The confirmation hearings for Robert F. Kennedy Jr., U.S. President Donald Trump’s choice for health secretary, are set before the Senate finance committee on Wednesday morning and the same chamber’s health, education, labour and pension committee on Thursday.
If approved, Kennedy will control a $1.7-trillion US agency that oversees food and hospital inspections, hundreds of health clinics, vaccine recommendations and health insurance for roughly half the country.
Kennedy is a member of the famously Democratic political family, his father having served in his uncle’s presidential administration as attorney general before his own presidential campaign was cut down by an assassin in 1968.
Kennedy, 70, pursued his own presidential bid the past election cycle, as an independent. He suspended his campaign and allied with Trump in August.
In a Reuters interview in March, when he was still running for president, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said Americans who want a vaccine for themselves or their children would continue to have access to them if he were to be elected. But he also cast doubt on the efficacy of the measles vaccine.
Over many years, Kennedy has been clear about his beliefs on vaccines in dozens of interviews, podcasts and social media posts.
He’s headed up a nonprofit that has sued the government over its authorizations of vaccines. He’s said there is ” no vaccine that is safe and effective,” and repeatedly called for further study of routine childhood vaccinations, despite decades of research and real-world use that prove they’ve safely prevented disease.
“Mr. Kennedy has made a living not by promoting public health, but by actively fighting it. He is the face of the modern anti-vaccine movement, responsible for spreading fringe and outright false beliefs about vaccines,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, a Democrat, said this week..
More recently, Kennedy has tried to downplay his past remarks and work, saying he’s not anti-vaccine and promising not to “take away” the shots. The intensity of the questioning on vaccines over the next two days could provide clues for how other Republicans — like Sen. Mitch McConnell, a polio survivor who represents Kentucky — might consider Kennedy’s nomination.
It’s not clear if Kennedy will pass the confirmation process.Trump was forced to pull the nomination of Matt Gaetz for attorney general due to opposition on Capitol Hill. Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth is now on the job, having been approved by the Senate in the smallest margin possible last week.
Pro-choice views
Some of the country’s most conservative lawmakers have been worried about how Kennedy will handle abortion as health secretary.
The Department of Health and Human Services can influence abortion and reproductive health access in a number of ways, including with millions of dollars in grants it sends to Planned Parenthood and regulations around abortion pills. Under Joe Biden’s administration, the agency also said hospitals were required to provide emergency abortions for pregnant women in medical distress.
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Kennedy has been pro-choice throughout his life, seemingly an ill-fit as Republican-led states have banned abortions in the wake of a momentous 2022 Supreme Court decision that Trump has often taken credit for, having nominated three of the court’s justices.
The health secretary, and the agency, have also played a role in recent decades in addressing global health issues.
Trump signed an executive order last week to pull the U.S. out of its relationshp with the World Health Organization, largely for what he has cited as a mishandling of the COVID-19 pandemic. The U.S. is by far the biggest financial backer of the WHO, contributing around 18 per cent of its overall funding.
Kennedy has also taken the contentious position that local governments should abstain from adding fluoride in their drinking water. The CDC has said small amounts of added fluoride in drinking water prevent cavities and tooth decay.
An area where Kennedy is trying to find common ground with Democratic senators: food regulations and access to healthier foods. Kennedy has said he supports Medicare and Medicaid helping people pay for healthier foods and gym memberships, an idea Democrats have lobbied for as well. He’s also called for a ban on some of the ingredients used in foods, like dyes and additives.
RFK Jr., president-elect Donald Trump’s pick to run the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, wants to get fluoride out of drinking water, citing safety concerns. CBC’s Jennifer Yoon breaks down why it’s in the water supply and what the current science says about its safety.
Family split
Several prominent members of the extended Kennedy family have voiced their opposition to his public health views. In a letter to U.S. senators on Tuesday, Caroline Kennedy shared personal details about her cousin, saying he is not qualified for the health secretary job.
The daughter of former president John F. Kennedy said her cousin’s views on vaccines are a problem, but she also brought up her experiences growing up with him.
A copy obtained by The Associated Press notes that while she admired him for overcoming a drug addiction, she said he has gone on to “misrepresent, lie and cheat his way through life.” In an extreme anecdote, she accused him of hosting drug-fuelled gatherings in his basement, dorm and garage where he “enjoyed showing off how he put baby chickens and mice in the blender to feed his hawks.”
U.S. president-elect Donald Trump wants to put RFK Jr. and Dr. Oz into powerful government health-care positions. The National asks policy experts to weigh in on the implications of putting an anti-fluoride, vaccine skeptic and former TV personality who touted ‘miracle cures’ in charge.
Kennedy has been open about his previous struggles with addiction and also a history of philandering. He also apologized, by text, to a former babysitter who accused him of groping her in the 1990s.
Meanwhile, another cousin, former Rhode Island congressman and Democrat Patrick J. Kennedy, said RFK Jr. helped pull him out of addiction.
