) questioned Kennedy about the comments from the interview and asked him to explain himself.

“I don’t even know what that phrase means and I doubt that I said that phrase,” he told Sewell. “I’m not going to answer something that I didn’t say … because it doesn’t even make sense.”

Kennedy accused her of “making stuff up,” which she denied. Sewell reminded Kennedy of the history of separating Black children from their families, including during the pre-Civil War era, and the harm that racist federal and state laws caused Black families.

“For you to suggest that Black families are not capable of raising their own children is deeply offensive,” Sewell said, shortly later adding, “When you suggest re-parenting Black children, when you sow doubt about the safety of vaccines, and when you promote unproven statements that have no basis in science, you endanger the lives of everyone across this nation.”

The Hill has reached out to HHS for comment.

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