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.
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…
