The GOP-controlled Senate voted Thursday to confirm that longtime anti-vaccine activist Robert F. Kennedy Jr. leads the country’s most powerful healthcare institution.
Kennedy was confirmed as a secretary to the Department of Health and Human Services, primarily in a 52-48 party-affiliated vote. Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY.) is another candidate for President Donald Trump’s cabinet candidate, breaking the rank against all Democrats.
Still, it was another victory for Trump, with all cabinet-level candidates who came before the Senate being approved.
Kennedy will be responsible for a vast $1.7 trillion agency that will guide pandemic preparations, manage government-funded healthcare for millions of people, and oversee vaccine and drug drug development .
Kennedy, a well-known Democratic family teacher, has managed to overcome concerns among some Republicans about past attitudes about vaccines and abortions.
A Republican senator who voted to confirm him by Louisiana’s Kennedy qualification Bill Cassidy. Cassidy, a longtime doctor who chairs the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, said he was “struggling” with his decision after quizzing Kennedy at two confirmation hearings.
But Cassidy, who is already politically vulnerable if he runs for reelection, gave a series of relief in his floor speech last week that Kennedy will maintain the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Advisory Committee on Vaccination Practices. He said he gave it, and he will not delete a statement on the CDC website, which points out that the vaccine does not cause autism.
Kennedy also secured support from Alaska’s Lisa Murkowski and Maine’s Susan Collins and two other major Republicans before the vote.
Markovsky announced her support after Kennedy reassured her about his attitude towards the vaccine, she said.
“He has made many commitments to me and my colleagues, ensuring public access to information and building on vaccine recommendations for data-driven, evidence-based, medically sound research. I promise,” Murkowski wrote to X on Wednesday. “These commitments are important to me, and I balance it and provide a guarantee of my vote.”
Collins provided a similar statement this week, saying that Kennedy had eased concerns about his attitude towards the vaccine.
In addition to the CDC, the HHS Secretary oversees the Head of the Food and Drug Administration, the National Institutes of Health and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.
Kennedy ran for president last year as a Democrat before launching an independent campaign. He eventually dropped his bid, backed Trump and took him on the trail of his “American Health Again Again” campaign.
Kennedy’s call to examine more closely the country’s food chemicals has brought support from both parties. However, his past activities on vaccines and advances in false theory that they are associated with autism have prevented him from winning democratic support.
“If we continue to have doubts about calm science, it will be impossible for us to move forward,” Maggie Hassan (DN.H.) said in an emotional statement at a committee hearing last month. He spoke to. “That’s the problem here: relationships and rehashing, and the doubts that we can’t move forward. And it freezes us in place. ”
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