Robert F Kennedy Jr will take control of America’s vast healthcare apparatus, as the Senate voted on Thursday to confirm the controversial anti-vaccine campaigner’s nomination as health secretary.
“Robert F Kennedy Jr is not remotely qualified to become the next secretary of health and human services,” the Senate minority leader, Chuck Schumer, said on the floor on Wednesday.
The vote installs one of America’s most prominent vaccine skeptics to run its federal health infrastructure, granting oversight of the very agencies – including the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Food and Drug Administration – that he has spent years battling through lawsuits and public campaigns.
The Senate voted 52 to 48, with all Republicans other than Kentucky senator Mitch McConnell backing the former environmental lawyer who abandoned his independent presidential bid last year to endorse Donald Trump.
His path to the top crystallized after securing backing from Republican senator Bill Cassidy, a physician who extracted what he called “unprecedented” commitments for collaboration from both Kennedy and the Trump campaign.
