While Democrats in the House and Senate forced Health and Human Services Sec. Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., to answer for layoffs in his department as he defended his budget Wednesday, U.S. Senator from Indiana Jim Banks, had Kennedy clarify some policy issues for which he has been criticized.

One subject they covered in Banks’ five minutes of questioning was autism and disease research.

Banks noted that Kennedy has recently announced an autism research database.

“You were immediately attacked for privacy violations and attacked for ulterior motives,” said Banks. “Can you tell us how will this database handle protected health information?”

Kennedy said it is entirely voluntary.

“Patient privacy is protected. The data is digitized and depersonalized,” said Kennedy.

Kennedy has been criticized heavily for his statements about vaccines and autism and his beliefs that autism may be caused by environment, rather than solely genetics.

“You’ve also been accused of assuming an environmental cause for autism and rejecting a genetic cause,” said Banks. “Can we say that your critics are misrepresenting what you believe?”

Kennedy replied with a metaphor of cigarettes, saying that one in five smokers contract lung cancer and die from it. But, four in five people live. So, there is a genetic predisposition to lung cancer and smoking is an environmental toxin.

“Autism is an epidemic and genes do not cause epidemics.. They can contribute a vulnerability. But, you need an environmental toxin,” he said.

During the questioning Kennedy praised Eli Lilly for building nine facilities on U.S. soil, which Kennedy said he believes will go a long way toward defeating China with pharmaceutical research.