The official purpose of Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.’s marathon Senate confirmation hearings this week was for lawmakers to decide if Kennedy is fit to oversee 80,000 employees and a $1.8 trillion annual budget as secretary of Health and Human Services.
But as a longtime environmental lawyer turned prominent vaccine skeptic, Kennedy has staked out so many positions in conflict with scientific consensus that his hearings also served as a big public clash over some of today’s most controversial and confusing health issues.
Here’s a quick guide to senators’ key concerns about Kennedy — and how he responded.
Vaccines
This week, Kennedy insisted that he is “pro-safety and pro-science” rather than “anti-vaccine” — while arguing that critics call him a conspiracy theorist “mainly” to prevent him “from asking difficult questions of powerful interests.”
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Yet in recent years, Kennedy has made a career “questioning” the science of vaccination, falsely claiming in more than 100 public appearances that shots recommended by medical professionals and federal authorities have “poisoned an entire generation of American children” by triggering autism, allergies and chronic disease.
“There’s no vaccine that is safe and effective,” he said in a 2023 podcast interview. (Last April, a major landmark study published in the Lancet showed that global immunization efforts have saved an estimated 154 million lives over the past 50 years — including the lives of 101 million infants.)
On Wednesday and Thursday, Democratic senators — and at least one of their Republican colleagues — repeatedly pressed Kennedy to clarify his position now that he might have the power to reshape U.S. vaccine policy as HHS secretary. (In that role, Kennedy has said that he would conduct more federal reviews of vaccines but would not seek to remove them from the market.)
Republican Sen. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana asked Kennedy about his debunked claims that measles and hepatitis B shots cause autism, but Kennedy refused to budge, saying only that “if you show me data, I will be the first person to assure the American people they should take these vaccines.”
Dozens of studies conducted in recent decades have already demonstrated that there is no link between vaccination and autism spectrum disorder.
“That is a very troubling response because the studies are there,” snapped independent Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont. “Your job was to have looked at those studies as an applicant for this job.”
Kennedy continued to cast doubt on mRNA vaccines as well. (He previously called the mRNA shots for COVID-19 “the deadliest vaccine[s] ever made” — which is false — and petitioned the Food and Drug Administration to revoke their authorization.) When Kennedy conceded Thursday that he would distribute a bird-flu vaccine if necessary — despite previously calling the federal stockpile “dangerous” — Democratic Sen. Andy Kim of New Jersey asked if mRNA shots would qualify. “I need to look at all the data,” Kennedy replied.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren, a Democrat representing Massachusetts, asked Kennedy if he accepted any responsibility for a recent measles outbreak on Samoa that killed 83 people, mostly babies and children. (The prime minister halted the nation’s vaccination program in 2018, and Kennedy traveled there the following year at the behest of someone he called a “medical freedom hero” who was later arrested for spreading vaccine misinformation. At the time, Kennedy blamed “defective vaccines” for the deaths.)
“No, absolutely not,” Kennedy responded to Warren.
Kennedy tried to assure the senators that he was “supportive,” as he put it, of certain other vaccines, agreeing at one point that the polio vaccine is safe and effective and vowing that he would “do nothing as HHS secretary that makes it difficult or discourages people from taking it.”
He struck a similar note on the HPV vaccine, which has been found effective in lowering cervical cancer rates, even though he previously called it “dangerous and defective” and is currently engaged in a lawsuit against its maker.
Cassidy — a physician who spoke about how vaccines had saved, or could have saved, his patients — did not sound convinced by Kennedy’s answers, and Cassidy could be the decisive vote to advance Kennedy’s nomination.
“My concern is that if there is any false note, any undermining of a mama’s trust in vaccines, another person will die from a vaccine-preventable disease,” Cassidy told Kennedy. “And that is why I have been struggling with your nomination.”
“You may be hearing from me over the weekend,” the senator added.
Abortion
Before aligning with Trump, Kennedy — a member of America’s most famous Democratic clan — identified as staunchly pro-choice.
“I wouldn’t leave abortion to the states,” he said in 2024. “My belief is we should leave it to the woman. We shouldn’t have the government involved … even if it’s full term.”
Yet facing pushback from Republicans at Wednesday’s hearing, Kennedy instead emphasized that “every abortion is a tragedy” — and vowed to “implement [Trump’s] policies” as HHS secretary because he would be serving “at the pleasure of the president.”
“I agree with [Trump] that we cannot be a moral nation if we have 1.2 million abortions a year,” Kennedy said. “I agree with him that the states should control abortion.”
Kennedy also promised further investigation of mifepristone, a drug used in so-called medication abortions, which is currently the most common way to end pregnancy. The pill has already been extensively investigated for safety — and found to have fewer adverse outcomes than Tylenol.
He did not answer directly when asked if he would restrict access to mifepristone.
“[Trump] has not yet taken a stand on how to regulate it,” he said. “Whatever he does, I will implement those policies.”
Kennedy also pledged to follow Trump’s lead on “end[ing] late-term abortions”; “protect[ing] conscientious exemptions”; and “end[ing] federal funding for abortions abroad.”
“What I care most about is what he’s going to do,” Republican Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri said earlier this week. “I can’t change his views, but I can certainly get commitments from him about what he’s going to actually do.”
Medicare/Medicaid
If confirmed, Kennedy would oversee the implementation of Medicare (for seniors) and Medicaid (for low-income patients).
But he seemed unfamiliar Wednesday with the nuances of these massive government health care programs responsible for covering more than 150 million Americans; at times, he even appeared to mix them up.
Kennedy said Medicaid was “fully paid for by the federal government”; it’s actually a split between Washington, D.C., and the states. He also claimed Medicaid premiums and deductibles are “too high”; in reality, the vast majority of Americans on Medicaid don’t pay any premiums or deductibles. When asked how he would reform the program, Kennedy said he would “increase transparency” and “increase accountability,” but failed to provide any specifics.
“I don’t have a broad proposal,” he admitted.
Kennedy’s missteps — he also struggled to define the basic components of Medicare — prompted Democratic Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon to suggest he might be “unprepared” for the job. “My colleagues have been seeing back-and-forth between Medicare and Medicaid, and it’s not clear which program you’re using when,” Wyden said.
Kennedy “just didn’t understand the architecture of the programs he would run,” Wyden added later.
Fluoride
In November, Kennedy said in a social media post that the “Trump White House will advise all U.S. water systems to remove fluoride from public water,” claiming it is “an industrial waste” associated with a slew of health problems.
The following day, Trump told NBC News he had yet not spoken to Kennedy about fluoride, “but it sounds OK to me. You know it’s possible.”
Since 1945, community fluoridation has reduced tooth decay by about 25% in U.S. children and adults. “Expert panels consisting of scientists from the United States and other countries, with expertise in various health and scientific disciplines, have considered the available evidence in peer-reviewed literature and have not found convincing scientific evidence linking community water fluoridation with any potential adverse health effect or systemic disorder,” the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention states on its website.
The only documented problem, the CDC added, is fluorosis, a condition that can discolor teeth. To address fluorosis, U.S. officials in 2015 lowered the recommended concentration of fluoride in drinking water to 0.7 milligrams per liter (down from as much as 1.2 milligrams previously). That equals about 3 drops in a 55-gallon barrel.
During Wednesday’s hearing, Kennedy cited a recent study that linked fluoride exposures to lower I.Q. scores as proof that his concerns about fluoridated drinking water have been validated.
“I was called a conspiracy theorist because I said fluoride lowered IQ,” Kennedy said. “Last week JAMA published a meta review of 87 studies saying that there’s a direct inverse correlation between IQ lost.”
That research, however, was based on fluoride levels at about twice the recommended U.S. limit.
Mental health medications
In an April 2024 appearance on Bill Maher’s podcast, Kennedy speculated, despite a lack of scientific evidence to support such claims, that antidepressant use could explain the rise of school shootings in the U.S. in recent years.
“It really started happening conterminous with the introduction of these drugs, with Prozac and the other drugs,” Kennedy said.
He has also referred to people who take ADHD medication or serotonin uptake inhibitors (SSRIs) for depression as “addicts” who should be sent to “wellness farms” in rural areas along with those dependent on opioids.
“Listen, I know people, including members of my family, who’ve had a much worse time getting off of SSRIs than people have getting off heroin,” Kennedy said Wednesday.
Kennedy is right to note that the use of prescription stimulants to treat ADHD and mental health has been rising steadily since 2012 — though only 9.3% of children take medication for mental health or improving concentration, according to CDC estimates, not the 15% Kennedy claimed. And adult women, not kids, have been responsible for most of the recent increase in usage.
Experts say Kennedy’s claims about addiction and school shootings are false, however, as Democratic Sen. Tina Smith of Minnesota noted Wednesday.
“This is personal for me,” Smith said. “[SSRIs] helped me clear my mind, get me back on track to being a mom and a wife and a productive, happy person. And I’m really grateful for that therapy.”
“These statements that you’ve made … reinforce the stigma that people who experience mental health every day face every single day,” she continued. “And I’m very concerned that this is another example of your record of sharing false and misleading information that actually really hurts people.”
Food and drink
The least contentious parts of Kennedy’s hearings came when he focused on his desire to “Make America Healthy Again” by improving what Americans eat and drink — particularly young Americans.
“We will scrutinize the chemical additives in our food supply. We will remove financial conflicts from our agencies. … We will reverse the chronic disease epidemic and put the nation back on the road to good health,” he said in his opening statement.
A full 40% of U.S. children have a chronic health condition like autism, diabetes, asthma or allergies — a figure that’s even higher when obesity is included.
Food safety advocates generally agree with Kennedy that the U.S. would benefit from greater oversight of additives. Researchers have also found consistent correlations between the consumption of ultraprocessed foods and a range of health conditions, according to the New York Times, including heart disease, type 2 diabetes, gastrointestinal diseases and some kinds of cancer.
“We need to fix our food supply,” Kennedy said Wednesday. “And that’s the number one thing.”
“I very much agree with the slogan you coined, ‘Make America Healthy Again,'” Sanders admitted. “And I strongly agree with that effort.”