RFK Jr. Clears Senate Committee After Assurances on Vaccines

Robert F. Kennedy Jr., President Donald Trump’s pick to head the US Department of Health and Human Services, was endorsed by the Senate Finance Committee after two tough hearings. His nomination will now advance to a full Senate vote.

The committee voted along party lines Tuesday, with 14 Republicans voting to advance Kennedy in front of the Senate and 13 Democrats against. It’s not yet clear when the full Senate vote will take place.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

Photographer: Tierney L. Cross/Bloomberg

Though committee member Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, a Republican who’s also chair of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, had said he was “struggling” with his vote over Kennedy’s past vaccine denials, he ended up agreeing to move the nomination forward. He then released a statement saying that he will also move to confirm Kennedy during the full Senate vote.

Afterward, in a speech on the Senate floor, Cassidy said he had spoken with Kennedy, who has promised that the Centers for Disease Control website will continue to assure Americans that vaccines do not cause autism and that HHS will provide his committee with 30-days’ notice before making changes to vaccine monitoring programs.

Cassidy added that he would use his position as chairman of the HELP committee to “rebuff any attempt to remove the public’s access to life saving vaccines without iron-clad, causational, scientific evidence that can be accepted and defended before the mainstream scientific community and before Congress.”

Shares of vaccine makers sank on news that Kennedy had cleared the committee. Moderna, Inc. dropped as much as 6.2%, Pfizer, Inc. fell 2.3% and Novavax, Inc. lost as much as 3.3%. Standard & Poor’s 500 Pharmaceuticals Index fell as much as 2.3%.

Bill Cassidy

Photographer: Al Drago/Bloomberg

Cassidy was under intense pressure from fellow Republicans and clean-food activists to vote for Kennedy.

“RFK is going to run HHS whether you like it or not,” Louisiana Representative Clay Higgins posted on X Jan. 30. “So, vote your conscience Senator, or don’t. Either way, We’re watching.”

And Kennedy’s Make America Healthy Again coalition, including Nicole Shanahan, a Silicon Valley entrepreneur who was his vice presidential pick during his run for president, posted a video on X, encouraging people to call their senators to vote for Kennedy.

“I will make it my personal mission that you lose your seats in the Senate if you vote against the future health of America’s children,” she said in the video.

If confirmed by the full Senate for the nation’s top health role, Kennedy could overhaul some of the nation’s public health policies. Kennedy would have control over the Food and Drug Administration, which approves medical treatments, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which makes vaccine and public health recommendations.

HHS also accounts for about a quarter of the federal budget through its control over federal insurance programs for elderly and low-income Americans.

Georges Benjamin, executive director of the American Public Health Association, said after the vote that his group remains absolutely opposed to Kennedy becoming head of HHS.

“Obviously it’s not over till it’s over,” Benjamin said, adding that APHA will work to convince the full Senate to not confirm him as secretary.

Read more: Why Kennedy’s Anti-Vaccine Position Is So Worrying: QuickTake

So far, only one of Trump’s cabinet nominees has faced close votes on the Senate floor. On Jan. 24, Vice President JD Vance had to cast a tiebreaking vote to confirm Pete Hegseth as Defense Secretary after three Republicans — Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Susan Collins of Maine — voted against the confirmation.

McConnell, a childhood polio survivor, warned Kennedy in December to not “undermine the public confidence in proven cures.”

Heated Hearings

US Capitol Police remove a demonstrator during Kennedy’s confirmation hearing on Jan. 29.

Photographer: Tierney L. Cross/Bloomberg

Kennedy had faced tough questions at the first of his two Senate hearings before the Finance Committee, which was often interrupted by protesters.

While Kennedy said he would not stop anyone from getting the polio and measles vaccines, Democratic Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon said Kennedy’s spread of misinformation about vaccines in Samoa “contributed to the deaths of 83 children” from measles in 2018-2019. Kennedy said he never made a statement about vaccines while in Samoa.

Kennedy, who had supported abortion rights while running as a Democrat and a third-party presidential candidate, also promised in his Senate hearings to back the Trump administration’s positions on abortion and defer to the White House.

(Adds comments from Cassidy’s floor speech and reaction from the American Public Health Association from the fourth paragraph.)

--With assistance from Steven T. Dennis, Madison Muller, John Lauerman and Antonia Mufarech.

To contact the reporter on this story:
Jessica Nix in New York at jnix20@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story:
Cynthia Koons at ckoons@bloomberg.net

Anne Cronin, Richard Clough

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