The Senate has confirmed Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as President Donald Trump’s health secretary, putting the prominent vaccine skeptic in control of $1.7 trillion in federal spending, vaccine recommendations and food safety as well as health insurance programs for roughly half the country.
The vote was mostly along party lines, with just one Republican, former Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, voting “no.”
Kennedy will now serve as one of the nation’s leading public health officials.
The newly-confirmed health secretary has repeatedly asked to see “data” or “science” showing vaccines are safe – but when an influential Republican senator showed him evidence, he dismissed it.
RFK spend the last two days this week, insisting to senators that he’s not anti-vaccine, despite spending most of his career claiming the contrary. He said recently that he instead supports vaccinations and will follow the science in overseeing the $1.7 trillion Department of Health and Human Services, which, among other duties, oversees vaccine research, approval and recommendations.