{"id":15885,"date":"2025-02-04T19:09:59","date_gmt":"2025-02-04T19:09:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/financialrush.com\/?p=15885"},"modified":"2025-02-04T19:09:59","modified_gmt":"2025-02-04T19:09:59","slug":"robert-f-kennedy-jr-passes-senate-committee-hurdle","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/financialrush.com\/?p=15885","title":{"rendered":"Robert F Kennedy Jr passes Senate committee hurdle"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> \n<\/p>\n<div>\n<p>Unlock the White House Watch newsletter for free<\/p>\n<p class=\"article__content-sign-up-topic-description\">Your guide to what the 2024 US election means for Washington and the world<\/p>\n<p><iframe class=\"article__content-sign-up-iframe close\" scrolling=\"no\" id=\"signUpIframe\" data-prev-url=\"\/register\/in-article-sign-up?ft-content-uuid=1a0409d0-3d40-437e-ac1b-da093c3e1a34&amp;newsletter-id=65b8fec772badb00166eafc6\"><\/iframe><\/div>\n<div id=\"article-body\">\n<p>Vaccine sceptic Robert F Kennedy Jr is on track to be confirmed as the top US health official after a Senate committee voted along party lines to approve his nomination.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The Senate finance committee on Tuesday voted 14 to 13 in favour of his confirmation to run the Department of Health and Human Services, with all Republicans supporting <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ft.com\/stream\/d3951eda-58b2-422b-8116-5936a39837d1\" data-trackable=\"link\">Kennedy<\/a> and all Democrats voting against. His nomination will go to a full senate vote later this week. <\/p>\n<p>Republican senator Bill Cassidy, a former medical doctor who chairs the Senate health committee, was seen by Kennedy\u2019s allies as a possible rebel in the tight vote, but he opted to give the nominee the nod.<\/p>\n<p>Cassidy wrote on social media platform X before the vote that he had held \u201cvery intense conversations\u201d with Kennedy and the White House, including with vice-president JD Vance, in the run-up to the vote.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWith the serious commitments I\u2019ve received from the administration and the opportunity to make progress on the issues we agree on, like healthy foods and a pro-American agenda, I will vote yes,\u201d said Cassidy.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>With Cassidy falling in line behind Kennedy, it is now likely his confirmation will pass the full senate vote, even if three other Republican senators rebel. Possible dissenters include Mitch McConnell, Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski, who voted against the nomination of Pete Hegseth as defence secretary.<\/p>\n<p>Kennedy\u2019s nomination to run the sprawling <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ft.com\/stream\/98871b06-be45-4e28-9a12-29712749dd8f\" data-trackable=\"link\">health department<\/a>, which has a budget of $1.9tn and oversees 13 divisions and agencies including medicines regulator the Food and Drug Administration, has prompted concern from public health officials and pharmaceutical industry insiders owing to his vaccine scepticism and contentious views on a number of health issues. <\/p>\n<p>Over two days of committee hearings last week, Kennedy was grilled by senators about his record of questioning the effects <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ft.com\/content\/d2300063-ae5d-42f4-b209-115743f5d9eb\" data-trackable=\"link\">of Covid-19 and MMR vaccines<\/a>, and his financial stake in a vaccine safety lawsuit against Merck\u2019s blockbuster Gardasil jab. He subsequently promised to relinquish his stake in any proceeds from the case. <\/p>\n<aside aria-labelledby=\"aside-label\" class=\"n-content-recommended--single-story n-content-recommended--inset\" data-component=\"recommended\">\n<p class=\"n-content-recommended__title\">Recommended<\/p>\n<div class=\"o-teaser o-teaser--article o-teaser--small o-teaser--stacked o-teaser--has-image o-teaser--opinion js-teaser\" data-id=\"b1ef1e7c-45fc-4d1e-a10d-df4e9e06d934\">\n<div class=\"o-teaser__image-container js-teaser-image-container\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.ft.com\/content\/b1ef1e7c-45fc-4d1e-a10d-df4e9e06d934\" data-trackable=\"image-link\" tabindex=\"-1\" aria-hidden=\"true\"><\/p>\n<div class=\"o-teaser__image-placeholder\" style=\"aspect-ratio:2290\/1288\"><\/div>\n<p><\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/aside>\n<p>Kennedy told senators last week that he was \u201cnot anti-vaccine or anti-industry\u201d but instead he was \u201cpro-safety\u201d. When asked about his scepticism of the MMR vaccine \u2014 he has repeated a debunked claim that the jab was linked to autism \u2014 Kennedy said: \u201cI just want to follow\u00a0the science, and if the science says I am wrong about what I\u2019ve said in the past, as I said, I will publicly apologise.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>However, Donald Trump appeared to endorse his claims on Tuesday, posting on his <a href=\"https:\/\/truthsocial.com\/@realDonaldTrump\/posts\/113946130240319294\" data-trackable=\"link\">Truth Social platform<\/a>: \u201c20 years ago, Autism in children was 1 in 10,000. NOW IT\u2019S 1 in 34. WOW! Something\u2019s really wrong. We need BOBBY!!!\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.ft.com\/content\/1a0409d0-3d40-437e-ac1b-da093c3e1a34\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Unlock the White House Watch newsletter for free Your guide to what the 2024 US election means for&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":15886,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15885","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-us","cs-entry","cs-video-wrap"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/financialrush.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15885","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/financialrush.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/financialrush.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/financialrush.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/financialrush.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=15885"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/financialrush.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15885\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/financialrush.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/15886"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/financialrush.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=15885"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/financialrush.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=15885"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/financialrush.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=15885"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}