President Donald Trump has nominated Robert F. Kennedy Jr., an environmental lawyer with no formal medical or public health expertise, as secretary of Health and Human Sciences. Two Senate committees will question Kennedy this week on how his disproven views of science and medicine qualify him to run the $1.7 trillion, 80,000-employee federal health system.<\/p>\n
Here are four considerations for lawmakers on the Senate Finance and Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions committees, which will host Kennedy for questioning on Wednesday and Thursday, respectively:<\/p>\n
1) Kennedy\u2019s unconventional health claims.<\/strong><\/p>\n For decades<\/a>, Kennedy has advocated for health-related ideas that are scientifically disproven or controversial. He created and was paid hundreds of thousands of dollars by Children\u2019s Health Defense, a group that champions the false idea<\/a> that vaccines cause autism and other chronic diseases and has sued to take vaccines off the market. Kennedy has said covid vaccines are the deadliest in history<\/a>, antidepressants lead children to commit<\/a> mass shootings, environmental contaminants may cause people to become trans<\/a>, and HIV is not the only cause<\/a> of AIDS. He also pushes the use of products that regulators consider dangerous, such as raw milk, and for broader use of some medicines, such as ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine, to treat conditions without FDA approval. He says public health agencies oppose their use only because of regulatory capture by big drug and food interests.<\/p>\n \u201cHe believes you can avoid disease if you have a healthy immune system. He sees vaccines and antibiotics as toxins,\u201d said Paul Offit, director of the Vaccine Education Center at Children\u2019s Hospital of Philadelphia. Top Trump health nominees \u2014 Kennedy, Marty Makary for FDA commissioner, Jay Bhattacharya for National Institutes of Health director, and former U.S. Rep. Dave Weldon for Centers for Disease Control and Prevention director \u2014 are generally disdainful of the agencies they\u2019ll be leading, Offit said.<\/p>\n \u201cThey think they are going to go into office, pull back the curtain, find all this bad stuff, and reveal it to the American public,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n During a measles epidemic in 2019 and 2020 that killed 83 people<\/a>, mostly children, in Samoa, Kennedy, as chairman of Children\u2019s Health Defense, warned the country\u2019s prime minister against measles vaccination. This behavior alone \u201cis disqualifying\u201d for an HHS nominee, said Georges Benjamin, executive director of the American Public Health Association.<\/p>\n Equally problematic, in Benjamin\u2019s view, was Kennedy\u2019s legal effort in 2021 to get the covid vaccine pulled from the market. \u201cHe can\u2019t say he\u2019s not anti-vax,\u201d Benjamin said. \u201cHe wasn\u2019t following the evidence.\u201d<\/p>\n A Kennedy spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment.<\/p>\n 2) Kennedy\u2019s chances appear good, despite opposition.<\/strong><\/p>\n Kennedy\u2019s nomination has emerged in a moment when Trump is on a roll and mistrust of public health and medical authority in the wake of the pandemic has created an opening for people with unorthodox views of science to seize the reins of the country\u2019s health system.<\/p>\n After former Fox News personality Pete Hegseth was confirmed as Defense secretary last week despite his controversial qualifications for the job and stark warnings from former top military brass, many Washington observers think RFK Jr. is going to be hard to defeat. In a meeting on the Hill with Democratic senators and their aides last week, Offit said, \u201cthe feeling was that he would likely be confirmed.\u201d<\/p>\n Trump has demanded<\/a> that Republican senators line up behind his nominees and has so far succeeded. It\u2019s thought that Sens. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Susan Collins of Maine could oppose Kennedy, based on their opposition to Hegseth. Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), the other Hegseth \u201cnay\u201d vote, is a polio survivor who has not spoken publicly about Kennedy but said in December that opposing \u201cproven cures\u201d was dangerous. Other senators whose Kennedy votes are said to be in question include Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.), the HELP Committee chair, a physician who gave a lukewarm response after meeting Kennedy.<\/p>\n Others have reported that Sens. Cory Booker<\/a> (D-N.J.), who shares Kennedy\u2019s concern with the spread of obesity and chronic illness, and Sheldon Whitehouse<\/a> (D-R.I.), who attended law school with Kennedy, might vote for him. Neither senator\u2019s office responded to a request for comment. Advancing American Freedom, a conservative advocacy group founded by former Vice President Mike Pence, has fought Kennedy\u2019s nomination<\/a> with a major ad buy.<\/p>\n 3) The hearings are going to be heated.<\/strong><\/p>\n Democratic senators are coming with plenty of ammunition. Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) sent Kennedy a 34-page letter containing 175 questions<\/a> on everything from his anti-vaccine statements and actions to his waffling positions on abortion to his stances on Medicare, drug prices, and the cause of AIDS.<\/p>\n While public health and medical groups did not coordinate with Pence\u2019s conservative organization, questions about Kennedy\u2019s earlier stance in support of abortion rights could raise hackles on the GOP side of the aisle. Although his group is far from Pence on reproductive rights, Benjamin said, \u201cif it helps derail him, I hope some senators are listening to Pence. Any shelter in a storm.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThe hearings are going to be very difficult for him because he\u2019s told a web of untruths as he\u2019s marched across the offices,\u201d said Leslie Dach, executive chair of Protect Our Care, a Democratic-aligned advocacy group.<\/p>\n Public opinion reflects leeriness of Kennedy on health, though not excessively. In a poll released Tuesday by KFF, 43% of respondents said they trusted him to make the right health recommendations. About 81% of Republicans in the poll said they trusted Kennedy \u2014 almost as many as trust their own doctor.<\/p>\n 4) What happens if Kennedy takes office.<\/strong><\/p>\n At the NIH, FDA, and other federal health agencies, nervous scientists speak of early retirement or jumping to industry should Kennedy and his agency heads take office.<\/p>\n The pharmaceutical industry has kept quiet on the nomination, as has the American Medical Association. Many patient advocacy groups are worried, but wary of creating friction with an administration they can\u2019t ignore or defeat.<\/p>\n Kennedy\u2019s comments on AIDS \u2014 suggesting that gay men\u2019s use of stimulants, rather than the HIV virus, were its cause \u2014 are troubling to Carl Schmid, executive director of the HIV+Hepatitis Policy Institute. But \u201cI don\u2019t know if he\u2019s going to get confirmed or not,\u201d he said. \u201cIf he does, we look forward to working with him and educating him.\u201d<\/p>\n At the J.P. Morgan Healthcare conference earlier this month, Emma Walmsley, CEO of GSK, a leading vaccine maker, said she\u2019d \u201cwait and see what the facts are\u201d before predicting what Kennedy would do. Vaccines, she noted, are \u201cnot our biggest business.\u201d<\/p>\n GSK is one of a handful of vaccine makers remaining on the U.S. market. That number could shrink further if the Trump administration and Congress undo a 1986 law that provided legal protection for vaccine makers \u2014 as Kennedy has advocated.<\/p>\n\n KFF Health News<\/a> is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues and is one of the core operating programs at KFF\u2014an independent source of health policy research, polling, and journalism. Learn more about KFF<\/a>.<\/p>\nUSE OUR CONTENT<\/h3>\n