Anti-vax activist RFK Jr. moves one step closer to becoming America’s top health official

The Republican-led US Senate looks poised to vote in favor of installing long-time anti-vaccine activist Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as head of America’s health agencies. The finance committee voted on party lines to send his nomination for Health and Human Services secretary to the Senate floor Tuesday, with Louisiana’s Bill Cassidy—a physician who was thought to be a key swing vote on the Republican side—voting in favor of the nominee. It was unclear Tuesday when the full Senate will vote will occur.

During a hearing last week, Cassidy tried to get Kennedy to say that vaccines don’t cause autism and that there was already plentiful data proving that point. Kennedy didn’t agree and pledged only to review evidence.

But Cassidy came under intense pressure from Republicans and Kennedy’s advocates to support the nominee. One Louisiana Republican posted a picture of Cassidy on the social media site X, saying, “We’re saving the country and RFK is part of the formula. So, vote your conscience Senator, or don’t. Either way, [we’re] watching.” By Tuesday morning, Cassidy, who claimed last week that he was “struggling” over a vote for Kennedy, posted on X that he had received “serious commitments” from the administration. Later, on the Senate floor he said that he had received assurances that the existing vaccine safety system would remain in place.

RFK is going to run HHS whether you like it or not. The Senate is ours, and the moment Trump decides he’s had enough of random Senators delaying our mission, JD is walking in and taking the gavel as President of the Senate. There’s zero you can do about that. We the People will… pic.twitter.com/sgYbgUlfDj

— Rep. Clay Higgins (@RepClayHiggins) January 31, 2025

Democrats voted in unison against Kennedy, a member of a famous Democratic political dynasty, many of whose other members have denounced him. Kennedy is the nephew of President John F. Kennedy and the son of Sen. Robert F. Kennedy, both Democratic icons who were assassinated. Sen. Elizabeth Warren said that Kennedy Jr., a long-time anti-vaccine activist, would enrich himself and his family by using his position to aid vaccine lawsuits in which he has a financial stake. Kennedy previously pledged to turn over his potential stake in cases against Merck over the human papilloma virus vaccine to his son.

Ambassador Caroline Kennedy’s letter to U. S. Senate on confirmation hearing of Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. pic.twitter.com/nTdN2LACdY

— Caroline Kennedy (@CBKennedy) January 28, 2025

Kennedy Jr. has sent referrals to a law firm that is litigating over the vaccine, an collaboration that also includes other legal matters and that has made Kennedy Jr. $2.5 million in two years.

“He is in a position where he can affect the outcomes by things he does as secretary of HHS and yet her refuses to say that he would delay by even a day, taking on anti-vax lawsuits the minute he leaves. That is an appalling conflict of interest,” Warren said.

Warren said that vaccine makers, working on slim margins, could easily leave the market.

“The consequence of Mr. Kennedy’s ability to make those lawsuits easier is also the ability to shut down access and manufacturing vaccines for every one of us,” Warren said.

North Carolina Republican Sen. Thom Tillis said that Kennedy, who sought to focus his confirmation hearings on the broadly popular theme of fighting chronic disease rather than his anti-vaccine track record, could improve food safety, health care costs, and Medicaid. Tillis framed Kennedy as a disruptor who would nonetheless not interfere with government-funded science and support for vaccination.

“The only way that Bobby Kennedy and I will get crosswise is if he does actually take a position against the safety of proven vaccines. That would be a problem for me,” Tillis said.

Kennedy has often falsely linked vaccines to autism. The leading Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee said before Tuesday’s vote that Kennedy had done so 36 times over four years. In a similar vein, Kennedy has questioned other vaccines, falsely saying, for instance, that polio vaccines weren’t effective in reducing polio cases.

As health secretary, Kennedy would have influence over the committees that set vaccine policy in the United States, affecting which are covered by insurance and potentially how states create lists of school required vaccines. Kennedy’s critics also worry about how he may wield government vaccine and health data, specifically that he could use it to shape public views of vaccines to match his own beliefs.

He has engaged with false conspiracy theories about several diseases. He once pondered whether COVID-19 might “deliberately targeted” to affect white and Black people more than Ashkenazi Jews and Chinese people. Scientists debunked Kennedy’s claim, saying any differences in gene expression played a minor role in the pandemic.

During his confirmation hearings last week, Kennedy conceded he had said Lyme disease, a tick born disease, was a “bioweapon”—a claim that is false. Some of the early cases of the disease were discovered in Long Island, New York, near a military laboratory, but researchers have found evidence of the Lyme pathogen as far back as the late 1800s, long before the first identified cases in the 1970s.

Republicans can afford three defections and still win confirmation for Kennedy. With three other Republicans having shown a willingness to vote against a Trump nominee, Cassidy’s vote has been considered a possible deciding factor, though Oregon Democrat Ron Wyden pledged to “pull out all the stops” to derail Kennedy. After Cassidy’s committee, vote, Kennedy Jr.’s path to confirmation seemed substantially clearer.