The GOP-controlled Senate voted Thursday to confirm Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a longtime anti-vaccine activist, to lead the country’s most powerful 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 yet another 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 failed to prove he is the best possible person to lead America’s largest health agency," McConnell said in a statement. "As he takes office, I sincerely hope Mr. Kennedy will choose not to sow further doubt and division but to restore trust in our public health institutions.”
Still, Thursday's vote was another win for Trump, all of whose Cabinet-level nominees who have come before the Senate have been approved.
Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch swore Kennedy in Thursday afternoon in the Oval Office. Trump introduced him, saying there was "no better person to lead our campaign of historic reforms and restore faith in American health care."
Kennedy praised Trump as a "hero," noting that he believed he was "a pivotal historical figure." He also blasted the U.S. Agency for International Development, which was established by President John F. Kennedy, his uncle.
"It has been captured by the military industrial complex," he said of the humanitarian assistance agency. "It has become a sinister propagator of totalitarianism across and war across the globe, and very few people understand how sinister this agency really is. And President Trump saw that."
Kennedy will now be in charge of an expansive, $1.7 trillion agency that steers pandemic preparedness, manages government-funded health care for millions of people and oversees vaccine and pharmaceutical drug development.
Kennedy, a scion of the famous Democratic family, managed to overcome concerns among 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 confirm him. Cassidy, a longtime physician who chairs the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, had said he was “struggling” with his decision after he quizzed Kennedy at two confirmation hearings.
But Cassidy, who is 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 would not remove statements on the CDC’s website noting that vaccines do not 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 numerous commitments to me and my colleagues, promising to work with Congress to ensure public access to information and to base vaccine recommendations on data-driven, evidence-based, and medically sound research," Murkowski wrote Wednesday on X. "These commitments are important to me and, on balance, provide assurance for my vote."
Collins offered a similar statement this week, saying Kennedy had allayed her concerns about his stances on vaccines.
In addition to 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 year 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 in the nation’s food brought support from both parties. But his past activism against vaccines and his advancement of false theories that they are linked to autism prevented him from winning any Democratic support.
“When you continue to sow doubt about settled science, it makes it impossible for us to move forward,” Maggie Hassan, D-N.H., told Kennedy in an emotional statement at a committee hearing last month. “So that’s what the problem is here, is the relitigating and the rehashing and the continuing to sow doubt so we can’t move forward. And it freezes us in place.”
