U.S. Senate confirms Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as Health and Human Services Secretary
The Senate confirmed Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as the Health and Human Services secretary on Thursday, giving the longtime vaccine skeptic who has vowed to take on “big pharma” and ultra-processed food the power to oversee the nation’s food and health care systems.
Kennedy, 71, a longtime environmental lawyer, was confirmed by a vote of 52-48. Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., who survived polio before Jonas Salk’s breakthrough vaccine in the 1950s, voted against Kennedy after raising concerns about his position on vaccination. The former Republican majority leader has angered some of Trump’s supporters for votes and views that conflict with the president’s.
At his confirmation hearing, Kennedy, who has no academic background in medicine or health care, said his “journey into the issue of health” began with his career as an attorney working with hunters, fishermen and communities along the Hudson River in New York.
“I learned that human health and environmental health are intertwined and inseparable,” he said. “The same chemicals that kill fish also sicken human beings.”
Kennedy’s popularity among many, particularly mothers worried about additives and food dyes in the meals they consume, has largely been attributed to him calling out food companies. His platform is called “Make America Healthy Again.” The mothers call themselves MAHA Moms.
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He has said he will “reorient federal health agencies toward chronic disease and rid them of Big Pharma’s influence,” and ban hundreds of food additives and chemicals that are already banned in other countries.
President Donald Trump, for his part, has said he’ll let Kennedy “go wild” on food, health and medicine.
As the head of HHS, Kennedy will oversee the Food and Drug Administration, the National Institutes of Health and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Ever since Trump announced Kennedy as his pick to head HHS, medical professionals and public officials had been sounding the alarm on Kennedy’s earlier statements undermining confidence in vaccines, including falsely linking them to autism. Decades of studies show vaccines do not cause autism.
Among his most controversial statements that have been discredited: Antidepressants are related to school shootings, Wi-Fi causes cancer, fluoride in public water systems causes bone cancer and IQ loss, and COVID-19 was “ethnically targeted” to attack “Caucasians and Black people” while sparing “Ashkenazi Jews and Chinese” people.
But the one that got the most airtime from senators was his views on vaccines.
Throughout the two hearings, Kennedy insisted he was not “anti-vaccine” but “pro-safety.”
“I’m pro-good science,” he said. “I worked for 40 years to raise awareness about mercury and other toxics and fish. And nobody called me anti-fish.”
Republican Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La., chair of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, which questioned him on the second day of hearings, had said he was “struggling” with his decision on whether to support Kennedy.
A former physician, Cassidy said he wanted Kennedy to “come out unequivocally” and say vaccines are safe and they do not cause autism.
But ultimately, Cassidy, who is up for reelection in 2026, ended up supporting Kennedy, citing “serious commitments” he had received from both the candidate and the White House in the intervening days.
In a statement explaining his vote Thursday, McConnell noted he survived childhood polio and has watched vaccines “save millions of lives” in his lifetime.
Kennedy has “a record of trafficking in dangerous conspiracy theories and eroding trust in public health institutions,” the senator said.
“I will not condone the re-litigation of proven cures, and neither will millions of Americans who credit their survival and quality of life to scientific miracles,” McConnell said. The administration “deserves a leader who is willing to acknowledge without qualification the efficacy of life-saving vaccines and who can demonstrate an understanding of basic elements of the U.S. healthcare system. Mr. Kennedy failed to prove he is the best possible person to lead America’s largest health agency.”
Kennedy comes from one of the most well-known political dynasties in the U.S. and has suffered tragic losses in the public sphere.
Kennedy is the son of Robert F. Kennedy, who represented New York in the U.S. Senate and served as the U.S. attorney general. He was assassinated in 1968 while running for president. His uncle, President John F. Kennedy, was assassinated in 1963.
- USA TODAY
