Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a prominent lawyer and vocal vaccine critic, has been confirmed as the United States’ new health secretary Thursday morning, following a 52-48 vote by the U.S. Senate.
The Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS) role controls US$1.7 trillion in spending for vaccines, food safety and health insurance programs like Medicare and Medicaid for roughly half the country’s population, not to mention medical research, public health outreach, hospital oversight and funding for community health care clinics.
Despite several Republicans expressing deep skepticism about his views on vaccines, Kennedy cruised to a confirmation win. Republican senators have largely embraced Kennedy’s vision, reciting his newly hatched slogan to “Make America Healthy Again” (MAHA) in speeches.
Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the former majority leader and a polio survivor, was the sole Republican to vote against the confirmation. All Democrats opposed Kennedy.
McConnell explained his vote in a blistering statement posted on his official website.
“Individuals, parents, and families have a right to push for a healthier nation and demand the best possible scientific guidance on preventing and treating illness,” it read in part. “But a record of trafficking in dangerous conspiracy theories and eroding trust in public health institutions does not entitle Mr. Kennedy to lead these important efforts.”
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The senator said he could not “condone the re-litigation of proven cures.”
Kennedy, 71, whose famous name and family tragedies have put him in the national spotlight since he was a child, has earned a formidable following with his populist — and sometimes extreme — views on food, chemicals and vaccines.
The COVID-19 pandemic offered Kennedy a chance to grow his audience, when he devoted much of his time to a nonprofit that sued vaccine makers and harnessed social media campaigns to erode trust in vaccines as well as the government agencies that promote them.
During his confirmation hearings, Kennedy said he’d prioritize combatting chronic diseases, something he attributed to the result of additives in American food and environmental pollution. He said health agencies have spent too much time and money on infectious diseases, allowing chronic disease to grow.
With the backing of Republican President Donald Trump, Kennedy believes he is “uniquely positioned” to revive trust in those public health agencies, which include the Food and Drug Administration, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the National Institutes for Health.
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Democrats have remained skeptical, unsuccessfully prodding Kennedy during hearings to deny a long discredited theory that vaccines cause autism. And some have raised alarms about Kennedy financially benefiting from changing vaccine guidelines or weakening federal lawsuit protections against vaccine makers.
Kennedy made more than $850,000 last year from an arrangement referring clients to a law firm that has sued the makers of Gardasil, a human papillomavirus vaccine that protects against cervical cancer.
“I am not anti-vaccine,” Kennedy told a Senate committee last week. He also said, “I support the measles vaccine. I support the polio vaccine. I will do nothing as HHS secretary that makes it difficult or discourages people from taking either of those vaccines.”
But before he was nominated, Kennedy sought to discredit vaccines. He has said “COVID shots are a crime against humanity,” and he told Fox News he still believes in the debunked idea that vaccines can cause autism and urged people in 2021 to “resist” CDC guidelines on when kids should get vaccines.
Once Kennedy is sworn in later on Thursday, Trump will sign an executive order to establish a MAHA commission, and will direct the new HHS secretary “to investigate this chronic crisis plaguing our country,” White House spokesperson Karoline Leavitt said on Fox News on Thursday.
— With files from The Associated Press
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