Politics

Republicans fell in line behind Trump regardless of hesitancy over Kennedy views on vaccines, voting 52-48 to substantiate the president’s choose for well being secretary.

By AMANDA SEITZ, Related Press

February 13, 2025 | 11:50 AM

2 minutes to learn

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Senate on Thursday confirmed Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as President Donald Trump’s well being secretary, placing the distinguished vaccine skeptic in charge of $1.7 trillion in federal spending, vaccine suggestions and meals security in addition to medical insurance packages for roughly half the nation.

Republicans fell in line behind Trump regardless of hesitancy over Kennedy views on vaccines, voting 52-48 to raise the scion of considered one of America’s most storied political — and Democratic — households to secretary of the Well being and Human Companies Division. Kentucky Sen. Mitch McConnell, who had polio as a baby, was the one “no” vote amongst Republicans, mirroring his stands towards Trump’s picks for the Pentagon chief and director of nationwide intelligence. All Democrats opposed Kennedy.

The GOP has largely embraced Kennedy’s imaginative and prescient to “Make America Wholesome Once more” by directing the general public well being companies to concentrate on continual illnesses comparable to weight problems.

Kennedy, 71, whose title and household tragedies have put him within the nationwide highlight since he was a baby, 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 embrace 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 Individuals’ well being. However earlier than agreeing to help Kennedy, potential holdout Sen. Invoice Cassidy, R-La., a physician who leads the Senate Well being, Schooling, Labor and Pensions Committee, required assurances that Kennedy wouldn’t make adjustments to current 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 pointers or weakening federal lawsuit protections towards vaccine makers.

Kennedy made greater than $850,000 final 12 months from an association referring shoppers to a legislation 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 an enormous federal authorities shakeup, led by billionaire Elon Musk, that has shut off — even when briefly — billions of taxpayer {dollars} in public well being funding and left 1000’s of federal employees not sure about their jobs.

On Friday, the NIH introduced it could cap billions of {dollars} in medical analysis given to universities and most cancers getting used to develop therapies for illnesses comparable to most cancers and Alzheimer’s.

Kennedy, too, has referred to as for a staffing overhaul on the NIH, FDA and CDC. Final 12 months, he promised to fireside 600 staff on the NIH, the nation’s largest funder of biomedical analysis.