WASHINGTON (AP) — The Senate on Thursday confirmed Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as President Donald Trump’s well being secretary, placing the outstanding vaccine skeptic in command of $1.7 trillion in federal spending, vaccine suggestions and meals security in addition to medical health insurance applications for roughly half the nation.
Almost all Republicans fell in line behind Trump regardless of hesitancy over Kennedy views on vaccines, voting 52-48 to raise the scion of one among America’s most storied political — and Democratic — households to secretary of the Well being and Human Companies Division. Democrats unanimously opposed Kennedy.
Kentucky Sen. Mitch McConnell, who had polio as a toddler, was the one “no” vote amongst Republicans, mirroring his stands towards Trump’s picks for the Pentagon chief and director of nationwide intelligence.
“I’m a survivor of childhood polio. In my lifetime, I’ve watched vaccines save millions of lives from devastating diseases across America and around the world,” McConnell mentioned in an announcement afterwards. “I will not condone the re-litigation of proven cures, and neither will millions of Americans who credit their survival and quality of life to scientific miracles.”
The remainder of the GOP, nonetheless, has embraced Kennedy’s imaginative and prescient with a directive for the general public well being companies to give attention to continual illnesses reminiscent of weight problems.
“We’ve got to get into the business of making America healthy again,” mentioned Sen. Mike Crapo, R-Idaho, including that Kennedy will carry a “fresh perspective” to the workplace.
Kennedy, 71, whose identify and household tragedies have put him within the nationwide highlight since he was a toddler, has earned a formidable following along with his populist and generally excessive views on meals, chemical compounds and vaccines.
His viewers solely grew in the course of the COVID-19 pandemic, when Kennedy devoted a lot of his time to a nonprofit that sued vaccine makers and harnessed social media campaigns to erode belief in vaccines in addition to the federal government companies that promote them.
With Trump’s backing, Kennedy insisted he was “uniquely positioned” to revive belief in these public well being companies, which embody the Meals and Drug Administration, the Facilities for Illness Management and Prevention, and the Nationwide Institutes for Well being.
Final week, Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., mentioned he hoped Kennedy “goes wild” in reining in well being care prices and bettering People’ well being. However earlier than agreeing to help Kennedy, potential holdout Sen. Invoice Cassidy, R-La., a health care provider who leads the Senate Well being, Training, Labor and Pensions Committee, required assurances that Kennedy wouldn’t make modifications to present vaccine suggestions.
Throughout Senate hearings, Democrats tried to prod Kennedy to disclaim a long-discredited concept that vaccines trigger autism. Some lawmakers additionally raised alarms about Kennedy financially benefiting from altering vaccine tips or weakening federal lawsuit protections towards vaccine makers.
Kennedy made greater than $850,000 final yr from an association referring purchasers to a regulation agency that has sued the makers of Gardasil, a human papillomavirus vaccine that protects towards cervical most cancers. If confirmed as well being secretary, he promised to reroute charges collected from the association to his son.
Kennedy will take over the company within the midst of a large federal authorities shakeup, led by billionaire Elon Musk, that has shut off — even when quickly — billions of taxpayer {dollars} in public well being funding and left 1000’s of federal staff not sure about their jobs.
On Friday, the NIH introduced it will cap billions of {dollars} in medical analysis given to universities and most cancers getting used to develop therapies for illnesses reminiscent of most cancers and Alzheimer’s.
Kennedy, too, has referred to as for a staffing overhaul on the NIH, FDA and CDC. Final yr, he promised to fireside 600 staff on the NIH, the nation’s largest funder of biomedical analysis.