Senate votes to substantiate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as health secretary

The GOP-controlled Senate voted Thursday to substantiate Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a longtime anti-vaccine activist, to guide the country’s strongest health care agency. 

Kennedy was confirmed as health and human services secretary on a mostly party-line vote of 52-48. Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., broke ranks on one more of President Donald Trump’s Cabinet nominees, joining all Democrats in opposition.

McConnell, a childhood polio survivor, said Kennedy had a “record of trafficking in dangerous conspiracy theories and eroding trust in public health institutions.”

“Mr. Kennedy didn’t prove he’s the very best possible person to guide America’s largest health agency,” McConnell said in a press release. “As he takes office, I sincerely hope Mr. Kennedy will select to not sow further doubt and division but to revive trust in our public health institutions.”

Still, Thursday’s vote marks one other win for Trump, all of whose Cabinet-level nominees who’ve come before the Senate have been approved.

Kennedy will now be answerable for an expansive, $1.7 trillion agency that steers pandemic preparedness, manages government-funded health take care of hundreds of thousands of individuals and oversees vaccine and pharmaceutical drug development.

Kennedy, a scion of the famous Democratic family, managed to beat concerns amongst some Republicans over his past stances on vaccines and abortion.

The Republican senator who most vocally questioned Kennedy’s qualifications, Bill Cassidy, of Louisiana, ultimately voted to substantiate him. Cassidy, a longtime physician who chairs the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, had said he was “struggling” along with his decision after he quizzed Kennedy at two confirmation hearings. 

But Cassidy, who’s already politically vulnerable should he run for re-election, said in a floor speech last week that Kennedy gave him a series of reassurances that he would maintain the Center for Disease Control and Prevention’s advisory committee on immunization practices and that he wouldn’t remove statements on the CDC’s website noting that vaccines don’t cause autism. 

Kennedy also secured the backing of two other key Republicans, Lisa Murkowski, of Alaska, and Susan Collins, of Maine, before the vote.

Murkowski announced her support after, she said, Kennedy reassured her about his stance on vaccines. 

“He has made quite a few commitments to me and my colleagues, promising to work with Congress to make sure public access to information and to base vaccine recommendations on data-driven, evidence-based, and medically sound research,” Murkowski wrote on X on Wednesday. “These commitments are necessary to me and, on balance, provide assurance for my vote.”

Collins offered an analogous statement this week, saying Kennedy had allayed her concerns about his stances on vaccines.

Along with the CDC, the HHS secretary oversees the heads of the Food and Drug Administration, the National Institutes of Health and the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services.

Kennedy initially ran for president last 12 months as a Democrat before he launched an independent campaign. He eventually dropped his bid and endorsed Trump, taking his “Make America Healthy Again” message onto the campaign trail.

Kennedy’s call to more closely examine chemicals within the nation’s food brought support from each parties. But his past activism against vaccines and his advancement of false theories that they’re linked to autism prevented him from winning any Democratic support.

“Once you proceed to sow doubt about settled science, it makes it not possible for us to maneuver forward,” Maggie Hassan, D-N.H., told Kennedy in an emotional statement at a committee hearing last month. “So that is what the issue is here, is the relitigating and the rehashing and the continuing to sow doubt so we won’t move forward. And it freezes us in place.”