mrs. burwell has a hard stop at 11:30 because she's got an international flight to catch. with that, i don't know which one of you wants to go first. >> i'd be happy to, thank you, good morning. thank you, mr. chairman and ranking member peterman and the rest of the committee to discuss the dietary guidelines. i want to thank you for the interest in the guidelines and your work to support americans and a healthy agriculture sector. one of the most important responsibilities that our government is entrusted with is protecting the american public and that includes empowering them with the tools they need to make educated health decisions. families across america have looked to us for science-based dietary guidelines to serve as a framework for a nutritious eating and healthy lives. our guidelines also help lay a foundation for preventing diet related health conditions such as obesity and heart disease. as is required by the national nutrition monitoring and related research act the departments update these regulations and guidelines every five years. the key elements that ma

mr. chairman. secretary vilsack and burwell, this is a very important issue. i'm looking at this from a macro perspective. medicare and medicaid is such a huge component of that debt. the mast majority is spending is huge component of mandatory spending, and so you consider the obesity issue that we are facing and you mentioned obesity and heart disease as two major components that drive the cost of medicare and medicaid. all that gets back to what we consume, i think back to my time when i was in k-12 versus the schools that i go in today, when i look at the student population, i do not recall at least when i was growing up the number of overweight kids that you have in school. i visit all kinds of schools, a third of them are clearly overweight? some i knew their parents, grandparents and obesity was, you know, not an issue in the family until this generation. .. it was mentioned earlier about caloric diet, trying to maintain a certain number of calories. not all calories are the same. i would suggest just on a commonsense perspective 2000 calories of beef v

burwell, for being with us today. i look forward to our conversation. comments from ranking member. >> thank you, mr. chairman, i welcome both secretary burwell and secretary vilsack to the committee and look forward to your testimony. given that usda and hhs are still reviewing comments, we're probably getting ahead of ourselves here, but i do hope that today's testimony can shed more light on the process to establish new guidelines and what they will actually mean for our constituents. there's been a strong reaction to the dietary guidelines advisory committee report. i've heard concerns about future sodium targets, difficulties of small schools meeting the guidelines and what this could mean for cranberries and sugar. but these are mostly coming from those who are directly impacted, industry, schools, medical community. we're not really hearing from the public. and i don't think the general public is paying much attention. for those who are, i think they are very skeptical of the whole process. for example, we were once told that butter and eggs were bad for you. now i guess they're okay, according

burwell, let me follow up on what mr. thompson was saying on that as well.we have been hearing eggs are bad. it turns out eggs are okay later. then you hear beef, red meat. and high protein diets help you lose weight. somebody was talking just over the weekend, a constituent lost weight but they're staying away from fruit. because fruit has carbs and sugars in it. how are people supposed to know when the guidelines are changing all the time. i guess following up on the five-year thought. is it good to have a hard and fast five-year timeline on changing the dietary guidelines, or should it be less frequent, more frequent, or change what you know to change and have -- leave the rest alone? what do you think of that? >> i think making a choice on five years probably made a good choice. and the reason for that is, while we heard from some of your colleagues about extending the period, you know, let's think this took 18 months for the advisory committee to do its work, then you have an additional 75 days with a period of comment for us to receive comments on that

burwell, let me follow up on what mr. thompson was saying on that as well. we have been hearing eggs are bad. so my grandparents had a lot of powdered eggs. it turns out eggs are okay later. then you hear beef, red meat. and high protein diets help you to lose weight. i was talking to a constituent but they are staying away from fruit. it has carbs, sugar in it. how are people supposed to know when the guidelines are changing all the time. i guess following up on your five-year thought. is it good to have a hard and fast five-year timeline on changing the dietary guidelines, less frequent, more frequent, or change what you know to change and have -- leave the rest alone? what do you think of that? >> i think making a choice on five years probably made a good choice. and the reason for that is while we heard from some of your colleagues about extending the period, you know, let's think this took 18 months for the advisory committee to do its work. then you have an additional 75 days with a period of comment for us to receive comments on that. and then you hav

burwell, for being with us today. i look forward to our conversation. comments from ranking member. >> thank you, mr. chairman, i welcome both secretary burwell and secretary vilsack to the committee and look forward to your testimony. given that usda and hhs are still reviewing comments, we're probably getting ahead of ourselves here, but i do hope that today's testimony can shed more light on the process to establish new guidelines and what they will actually mean for our constituents. there's been a strong reaction to the dietary guidelines advisory committee report. i've heard concerns about future sodium targets, difficulties of small schools meeting the guidelines and what this could mean for cranberries and sugar. but these are mostly coming from those who are directly impacted, industry, schools, medical community. we're not really hearing from the public. and i don't think the general public is paying much attention. for those who are, i think they are very skeptical of the whole process. for example, we were once told that butter and eggs were bad for you. now i guess they're okay, according

mr. president, secretary burwell and secretary botticelli and the rest of the panel to address the chronicssue of opioid addiction. the charleston gazette now has done numerous stories over lots of years about this issue facing west virginia, and we were able to solicit hundreds of questions from our readers over the last five days for the president and the panel. and with us here is david and kate grubb with their question for the president. >> first of all, mom -- cary -- there isn't a parent here who had a dry eye when you spoke. from your heart, you expressed exactly what we feel. and danny knows this, too.mr. president, i want to say that it is -- and i'm going to take this opportunity -- it is wonderful to have an intelligent, caring, thoughtful person in your position. [applause] president obama: thank you. >> thank you so much for coming. this issue -- my wife and i, we have five daughters. mr. president, you might relate a little bit to that. president obama: i can relate to that. (laughter.) i don't know how you did five. [laughter] two keeps me busy. >> and we live here in the e

mr. president and welcome home, secretary burwell. i've been on the job only 79 days here in charleston. i came back home after being 29 years away and i knew what i was coming into when i came home. i knew there was a heroin abuse epidemic in this state. i knew we had the highest rates of hepatitis b and second highest of c, mostly due to needle sharing among addicts. i also knew that mountaineers would take this kind of challenge head on. that's the kind of people there are in this state of west virginia. and so, i wanted to be part of this solution here in the state. with the help of so many community partners and my good friend and colleague at cavel huntington health department, dr. mike, wefr been able to get some programs off the ground working together and i think we're move ng the right direction. in about six week, we're going to begin our own harm reduction program here in charleston. we're going to have -- part of that will be testing for hepatitis b and c, hiv. we don't want to become another scott county, indiana, where

mr. president, secretary burwell and secretary botticelli and the rest of the panel to address the chronicissue of opioid addiction. the charleston gazette now has done numerous stories over lots of years about this issue facing west virginia, and we were able to solicit hundreds of questions from our readers over the last five days for the president and the panel. and with us here is david and kate grubb with their question for the president. >> first of all, mom, cari, there isn't a parent here who had a dry eye when you spoke. from your heart, you expressed exactly what we feel. and danny know this is too. mr. president, i want to say that it is -- and i'm going to take this opportunity -- it is wonderful to have an intelligent, caring, thoughtful person in your position. [applause] he president: thank you. >> thank you so much for coming. this issue, my wife and i, we have five daughters. mr. president, you might relate a little bit to thatthe president: i can relate to that. [laughter] i don't know how you did five, two keeps me busy. >> and we live here in the east end. my second old

burwell, let me follow up on what mr. thompson was saying on that as well. we have been hearing eggs are bad. it turns out eggs are okay later. then you hear beef, red meat. and high protein diets help you lose weight. somebody was talking just over the weekend, a constituent lost weight but they're staying away from fruit. because fruit has carbs and sugars in it. how are people supposed to know when the guidelines are changing all the time. i guess following up on the five-year thought. is it good to have a hard and fast five-year timeline on changing the dietary guidelines, or should it be less frequent, more frequent, or change what you know to change and have -- leave the rest alone? what do you think of that? >> i think making a choice on five years probably made a good choice. and the reason for that is, while we heard from some of your colleagues about extending the period, you know, let's think this took 18 months for the advisory committee to do its work, then you have an additional 75 days with a period of comment for us to receive comments on tha

burwell has a hard stop at 11:30. i ask for consent to go to four minutes so we give everyone a chance who gets here. mr. crawford for four minutes. >> thank you, mr. chairman. kind of keeping on that subject, a lot of attention has been paid to the dietary guidelines and the fact that they are guidelines. they're not rules. aim correct in that? >> yes, they are guidelines. that are used as a basis for policy decisions. >> they are used pretty hard and fast on rule making then, correct? >> it depends on which programs. so, for instance, school lunch programs in our area, the administration for community living in terms of meals on wheels and those programs, they're used and they are applied in different settings in different ways. >> we have heard a lot of talk about the school lunch program and it seems that -- i know my colleague mentioned he had gotten a text just in the last few minutes. i've gotten phone call after phone call after phone call once the new school lunch program was implemented fully in 2012. there's been very little attention paid to how we roll this out and apply it rigidly to snap p