US President Donald Trump’s nominee to lead federal health department says he is ‘not anti-vaccine’ as Democrats zero in on his past remarks.Robert F Kennedy Jr has faced a barrage of questions about his history of spreading anti-vaccine conspiracy theories during a contentious United States Senate hearing on his nomination to be President Donald Trump’s health secretary.
Kennedy, who has been picked to lead the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), spent most of Wednesday’s hearing seeking to dispel the idea that he is “anti-vaccine”.
“News reports have claimed that I am anti-vaccine and anti-industry — I am neither. I am pro-safety,” he told the Senate Finance Committee.
“I believe that vaccines play a critical role in healthcare,” he added.
But Kennedy, a former environmental lawyer and son of the late US Senator Robert F Kennedy, has become a politically polarising figure and one of Trump’s most controversial cabinet nominees.
Critics denounced him for a slew of past false statements questioning the safety of vaccines, including during the COVID-19 pandemic.
At the start of Wednesday’s hearing, the top Democrat on the panel, Senator Ron Wyden, said Kennedy has “embraced conspiracy theories, quacks [and] charlatans, especially when it comes to safety and efficacy of vaccines”. Advertisement
“He has made it his life’s work to sow doubt and discourage parents from gett …
