Secretary Kennedy Announces a Sickle Cell Gene Therapy Initiative in Charleston, May 7, 2025
May 7, 2025 · U.S. Department of Health and Human Services · 0:02:09
Embedded from the source channel — never re-uploaded. Watch on YouTube
What happened
HHS published Secretary Kennedy’s account of his Charleston, South Carolina, appearance with Senator Tim Scott and Jennelle Stephenson on May 7, 2025. In the statement carried in HHS’s description, Kennedy says: ‘In Charleston, I joined Senator Tim Scott and Jennelle Stephenson to announce a historic step forward in the fight against sickle cell disease. Thanks to a first-of-its-kind partnership between HHS, drugmakers, insurers, providers, and patient advocates, we’re making life-changing gene therapy available to Americans on Medicaid — at low cost, and with the potential to cure. Already, 35 states have opted into this initiative. Our goal: all 50 by the end of the year.’
Why it matters
The initiative is a concrete access commitment inside Kennedy’s HHS portfolio — Medicaid coverage of a potentially curative gene therapy, with a dated state opt-in target stated on the record.
Scoreboard watch
The figures stated here — 35 states opted in and a goal of all 50 by the end of the year — are recorded as stated, for the scoreboard’s Health record.
Sources: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, ‘Secretary Kennedy Announces a Sickle Cell Gene Therapy Initiative in Charleston’ (HHS upload, embedded above).
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