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Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is now one crucial step closer to governing America’s public health. On Tuesday morning, the U.S. Senate Finance Committee gave its blessing to President Trump’s nomination of RFK Jr. to head the Department of Health and Human Services.
The Committee voted in favor of RFK Jr. by a tally of 14 to 13—a vote split entirely down party lines. The decision will lead to a floor vote of Kennedy’s nomination by the entire Senate. Medical and public health experts have long lamented Kennedy’s now-likely ascension to HHS chief.
Once a Democrat, RFK Jr. had run a third party presidential campaign last year before dropping out to endorse Trump in August 2024. In return, Trump promised that he would give Kennedy a free rein to reshape the country’s public health agenda should he be elected president. Trump made good on that promise in mid-November following his election victory, announcing his nomination of Kennedy to head HHS.
While Kennedy has been lauded for his environmental advocacy in the past, he has a long track record of making misleading or outright false statements about important health issues, particularly vaccination. Kennedy has been one of the world’s most prominent anti-vaccination advocates, especially in his former position as head of the group Children’s Health Defense.
In one notable incident, he and other activists were involved with the local anti-vaccination movement in Samoa in 2019. Months before a massive measles outbreak killed 83 residents in the area, mainly children under five, Kennedy visited the country to support local anti-vaccination advocates, even meeting with government officials. RFK Jr. has since minimized his role in the outbreak, even telling Senate members last week that fewer children may have died from measles than claimed—a statement that Samoa’s current Director-General of Health Alec Ekeroma called a “total fabrication.”
In his 2021 book, The Real Anthony Fauci, Kennedy questioned whether AIDS was caused by HIV (it is), and has previously suggested that a “gay lifestyle,” particularly the use of recreational drugs such as poppers among the gay community, was the actual cause of AIDS. And he’s supported the conspiratorial belief of chemtrails—the idea that planes are deliberately releasing hazardous chemicals into the atmosphere (in actuality, the trails these planes leave behind are mostly water vapor). In a post on X last summer, RFK indicated he would stop the “crime” of chemtrails if given the opportunity.
But these positions were not enough to deter the Republican committee members from endorsing Kennedy’s nomination. In explaining his yes vote, Senator Thom Tillis argued that RFK Jr. would change the status quo of America’s health care system for the better.
