RJK Jr. Criticized For Claiming Black Kids With ADHD Should Be ‘Reparented’

RFK Jr. was challenged by U.S. Rep. Terri Sewell, D-Ala., during a hearing with the U.S. House Committee on Ways and Means on Thursday (April 16), specifically about his past suggestion that Black children taking psychiatric drugs should be “reparented,” according to TheGrio.

“In a 2024 podcast interview, you suggested that Black children on ADHD medication should be reparented,” Sewell said when questioning RFK Jr. “You said, ‘Every Black kid is now just standardly put on Adderall, SSRI, benzos, which are known to induce violence,’ and that those children are going to have to go somewhere to get reparented.”

Upon her asking if RJK Jr. had ever reparented or parented a Black child in the past, the health secretary claimed he did not know what the phrase meant and denied having ever made such a claim in the first place.

“I’m not going to answer something that I didn’t say,” he said.

However, the secretary did indeed make such a claim during a podcast interview with Earn Your Leisure while running for president in 2024, days before suspending his campaign and endorsing then-Republican candidate Donald Trump.

During the podcast, RJK Jr. alluded to the idea of using federal dollars to establish wellness farms and rehabilitation facilities for Americans “dependent on drugs.”

“During slavery, Black children were taken from their parents and sold with no regard for their humanity. And after slavery, Black families continued to face forced separations through Jim Crow laws, discriminatory policing, and child welfare systems that too often assume that Black parents were unfit,” Sewell said in response to the health secretary’s denial of the claim. “For you to suggest that Black families are not capable of raising their own children is deeply offensive, sir. You are the Secretary of Health and Human Services for the world’s most powerful country, and your words matter.”

This is not the first time RFK Jr. has faced criticism for controversial statements and actions made during his time in office. He, along with President Donald Trump, suggested back in September 2025 that Tylenol causes autism in children without scientific evidence.

Former President Barack Obama later rebuked both RJK Jr. and Trump for these claims, calling them “violence against the truth” that undermined and endangered public health.

The health secretary also ordered the nation’s top vaccine panel to limit the number of vaccines recommended for children earlier this year, which was later blocked by a federal judge.

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