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Vaccine sceptic Robert F Kennedy Jr is on track to be confirmed as the top US health official after a key Senate committee voted along party lines to approve his nomination.
The Senate finance committee on Tuesday voted 14 to 13 in favour of Kennedy’s confirmation to run the Department of Health and Human Services, with all Republicans supporting Kennedy and all Democrats voting against. His nomination will go to a full senate vote later this week.
Republican senator Bill Cassidy, a former medical doctor who chairs the Senate health committee, was seen by Kennedy’s allies as a possible rebel in the tight vote, but he opted to give the nominee the nod.
Cassidy wrote on social media platform X before the vote that he had held “very intense conversations” with Kennedy and the White House, including with vice-president JD Vance, in the run-up to the vote.
“With the serious commitments I’ve received from the administration and the opportunity to make progress on the issues we agree on, like healthy foods and a pro-American agenda, I will vote yes,” said Cassidy.
With Cassidy falling in line behind Kennedy, it is now likely his confirmation will pass the full senate vote, even if three other Republican senators rebel. Possible dissenters include Mitch McConnell, Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski, who voted against the nomination of Pete Hegseth as defence secretary.
Kennedy’s nomination to run the sprawling health department, which has a budget of $1.9tn and oversees 13 divisions and agencies including medicines regulator the Food and Drug Administration, has prompted concern from public health officials and pharmaceutical industry insiders owing to his vaccine scepticism and contentious views on a number of health issues.
Over two days of committee hearings last week, Kennedy was grilled by senators about his record of questioning the effects of Covid-19 and MMR vaccines, and his financial stake in a vaccine safety lawsuit against Merck’s blockbuster Gardasil jab. Subsequently Kennedy promised to relinquish his stake in any proceeds from the case.
Kennedy told senators last week that he was “not anti-vaccine or anti-industry” but instead he was “pro-safety”. When asked about his scepticism of the MMR vaccine — he has repeated a debunked claim that the jab was linked to autism — Kennedy said: “I just want to follow the science, and if the science says I am wrong about what I’ve said in the past, as I said, I will publicly apologise.”
At the senate health committee hearing, Cassidy told Kennedy: “I’ve been struggling with your nomination”, citing his failure to retract his previous criticism of vaccines.
He asked: “Does a 70-year-old man, 71-year-old man who spent decades criticising vaccines, and who’s financially invested in finding fault with vaccines — can he change his attitudes and approach now that he’ll have the most important position influencing vaccine policy in the United States?”
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