When Robert F. Kennedy Jr. starts the first of two days of confirmation hearings on Wednesday, it won’t be just a big moment for the former environmental lawyer and presidential candidate. It will also be a breakthrough event for the once-fringe anti-vaccine movement, as Senators weigh allowing one of its most high-profile boosters to head the nation’s top health agency.
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Vaccines prevent tens of thousands of deaths and millions of cases of disease each year, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Medical experts are concerned that those gains are in jeopardy. The percentage of Americans who consider childhood vaccines important has declined in the past two decades. According to polling from Gallup released last year, about 40% of Americans say it is extremely important for parents to have their children vaccinated. That is down from 58% in 2019 and 64% in 2001.
For decades, Kennedy has been one of the most well-known anti-vaxers in the country, helping spread doubts about their safety in the face of decades of medical data that shows they have saved lives and improved public health. He has also helped legal efforts to tear down vaccine mandates. After a 2015 measles outbreak at Disneyland in Anaheim, Calif. showed that a large number of infected patients hadn’t been vaccinated, Kennedy helped lobby to block several state efforts to close loopholes in vaccine requirements. In 2019, Kennedy helped spread anti-vaccine sentiment in Samoa as the Pacific Island nation was in the midst of a deadly measles epidemic.
Kennedy will appear before the Senate Finance Committee on Wednesday and the health committee on Thursday. Whether or not he is confirmed, those high-profile hearings could amount to an advertisement for the anti-vax movement, some fear. Dr. Tom Frieden, a former director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the current president and CEO of the health nonprofit Resolve to Save Lives, warns against the dangers of feeding anti-vax sentiment, which he describes as “a matter of life and death.”
“Undermining confidence in vaccines undermines the health and safety of children and all Americans,” Frieden says. “False and misleading claims about vaccines also divert energy and attention from figuring out what really causes chronic illnesses such as autism.”
Trump told voters during the campaign that he would let Kennedy “go wild” on health care. While Kennedy has in recent months talked often about a desire to target ultraprocessed foods, many of his supporters expect him to make major changes to the course of U.S. vaccine policy. Kennedy’s allies have encouraged him to dismantle the government’s panel on vaccine safety and recommendations, called the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices. If confirmed as HHS secretary, Kennedy would be able to stack the panel with vaccine skeptics.
Read more: Trump Draws False Link Between Vaccines and Autism in TIME Interview
Advocates who have been working to undermine public faith in childhood vaccine requirements for decades have been giddy to find themselves welcomed into Donald Trump’s revamped Republican Party. They even had their own ball last week during Trump’s inauguration festivities. The MAHA Inaugural Ball, using the acronym for Make American Healthy Again, was sponsored by MAHA Action, the political action committee Kennedy started last year after suspending his own fledgling presidential bid and endorsing Trump.
Del Bigtree, the founder of the Informed Consent Action Network that promotes allowing parents to opt out of childhood vaccine requirements, described the ball as an “amazing moment” during a broadcast of his online show The HighWire. Bigtree was also a former spokesman for Kennedy’s presidential campaign. “Media covered it, there was Vogue articles and Fox and so many different reporters covered the MAHA ball, very very exciting, and all the who’s who of holistic health and fitness and wellness and nutrition, all in one building—many of the O.G.s of the vaccine risk-awareness movement.”
In his testimony before his Senate hearing on Wednesday, Kennedy plans to say he’s not “anti-vaccine or anti-industry” and that he’s “pro-safety,” according to Bloomberg News. That is an abrupt shift from his years of public skepticism and advancing the debunked claim that the measles vaccine is linked to autism and the false idea that the polio vaccine is more deadly than polio itself.
Kennedy is all but certain to face questioning at his hearings from multiple long-time vaccine supporters, including Republican Senator Bill Cassidy, a medical doctor who has promoted vaccines in his home state of Louisiana. Cassidy will have the chance to question Kennedy both days, as he is chairman of the Senate health committee and sits on the finance committee. It is unclear how much Cassidy will focus on vaccines during his questioning, but he said on Fox News Sunday earlier this month that Kennedy was “wrong” on vaccinations.
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