Vaccine sceptic Robert F Kennedy Jr is on track to be confirmed as the top US health official after a Senate committee voted along party lines to approve his nomination.
The Senate finance committee on Tuesday voted 14 to 13 in favour of his confirmation to run the Department of Health and Human Services, with all Republicans supporting Mr Kennedy and all Democrats voting against. His nomination will go to a full Senate vote later this week.
Republican senator Bill Cassidy, a former medical doctor who chairs the Senate health committee, was seen by Mr Kennedy’s allies as a possible rebel in the tight vote, but he opted to give the nominee the nod.
Mr Cassidy wrote on the social media platform X before the vote that he had held “very intense conversations” with Mr Kennedy and the White House, including with vice-president JD Vance, in the run-up to the vote.
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“With the serious commitments I’ve received from the administration and the opportunity to make progress on the issues we agree on, like healthy foods and a pro-American agenda, I will vote yes,” said Mr Cassidy.
With Mr Cassidy falling in line behind Mr Kennedy, it is now likely his confirmation will pass the full Senate vote, even if three other Republican senators rebel. Possible dissenters include Mitch McConnell, Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski, who voted against the nomination of Pete Hegseth as defence secretary.
Mr Kennedy’s nomination to run the sprawling health department, which has a budget of $1.9 trillion €1.83 trillion) and oversees 13 divisions and agencies including medicines regulator the Food and Drug Administration, has prompted concern from public health officials and pharmaceutical industry insiders owing to his vaccine scepticism and contentious views on a number of health issues.
Over two days of committee hearings last week, Mr Kennedy was grilled by senators about his record of questioning the effects of Covid-19 and MMR vaccines, and his financial stake in a vaccine safety lawsuit against Merck’s blockbuster Gardasil jab. He subsequently promised to relinquish his stake in any proceeds from the case.
Mr Kennedy told senators he was “not anti-vaccine or anti-industry” but instead he was “pro-safety”. When asked about his scepticism of the MMR vaccine – he has repeated a debunked claim that the jab was linked to autism – Mr Kennedy said: “I just want to follow the science, and if the science says I am wrong about what I’ve said in the past, as I said, I will publicly apologise.”
However, US president Donald Trump appeared to endorse his claims on Tuesday, posting on his Truth Social platform: “20 years ago, Autism in children was 1 in 10,000. NOW IT’S 1 in 34. WOW! Something’s really wrong. We need BOBBY!!!”
In a separate development, El Salvador’s president Nayib Bukele has said the Central American country could take convicted prisoners from the US in exchange for a fee.
During a visit by US secretary of state Marco Rubio, Bukele on Monday, Mr Bukele agreed to take El Salvadoran gang members as well as “violent illegal immigrants ... from any country”, the US state department said in a statement.
Mr Bukele also said El Salvador could take in US citizens and legal residents convicted of crimes and house them in maximum security prisons, which the state department called “an extraordinary gesture never before extended by any country”, though it was not clear if Washington would accept the offer.
“We have offered the [US] the opportunity to outsource part of its prison system,” Mr Bukele wrote on X. “The fee would be relatively low for the US but significant for us, making our entire prison system sustainable.” − Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2025
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