A protester interrupted Robert F. Kennedy Jr, President Donald Trump’s nominee for Health and Human Services (HHS) secretary, during a Senate confirmation hearing on Wednesday, January 29, after Kennedy claimed he was not against vaccines.“Before I conclude, I want to make sure the committee is clear about a few things,” Kennedy told the Senate Finance Committee. “News reports have claimed I am anti-vaccine or anti-industry. I am neither. I am pro-safety…”“You are!” yelled a protester in the audience, who was quickly removed from the room by security guards.Kennedy continued his address, saying: “I am pro-safety. I worked for years to raise awareness about the mercury and toxic chemicals in fish, and no one called me anti-fish. And I believe that vaccines play a critical role in health care. All of my kids are vaccinated. I’ve written many books on vaccines. My first book in 2014 - the first line of it is ‘I am not anti-vaccine’ and the last of it is ‘I am not anti-vaccine.’”Kennedy has long said he is not against vaccines while also spreading long-debunked conspiracy theories about them, including the discredited theory that autism is linked to the Measles-Mumps-Rubella (MMR) vaccine.In 2023, Kennedy told podcast interviewer Lex Fridman that “there’s no vaccine that’s safe and effective,” despite decades of evidence to the contrary, and proceeded to cast doubt on whether the polio vaccine was safe. According to a 2022 study published by the National Library of Medicine, the polio vaccine has prevented “nearly 30 million cases of paralysis compared to a world with no polio vaccines” since 1960.Later that year, when pressed on the topic, Kennedy told CNN he believed there should be no vaccine mandates for children “at all.”In 2023, Kennedy was captured on a camera during a private dinner saying, without any supporting evidence, that “COVID-19 is targeted to attack Caucasians and Black people” and that “the people who are most immune are Ashkenazi Jews and Chinese.”In December 2024, the New York Times reported that the lawyer helping Kennedy “pick federal health officials for the incoming Trump administration has petitioned the government to revoke its approval of the polio vaccine.” Credit: C-SPAN via Storyful