UPDATED Feb. 4, 12:27 p.m.
The Senate Finance Committee advanced Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s nomination to be the Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services.
The Senate panel voted to advance Kennedy to a full Senate vote by 14-13 along party lines.
Senator Bill Cassidy, R-La., voted to approve Kennedy's nomination after a tense back-and-forth in a Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) committee last week. In the hearing, Cassidy repeatedly pressed Kennedy on vaccines and attempted to fact check his views on vaccine efficacy and the false claim that vaccines cause autism.
Cassidy did not speak during the hearing on Tuesday. However, he posted on X that he had met with Kennedy over the weekend and in the hours before the vote. His post on X credits Vice President J.D. Vance for helping him decide on the nomination.
"I’ve had very intense conversations with Bobby and the White House over the weekend and even this morning," Cassidy wrote on X. "I want to thank VP JD specifically for his honest counsel. 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."
In a speech on the Senate floor after the hearing, Cassidy defended his crucial vote to endorse Robert F. Kennedy Jr. for Health Secretary on the premise of his personal oversight of Kennedy and HHS.
Cassidy based his endorsement on a series of commitments he received over the weekend from Kennedy and the Trump administration and their promise to foster an “unprecedentedly close relationship” between the two men.
Cassidy said he believes Kennedy will follow mainstream science on vaccine safety and restore trust in federal health agencies.
To this end, Kennedy committed to meeting or speaking multiple times per month with Cassidy and to appear before the Senate HELP Committee quarterly if requested by senators. Cassidy will also give his input on hiring decisions at the Department of Health and Human Services to ensure mainstream views are represented in the department, the senator said Tuesday.
Cassidy said the health secretary nominee was also committed to protecting the public health benefit of vaccination, to keep current vaccine safety reporting systems in place and to provide 30-day notice to the HELP committee if they seek to change any federal vaccine safety monitoring programs.
“We had in-depth conversations about the medical literature, about the science behind the safety of vaccines, he referred me to studies and to people, and I spoke to those people," Cassidy said.
Cassidy said the most notable opponents of Kennedy that contacted his office over the weekend were pediatricians.
“Regarding vaccines, Mr. Kennedy has been insistent that he just wants good science to ensure safety. But on this topic this science is good, this science is credible [sic] … But as someone who has discussed immunizations with thousands of people, I do recognize that many mothers need reassurance that the vaccine their child is receiving is necessary, effective, and most of all, safe.”
Kennedy also committed to Cassidy to work within current vaccine approval and safety monitoring systems and not establish parallel systems and maintain the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices’ recommendations without changes.
HHS will not remove statements on the website pointing out that vaccines do not cause autism, Kennedy told Cassidy.
“I will use my authority as chairman of the Senate committee with oversight of HHS to rebuff any attempt to remove the public access to life-saving vaccines without ironclad causational scientific evidence that can be accepted and defended before the mainstream scientific community and before Congress,” Cassidy said. “I will watch carefully for any effort to wrongfully sow public fear about vaccines between confusing references of coincidence and anecdote, but my support is built on assurances that this will not have to be a concern.”
Chair of the Senate Finance Committee Mike Crapo, R-Idaho, endorsed Kennedy in his opening statement. Ranking Democrat Ron Wyden, D-Oregon, called him a “grave threat to the health of the American people.”
Other Democratic Senators also spoke out against his nomination.
The vote of the committee not only formally advances Kennedy’s nomination process, it also provides a recommendation on how other senators should vote in the final floor vote. The floor vote has not yet been set.
During Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s second confirmation hearing, top Republican Bill Cassidy, M.D., aired his struggle with whether to confirm RFK Jr. to the nation’s top health post given his recent statements linking vaccines to autism.
RFK Jr. testified on Thursday before the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) committee,
Cassidy, a physician and chair of the Senate HELP Committee, said his chief concern is whether RFK Jr. will sow vaccine hesitation among the American public and convince parents to not vaccinate their children if he is confirmed as Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) secretary. The Louisiana senator also sits on the Senate Finance Committee, which will have to vote to advance RFK Jr.'s nomination to the full Senate.
Cassidy used both of his five-minute questioning periods, at the beginning and end of the hearing, to try to pin down RFK Jr.’s views.
“Now, what concerns me is that you've cast doubt on some of these vaccines recently, I mean, like in the last few years, but the data, and I can quote some of it, the data has been there for a long time," Cassidy said. He specifically asked RFK Jr. about measles and hepatitis B vaccines, which have ample literature on safety and efficacy.
RFK Jr. first tried to respond to Cassidy saying that if he is shown said data, he will believe it. “I am not going to go into HHS and impose my pre-ordained opinions … I'm going to empower the scientists at HHS to do their job,” RFK Jr. testified Thursday.
Cassidy said he spent a considerable part of his career working to prevent hepatitis B after a turning-point moment in his career when a young patient nearly died of the disease. After, Cassidy led a vaccination effort in Louisiana to vaccinate 36,000 kids against hepatitis B.
“As a physician who's been involved in immunization programs, I've seen the benefits of vaccinations,” Cassidy said in his opening remarks. “I know they save lives. I know they're a crucial part of keeping our nation healthy.”
Cassidy also doesn’t want RFK Jr.'s actions to cast a shadow on President Donald Trump’s legacy.
“You may not want this to be the case, but I have constituents who partly credit you for their decision to not vaccinate their child,” he said. "You have an incredible bully pulpit," Cassidy said earlier.
RFK Jr. said he is “evidence driven” and that he is willing to change his mind if credible studies disprove him. RFK Jr. committed to Cassidy that he will not change the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's vaccine recommendations without the support of widely accepted science and that he will not deprioritize vaccine review by the Food and Drug Administration.
Sen. Rand Paul, M.D., R-Kentucky, another physician on the committee, commended RFK Jr.'s skepticism of science and seemed to align himself with the Make America Healthy Again movement. Specifically, he espoused that questioning established scientific guidelines and vaccine recommendations for children is a noble pursuit.
Paul said there’s no reason for “one-day-old babies” to receive a vaccination for hepatitis B, a disease he said is spread by sexual contact and drug use. "That's not science," Paul said.
Cassidy stepped in to correct him and added that hepatitis B can be transmitted to a child if the mother is a carrier. “A vaccine on day one of life prevents chronic hepatitis B 95% of the time. So it really depends upon the knowledge of the mother's hepatitis B status,” Cassidy said.
The third physician on the committee, Sen. Roger Marshall, M.D., R-Kansas, seemed to affirm the view that the science on vaccines is shaky, saying Cassidy, Paul and himself would disagree on who to give which vaccinations and when. Marshall glossed over vaccine talk and instead gave RFK Jr. time to explain how he will address the chronic disease epidemic.
Cassidy and ranking member Bernie Sanders, I-Vermont, aligned more on their concerns about RFK Jr. than Cassidy did with other Republican physicians on the committee. Sanders noted his and Cassidy's agreement was both “uncommon and uncomfortable.” Cassidy also emphasized a point made by Democrat Maggie Hassan that re-litigating facts could keep science stuck in the past.
When asked point blank by Sanders whether the COVID-19 vaccine saved millions of lives, RFK Jr. said he couldn’t be sure because the country does not have a good vaccine surveillance system. “I don’t think anyone can know that,” RFK Jr. said.
Sanders shot back: “You're applying for the job, I mean, clearly you should know this, and that is the scientific community has established that the COVID vaccine saved millions of lives.”
At the end of the hearing, Cassidy pulled a study of 1.2 million children that showed measles vaccines are not linked to autism. RFK Jr. responded saying he saw a study last week that cast doubt on the efficacy of the vaccine schedule on children.
Cassidy said the study “seems to have some problems.”
With a vote on RFK Jr.’s nomination to take place in the Senate Finance Committee next week, Cassidy said in his closing remarks that he would use the weekend to make up his mind.