Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. is set to appear before the Senate Finance Committee on Wednesday, as he looks to become the new Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services. Kennedy, the scion of a political dynasty deeply rooted in Democratic politics, is perhaps the most controversial of President Donald Trump's cabinet picks due to his well-documented vaccine skepticism. He will surely face heated questioning from senators.
One high-profile progressive, Sen. Elizabeth Warren, has already given a detailed preview of what to expect later this week. In a lengthy letter sent to Kennedy earlier this month, Warren laid out 175 questions for Kennedy and voiced her extreme skepticism of his ability to lead HHS.
"Given your dangerous views on vaccine safety and public health, including your baseless opposition to vaccines, and your inconsistent statements in important policy areas like reproductive rights access, I have serious concerns regarding your ability to oversee the Department," Warren wrote to Kennedy.
Here's a look at some of the issues Kennedy will have to answer questions about.
In her letter, Warren cited research showing that vaccines have saved some 154 million lives over the past 50 years. More than 140 million of those saved were children. But Kennedy's "blatant disavowal of vaccine safety" would wipe away the progress that saved these lives and put millions more at risk, Warren wrote.
She drew attention to Kennedy's role in the 2019 Samoa measles outbreak. After two babies died due to improperly prepared vaccines, Samoa's government suspended measles vaccinations, as skepticism about their safety rose throughout the island nation.
Government officials there were reportedly open to measuring "health outcomes following the 'natural experiment' created by the national respite from vaccines," Kennedy wrote online. He and his anti-vaccine nonprofit Children's Health Defense helped the government there conduct such an "experiment" and stoked anti-vaccine rhetoric. Measles spread rapidly, infecting more than 5,700 people and killing 83.
"At the time, you shrugged off the epidemic as 'mild' -- this massive disregard for human lives is indicative of the irresponsible public health official that you would be," wrote Warren, referencing the Samoa incident.
Warren also highlighted Kennedy's role in sowing vaccine skepticism during the COVID-19 pandemic by spreading the debunked theory that vaccines cause autism. Kennedy and Children's Health Defense falsely claimed that the Pfizer vaccine being administered to the American public was not a licensed version, Warren wrote. She defended Dr. Anthony Fauci against Kennedy's past criticisms, and referenced a 2021 film from Children's Health Defense that she said weaponized the factual history of medical racism in the U.S. to sell COVID vaccine conspiracy theories to viewers.
Warren's vaccine-centric questions will reference Kennedy's past comments comparing COVID mandates to the tragedies of the Holocaust and speculation that COVID was "ethnically targeted." She will ask Kennedy about an ally who reportedly petitioned the government to revoke its approval of the polio vaccine, whether he would interfere with FDA decisions about vaccines, and how he would continue to spread vaccine-related misinformation around the world.
Warren called Kennedy's record on women's reproductive rights "inconsistent," saying that he "flip-flopped" on where he stands multiple times in 2023 and 2024. Kennedy has been on the record as identifying as "pro-choice," supporting 15-week abortion bans, opposing any government restrictions on abortion, and then saying that abortion should only be legal for a "certain number of weeks."
She said that Kennedy's past support for codifying Roe v. Wade and access to the abortion medication mifepristone are a "relief to hear," but that Kennedy's recent friendliness to anti-abortion groups tied to the Trump administration were cause for concern.
"Your new extremist views on abortions are dangerous-and if you use HHS authorities to see them through, your actions would have catastrophic consequences on women's reproductive health and bodily autonomy across the country," Warren wrote.
The senator will call on Kennedy to clarify his stances on a number of topics related to how HHS oversees reproductive health in America. Many of her questions will probe Kennedy's allegiance to the ideas outlined in Project 2025, the controversial policy agenda that Trump distanced himself from while campaigning but has since hewed closely to. The authors of Project 2025 want to severely limit abortion access nationwide by targeting mifepristone.
Kennedy has also made headlines for his opinions on food regulation, some of which Warren said were concerning, like Kennedy's affinity for raw milk. While there may be some benefits to drinking raw milk, the general scientific consensus is that the risks seriously outweigh the potential benefits. Warren will ask Kennedy about his ties to a raw milk company whose products have reportedly been linked to a salmonella outbreak and bird flu contamination.
Warren did leave open the possibility of her and Kennedy finding common ground on some policies related to food regulation. She mentioned Kennedy's ideas about banning pesticides, overhauling dietary guidelines, and reforming federal programs that pay for ultra-processed foods.
"I agree that we should take care of what we put into our bodies and protect the farmworkers and food chain workers who produce what we consume," she wrote.
Warren highlighted a few conspiracy theories championed by Kennedy in the past that "deny science and fact." Kennedy has claimed that fluoride lowers the IQ levels of children, which researchers have found some evidence of. However, the data does not yet show evidence that the low fluoride levels common in drinking water lead to decreasing IQ levels.
More than 60% of all Americans have fluoride in their community water systems, according to the CDC. Kennedy has said he supports getting fluoride out of public drinking water. Trump has not yet taken action on the issue. The fluoridation of water was named by the CDC as one of the 10 great public health interventions of the 20th Century, as it dramatically reduced the amount of cavities plaguing Americans. Warren will ask Kennedy his thoughts on fluoride.
She will bring up Kennedy's past suggestion that "wifi radiation" could be causing autism, food allergies, and other issues.
Warren will also mention Kennedy's proliferation of conspiracy theories about the link between HIV and AIDS.