Robert F. Kennedy Jr will insist that he isn’t “anti-vaccine” at his Senate confirmation hearing as President Donald Trump’s nominee for secretary of Health and Human Services on Wednesday.
“I want to make sure the Committee is clear about a few things. News reports have claimed that I am anti-vaccine or anti-industry. Well, I am neither; I am pro-safety,” Kennedy will say in his opening statement, according to Fox News Digital.
Kennedy’s nomination to Trump’s Cabinet has faced some of the strongest resistance among the president’s appointments.
Over 15,000 doctors signed a letter this month urging senators not to approve Kennedy’s appointment, calling him “actively dangerous” and slamming his “well-documented history of spreading dangerous disinformation on vaccines and public health interventions, leaving vulnerable communities unprotected and placing millions of lives at risk.”
That letter followed a similar intervention in December from 77 Nobel laureates who warned lawmakers that Kennedy has “been an opponent of many health-protecting and life-saving vaccines,” as well as a “promoter of conspiracy theories about remarkably successful treatments.”
Kennedy has attempted to ease anxieties about his views on vaccines since Trump’s election victory in November, publicly declaring that he doesn’t intend to take vaccines away from people.
He’s now set to try and give further reassurances at his confirmation hearings which will begin before the Senate Finance Committee on Wednesday and continue at the Health, Education, Labor and Pension Committee Thursday.
Kennedy will highlight in his opening statement that “all of my kids are vaccinated, and I believe vaccines have a critical role in healthcare.”
“In my advocacy, I have disturbed the status quo by asking uncomfortable questions,” he’ll say, according to Fox News. “Well, I won’t apologize for that. We have massive health problems in this country that we must face honestly.”
Criticism of Kennedy’s appointment hasn’t just come from the medical community.
His cousin, Caroline Kennedy, told the Senate on Tuesday that she views him as a “predator” who has enriched himself through his “crusade against vaccination.” The former ambassador to Australia also said she thought his views on vaccines are ”dangerous,” during a speech at the National Press Club of Australia in November.
In his opening statement, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. thank his wife—Curb Your Enthusiasm star Cheryl Hines—as well as “all the members of my large extended family, for the love that they have so generously shared,” according to Fox News.
“Ours has always been a family devoted to public service, and I look forward to continuing that legacy,” Kennedy will say. He will also express his gratitude to Trump for choosing him to be the man to “deliver on [Trump’s] promise to make America healthy again.”
