Robert F Kennedy Jr. says he is ‘not anti-vaccine'; backs Donald Trump's anti-abortion policy in Senate hearing
Robert F Kennedy Jr, Donald Trump's nominee for health secretary, faced scrutiny during his Senate confirmation hearing over his controversial vaccine views.
Robert F Kennedy Jr, the Donald Trump nominee for secretary of health and human services, was on Wednesday grilled by the US Senate finance committee in a nomination hearing.
Kennedy Jr views on COVID-19 vaccines have been controversial, to say the least. Better known as RFK, the senator has publically spoken against the vaccines, even discouraging parents from getting their kids vaccinated.
Kennedy Jr also said he supports Donald Trump's anti-abortion policies, including ending federal funding for the procedure at home and abroad and protecting conscious exemptions for anti-abortion health workers.
It was only natural that his views on vaccines came up during his Senate confirmation hearing. Trump's pick for health secretary defended himself against the allegations, saying that he was ‘pro safety’.
"News reports have claimed that I'm anti-vaccine or any industry. I am neither. I am pro-safety. I worked for years to raise awareness about the mercury and toxic chemicals in fish, but that didn’t make me anti-fish. All of my kids are vaccinated, and I believe vaccines have a critical role in healthcare," he was quoted as saying by ABC News.
Kennedy Jr. further listed the vaccines he supports and said that, as health secretary, he would not make it difficult for people to take them.
"I support the measles vaccine. I support the polio vaccine. I will do nothing as HHS secretary that makes it difficult or discourages people from taking it," Kennedy testified.
Kennedy Jr., son of Robert F Kennedy and nephew of former US President John F Kennedy, was a contender for a presidential nomination as a Democrat before he threw his weight behind Donald Trump.
What has Robert F Kennedy Jr. said about vaccines in the past?
Robert F Kennedy Jr. has been quite critical of vaccines in his past comments. He has openly criticised COVID-19 vaccines in particular but has also held a generally negative view about the rest of them.
In an interview with Fox News in 2023, he claimed that “autism comes from vaccines”.
“There’s no vaccine that is safe and effective,” he was quoted by Associated Press to have said. In a 2021 podcast, he urged people to “resist” the Center for Disease Control (CDC) guidelines on when kids should get vaccines.
RFK Jr says he supports Trump's anti-abortion policies
RFK Jr. backed President Donald Trump on abortion, giving up his earlier stance that it should be legal ‘up to a certain limit’.
"I agree with President Trump that every abortion is a tragedy. I agree with him that we cannot be a moral nation if we have 1.2 million abortions a year," Kennedy was quoted as saying by news agency AP during the hearing.
It was not immediately clear what figure he was citing. The Guttmacher Institute, a reproductive health policy and research group, estimates there were just over a million US abortions in 2023.
Kennedy still has one more hearing to go. He will be grilled by the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee on Thursday.