RFK Jr. was confirmed to be Trump’s health secretary
What will America learn from the Senate confirmation of John Kennedy? Five key issues about the future of health care and Medicare for children, adults, and children
The Senate voted today to confirm Kennedy as the secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, which has a budget of US$ 1.7 trillion and include the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Kennedy has embraced some fields of biomedical research. But he has shown hostility to others, and has rejected established science on the efficacy of COVID-19 vaccines, the safety of vaccines in general and other topics. (Kennedy told the Senate that he supports vaccines and believes that they have saved lives.)
Kennedy has been one of the country’s vaccine opponents. During confirmation hearings, he repeatedly claimed he was not anti-vaccine or against the vaccine schedule, and he said he supported certain vaccines, including the one for polio. He would not accept, however, that the link between autism and vaccines had been thoroughly debunked.
The vote was 52 to 48. Sen. Mitch McConnell, the former Republican majority leader and a polio survivor, was the sole Republican joining Democrats to vote against Kennedy.
McConnell told the Associated Press that the moment reminded him of his childhood fear when it came to polio, and that he supports the vaccine and efforts to develop treatments.
There are many questions about the future of Medicare and vaccines. Kennedy is going to take control of the health agency in the next few weeks and here are five key issues to watch.
But cuts well beyond waste and abuse may well be coming anyway to free up funds for Trump’s priorities like tax cuts and border security. Conservative groups and Republican lawmakers have long argued that Medicaid has grown too big — during the COVID-19 pandemic, enrollment grew to 80 million people. The House Republicans proposed cutting Medicaid by a grand total of $880 billion. States would likely reduce benefits and limit eligibility. Medicare could also be in for cuts of some kind as well.
President Trump said his team wouldn’t cut Medicaid, Medicare or Social Security, but it would be related to waste or abuse, and didn’t affect beneficiaries.
Mehmet Oz, a doctor, TV personality and former candidate for the US Senate in Pennsylvania, was chosen by Trump to lead the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. A date for Oz’s confirmation hearing is not yet set.
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As senators voted to confirm Kennedy, a measles outbreak continued in Texas. As Marfa Public Radio reported, nine people have been hospitalized in an outbreak of at least 24 measles cases in Gaines County, which has one of the lowest vaccination rates in the United States. Most of the cases are children who were unvaccinated.
The committee’s former chair, Sen. Patty Murray, said that the promises weren’t true. “Republicans are choosing to pretend like it is in any way believable that RFK Jr. won’t use his new power to do exactly the thing he has been trying to do for decades: undermine vaccines,” she said.
Kennedy can do a lot on vaccines, including appointing advisors, directing research and changing public health messaging. Public health advocates will be following what Kennedy does in this arena.
With a budget of almost $2 trillion, the HHS has a lot of people to work with. A huge part of that budget is Medicare and Medicaid, the public health programs for seniors and low-income people respectively. DOGE staffers have been at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services for the past several weeks, CMS officials told NPR.
Other health agencies that are part of HHS include the Food and Drug Administration, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the National Institutes of Health.
The Heritage Foundation has a plan for dramatic changes to HHS that is so closely aligned with Doge’s actions, such as splitting the CDC into two agencies. Kennedy hasn’t spoken a lot about his plans for the agencies, except to tell the agency that it would be fired and that it would investigate the root causes of chronic diseases.
Several executive orders about “ideology” caused federal health agencies to delete scores of databases and web pages that included forbidden terms like “gender,” although seemingly unrelated websites on tuberculosis and natural disasters went dark as well. Many in public health and medicine are alarmed by the sudden disappearance of resources, but a federal judge ordered the agencies to restore those pages. It’s especially unclear how research that involves groups that cannot be mentioned, like transgender people, can now proceed.
Biomedical research — long a source of bipartisan support and national pride — has not been spared either. NIH’s grants to research institutions have already been targeted for dramatic cuts, another move that is currently paused by a federal judge. Several Republican senators have spoken out about how damaging this blanket policy could be to larger research institutions. Kennedy promised Collins that he would reexamine the policy when he was confirmed.
“Individuals, parents, and families have a right to push for a healthier nation and demand the best possible scientific guidance on preventing and treating illness. But a record of trafficking in dangerous conspiracy theories and eroding trust in public health institutions does not entitle Mr. Kennedy to lead these important efforts.
He hasn’t yet laid out how he can use policy and his power overseeing the agencies to “put the health of America back on track.” He spoke a lot during the hearings about food programs outside of HHS’ jurisdiction, suggesting maybe he will seek to work with the Department of Agriculture to collaborate on programs like SNAP.
There are powerful industries that could push back against some of his goals like Big Food and Big Pharma, as NPR has reported. And some public health researchers question how realistic such an overhaul will be in a Republican-controlled, regulation-unfriendly federal government.
The president said at a press conference that he didn’t know about McConnell’s case of the illness and that McConnell wasn’t fit to be the Republican leader. Trump said that he was a very bitter guy.
McConnell was the only Republican senator to vote against Pete Hegseth for defense secretary and he also voted against the director of national intelligence.
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The vaccine was available when he contracted the disease, and he was paralyzed in his left leg. Immunization campaigns starting in the 1950s eventually eliminated the scourge in the U.S.
The 82-year-old McConnell, who has served in the Senate since 1985 and is the longest serving party leader in that body, recovered from polio when he was 4. He still walks with a limp and suffers health problems related to the illness.
Bill Cassidy was hesitant but changed his mind last week after learning of promises Kennedy made him.
“The future of America as a superpower in research appears grim,” says Theodora Hatziioannou, a virologist at the Rockefeller University in New York City, who creates new models for studying HIV ― which Kennedy has falsely suggested is not the cause of AIDS. He doesn’t follow scientific evidence, even on issues he supports. Selecting a person like this to lead is akin to having a wolf guard the sheep.
Even some researchers who could benefit from an emphasis on chronic disease are wary. Eric Lau, a cancer researcher at the Moffitt Cancer Center in Tampa, Florida, says that the federal government should be more focused on increasing funding for biomedical research, even though it would be nice to see more money poured into studying cancer.
Both he and Larry Schlesinger, a physician-scientist and chief executive of the Texas Biomedical Research Institute in San Antonio, say that the idea of cutting one field to benefit another creates a false dichotomy between chronic and infectious disease that isn’t rooted in scientific reality.
As an example of how tightly the two are linked, researchers cite increasing evidence that some chronic conditions stem from infectious diseases: infection with human papillomavirus (HPV), for instance, can cause cancer of the cervix and other tissues. He says that chronic conditions now need to be focused on infectious diseases, because he was diagnosed with oral cancer after getting a sexually transmitted disease. Infections and inflammation are an important part of chronic conditions.
Scientists say that this is a bad time to cut research into infectious diseases because of the ongoing outbreak of bird flu.
As part of his ‘Make America Healthy Again’ pledge, Kennedy has repeatedly called for further studies into diet and nutrition, as well as research on the links between environmental pollution and human health. During his January hearing, Kennedy said that scientists “know” that obesity is caused by “an environmental toxin”, and asked why researchers haven’t dedicated themselves to finding and eliminating it.
The US Senate has voted to confirm Ted Kennedy as the secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), which oversees the FDA, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and National Institutes of Health. Kennedy told the Senate that he supported vaccines and believes that they have saved lives. Kennedy can do a lot on vaccines including appointing advisors.