Kennedy’s confirmation will breed more harm than good, public health experts say

Many public health experts said their fears were realized Thursday when Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was confirmed as health and human services secretary.

Kennedy, who has a background in environmental law, is the founder of a prominent anti-vaccine activist group that has bought numerous lawsuits against federal health agencies. He has also written several books questioning the safety and effectiveness of routine vaccinations.

Only one Republican member of the GOP-controlled Senate, Sen. Mitch McConnell, of Kentucky, voted alongside Democrats in unanimously opposing Kennedy’s confirmation. In a statement, McConnell, a polio survivor, pointed to Kennedy’s “record of trafficking in dangerous conspiracy theories and eroding trust in public health institutions.”

At Senate hearings last month, Kennedy said his priority as HHS Secretary would be to reverse rising rates of chronic diseases in the U.S., such as diabetes, cancer, asthma and obesity.

Public health experts said they agreed with that goal broadly, but felt that having Kennedy at the helm of the country’s largest and most powerful health agency would do more harm than good.

The HHS secretary oversees a $1.7 trillion annual budget and 13 agencies, including the National Institutes of Health, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Food and Drug Administration. 

Experts worried that Kennedy could appoint vaccine skeptics to key roles within those agencies, set impossible-to-meet standards for vaccine approvals and decline to continue stockpiling the H5N1 vaccines that may be necessary in the event of a bird flu pandemic.

Kennedy has also expressed interest in pausing research on infectious diseases like Covid and measles for the next eight years, which experts said could further prevent scientists from being prepared for future pandemics.

“It’s a sad day for America’s children, and for the health of our nation, when a science denialist and anti-vaccine activist is chosen to head HHS,” said Dr. Paul Offit, director of the Vaccine Education Center at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia.

A representative for Kennedy did not respond to a request for comment. HHS did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Children’s Health Defense, the anti-vaccine group that Kennedy founded, applauded his confirmation on Thursday. 

“Bobby richly deserves this honor, and CHD is confident that he will make great strides toward the goals he has set for HHS: radical transparency, gold-standard science and making America healthy again,” Mary Holland, the group’s CEO, said in a statement.

Kennedy faced intense scrutiny from Democratic senators at his confirmation hearings last month for past statements linking childhood vaccines to autism, referring to Lyme disease as a military bioweapon and claiming that HPV vaccines increase the risk of cervical cancer — all of which are not supported by science. 

Ahead of the hearings, hundreds of scientists and health professionals released a public letter opposing Kennedy’s nomination. 

“His unfounded, fringe beliefs could significantly undermine public health practices across the country and around the world,” they wrote.

After questioning Kennedy on his anti-vaccine positions during a hearing, Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La., said he was “struggling” with how to vote. But Cassidy, a doctor, ultimately voted to confirm Kennedy last week after what he described as “very intense conversations” over the weekend. 

Several public health experts said their concerns weren’t allayed by Kennedy’s comments at the hearings, even after he said he would support the CDC’s recommended vaccination schedule.

“Regardless of what he may have said during his confirmation hearings, I’m way more comfortable looking at his track record over his entire career as an anti-vaccine advocate, and that’s what I imagine he will do as an HHS Secretary,” said Andrew Kelly, associate professor of public health at California State University, East Bay.

Kelly said he became particularly concerned about the confirmation after the Trump administration temporary froze  federal funding and instituted sweeping layoffs across federal health agencies.

“The idea of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as HHS secretary is actually more concerning or terrifying than it was even three weeks ago, particularly because the administration in the short three weeks has shown itself to be comfortable with violating the Constitution,” Kelly said.

He worried that Kennedy may be allowed to withhold money from schools that have vaccine requirements or could appoint anti-vaccine advocates to the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices.

Dr. Syra Madad, a fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, said that under previous administrations, career scientists within federal agencies were a safeguard against political influence.

“The past two weeks in America, it just seems like we’re living in a twilight zone, and I no longer understand if we have those guardrails in place or how effective they are,” Madad said.

Even with constitutional limits on his authority as HHS secretary, Kennedy could still encourage vaccine skepticism by virtue of his new platform, said Matt Motta, an assistant professor of health law and policy at Boston University’s School of Public Health.

“The director of HHS is one of the most visible faces of public health in America,” Motta said. “To have somebody who is skeptical of mainstream science in so many important ways sends a signal that these are positions that are mainstream, that are acceptable.”

However, Motta pointed to a few “silver linings in the dark cloud that hangs over public health right now” — among them, Kennedy’s emphasis on chronic disease research and willingness to challenge corporate influence over food and drug industries.

Other experts said it was hard to muster any optimism after Thursday’s vote.

“His placement at the top of our broader health system just encourages more disinformation, more misinformation, more vaccine skepticism, more anti-vax advocacy, and does so much damage that I can’t even see a silver lining,” Kelly, the associate professor, said.