Kathleen Sebelius, who served as secretary of the Health and Human Services (HHS) Department under former President Barack Obama, warned that Robert F. Kennedy Jr. taking on her old position could “end up killing people.”
The alarming remark came during an MSNBC interview after President-elect Trump announced last week Kennedy as his pick to lead HHS during his second term. Sebelius cited Kennedy’s skeptical stance on vaccines, one which Kennedy has defended as not being outright anti-vaxx.
“I think we are talking about magnitudes of danger beyond erroneously making legal decisions. This is life or death. The HHS affects people from birth to their grave and is intimately connected with every state in the country. So, this could be very dangerous. I think it is totally disqualifying for anyone who seeks to lead the major health agency in this country, and one of the leaders in the world, to unequivocally say there is no safe and effective vaccine,” Sebelius said.
Former HHS Sec. Kathleen Sebelius: Robert Kennedy Nomination “Could End Up Killing People”
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“We are talking about magnitudes of danger beyond erroneously making legal decisions. This is life or death. The HHS affects people from birth to their… pic.twitter.com/EHmMz3G0N5
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“That, in and of itself, from the bully pulpit of HHS, could end up killing people,” she added. “My grandson is too young to get many vaccinations yet, and having him exposed to unvaccinated people with polio and measles is a terrifying thought, especially after we have eradicated those diseases as a major health initiative. I think this is absolutely terrifying, and people should understand how serious it is.”
Kennedy, who is pushing a “Make America Health Again” twist on Trump’s “Make America Great Again” platform, has insisted that he supports vaccines in general, as long as they pass sufficient testing.
During a NewsNation town hall in June of 2023 — when Kennedy was still running his own campaign for the presidency — Kennedy pushed back on family medicine physician Tariq Butt’s assertion that he espoused a view on vaccines that was “dangerous” to millions of people.
“I’ve never been anti-vaccine, and I’ve said that hundreds and hundreds of times but it doesn’t matter … Using a pejorative to describe me is a way of silencing me or marginalizing me,” Kennedy said. “My position on vaccines, I think is — I think virtually every American would agree with my stance on vaccines, which is that vaccines should be tested like other medicines. They should be safety tested. And unfortunately, vaccines are not safety tested, they’re not.”
