Vaccine critic RFK Jr confirmed as US health secretary

WASHINGTON: The Republican-controlled US Senate confirmed Robert F Kennedy Jr as health secretary on Thursday, elevating his anti-vaccine advocacy to the highest levels of government despite dire warnings from the medical community.

Known widely as "RFK Jr", the 71-year-old nephew of the late president John F Kennedy, secured confirmation in a 52-48 vote largely along party lines, becoming the latest contentious addition to President Donald Trump's cabinet.

Kennedy now heads a department overseeing 80,000 employees and a $1.7 trillion budget as scientists warn of a potential bird flu pandemic and with declining vaccination rates leading to the resurgence of once-vanquished childhood diseases.

World Health Organisation (WHO) chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus was quick to offer congratulations on X. Trump has announced the United States, the WHO's top donor country, will leave the organisation — a decision Tedros has urged him to reconsider.

Once a celebrated environmental lawyer who sued chemical giant Monsanto and accused climate-change deniers of being traitors, Kennedy has spent much of the past two decades touting conspiracy theories: from linking childhood vaccines to autism and suggesting the COVID virus spared Ashkenazi Jews and Chinese people to casting doubt on whether germs truly cause infectious diseases.

Yet it was his shift toward Republican positions — particularly on abortion rights, which he once supported but has since signalled a willingness to further restrict — that won over conservative lawmakers wary of his past.

During heated confirmation hearings, Democrats pointed to lucrative consulting fees from law firms suing pharmaceutical companies as glaring conflicts of interest. They also highlighted allegations of sexual misconduct and his claims linking school shootings to antidepressants.

Ultimately, only one Republican voted against him: former Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell, a childhood survivor of polio. Democrats were united in opposition.

"I will not condone the re-litigation of proven cures, and neither will millions of Americans who credit their survival and quality of life to scientific miracles," said the 82-year-old, who is not expected to seek re-election.

Make America Healthy Again

Kennedy found firmer footing when promoting his "Make America Healthy Again" (MAHA) agenda — a play on Trump's signature MAGA slogan — emphasising the need to combat the nation's chronic disease crisis by holding the food industry more accountable.

Such ideas have broad appeal, though experts question how he will implement them given his troubled relationship with scientific evidence.

Kennedy initially launched an independent presidential bid in 2024, making headlines with a string of bizarre revelations, including a claim that he recovered from a parasitic brain worm and a tale that he once decapitated a dead whale.

Last year, 77 Nobel Prize winners penned an open letter opposing his nomination, while some of his harshest critics came from within his own family.

Cousin Caroline Kennedy, a former diplomat, accused him of being a "predator" who led younger relatives down the path of drug addiction.

'Disaster waiting to happen'

"This is a disaster waiting to happen — and it will happen," a leading vaccine expert at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, Paul Offit, told AFP.

Democratic Senator Patty Murray accused Republicans of wilful ignorance.

"They are choosing to pretend it's even remotely believable that RFK Jr won't use his new power to do exactly what he's spent decades trying to do — undermine vaccines," she said, warning he could dismantle the government's vaccine advisory committee, which determines which shots must be covered by insurance.

The Senate has approved all of Trump's cabinet picks so far, underscoring his iron grip on the Republican Party.

Among them is Tulsi Gabbard, confirmed on Wednesday as the nation's spy chief despite past support for adversarial nations including Russia and Syria.

Meanwhile, Trump's pick to lead the FBI, Kash Patel, cleared a key committee vote on Thursday and now awaits final Senate approval.

A staunch loyalist, Patel has repeatedly promoted election fraud conspiracies and recently published a book naming 60 Trump critics — dubbed an "enemies list" by Democrats.