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- 29 Jan 2025
- 6:05 PM ET
- ByMeredith Wadman
Environmental lawyer Robert F. Kennedy Jr., President Donald Trump’s nominee to head the $1.8 trillion Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), deflected withering questions from Democrats about his antivaccine record at a Senate Committee on Finance confirmation hearing today.
“I support vaccines. I support the childhood schedule,” a U.S. list of more than a dozen recommended vaccines against diseases including measles, polio, and whooping cough, Kennedy said. Republicans, who hold the majority on the panel, were generally supportive of the nominee, who maintained that he will “create an honest, unbiased gold standard science at HHS accountable to the president, to Congress, and to the American people.”
As HHS secretary, Kennedy would oversee a vast department that includes the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The three agencies respectively oversee research on vaccines, market approvals, and recommendations for which populations should use them that heavily influence their uptake and reimbursement. The department also handles the enormous Medicare and Medicaid health insurance programs.
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At a hearing interrupted at least twice by hecklers, leading committee chairman Mike Crapo (R–ID) to threaten to ask police to remove them, Kennedy pointed to his highest priority: remedying the “grievous condition” of Americans’ health as exemplified by rising rates of diabetes, obesity, cancer, and Alzheimer’s disease as well as mental health issues such as depression and addiction. He pledged to unify diverse scientists and experts around the goal of attacking these chronic diseases, which he blamed in part on toxic chemicals in food and the environment.
Most Republicans on the panel indicated support for his nomination. “You represent a voice for an inspiring coalition of Americans who are deeply committed to improving the health and well-being of our nation,” Crapo said.
“Let the record state there are three medical doctors on this [Republican] side of the dias. I am a chemical engineer. We believe in science. I’m thankful that you do, too,” said Senator Steve Daines (R–MT), responding to Kennedy’s pledge of “gold standard science” at HHS.
But committee Democrats peppered the nominee with hostile questions and remarks. Responding to Kennedy’s claim to support vaccines, Senator Ron Wyden (OR), the panel’s senior Democrat, cut him off, saying: “Anybody who believes that ought to take a look at the measles book you wrote saying that parents have been misled into believing that measles is a deadly disease.” Wyden hammered Kennedy on his May 2021 petition to FDA seeking to stop current and future approvals of all COVID-19 vaccines and the money he has made on “junk science” book deals.
“This is the profile of someone who chases money and influence wherever they lead even if that means the tragic deaths of children,” Wyden said. He added that Kennedy “has embraced conspiracy theories, quacks, and charlatans.”
Other Democrats pressed Kennedy on his plans for NIH. “You have said publicly you want to immediately get rid of 600 NIH workers on … Day 1,” said Senator Mark Warner (D–VA). “When we had our [private] meeting you said you would actually get rid of 2200 people from HHS. Which offices are you going to start cutting and riffing these 2200 workers from?” Kennedy replied that new administrations commonly replace political appointees.
In response to a question from Senator Maria Cantwell (D–WA) about his 2023 pledge during his presidential campaign to pause NIH infectious disease research for 8 years, Kennedy explained he was thinking of “the principal preoccupation” with that research area. “Almost nothing is studied at NIH about the etiology of our chronic disease epidemic. The money is going to infectious disease,” he said. (The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases had a 2024 budget of $6.6 billion, and NIH spent approximately $16.2 billion on research on diabetes, asthma, hypertension, cancer, depression, addiction, heart disease, and Alzheimer’s, all conditions Kennedy flagged in his opening remarks.)
Kennedy’s definition of “gold standard science,” he explained, includes eliminating conflicts of interest. He also supports replication studies, or work that repeats experiments to confirm them, which he thinks should receive 20% of NIH’s $47.4 billion budget. And he said he would like to see wider publication of raw data, negative results, and peer reviews of scientific articles, which most journals now keep confidential.
Under questioning from Senator Michael Bennet (D–CO), Kennedy admitted he “probably did say” that Lyme disease, a tick-borne illness, is “a highly likely militarily engineered bioweapon.” He declined to give Bennet a yes-or-no answer to whether he stated that COVID-19 was a genetically engineered bioweapon that targeted Black and white people but spared Ashkenazi Jews and Chinese people. (Kennedy has previously said he was misquoted.)
Other questions probed Kennedy’s shifting position on abortion: He espoused views that supported abortion rights for decades, until recently. At the hearing, he pledged to support Trump’s abortion policies, and noted that the president “has made it clear to me that he wants me to look at safety issues” around mifepristone, an abortion-inducing drug that has an extensive record of safety. That prompted Senator Maggie Hassan (D–NH) to hold up a sheath of papers she said represented about 40 studies showing mifepristone’s safety. “You have clearly stated in the past that bodily autonomy is one of your core values,” Hassan said. “When was it that you decided to sell out … to get this position?”
Kennedy responded to her repeatedly: “I agree with President Trump that every abortion is a tragedy.” Asked by Cantwell whether he would support fetal tissue research, he said that although he will follow the law, “Stem cell research today can be done on umbilical cords. You don’t need fetal tissue.” Researchers who use fetal tissue and faced restrictions during the previous Trump administration disagree.
The Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions will hold a hearing on Kennedy’s nomination tomorrow, but it will be up to the Finance Committee to vote on whether to advance his nomination to the full Senate. The vote by the committee’s 14 Republicans and 13 Democrats is expected as soon as next week.
