Sen. Hirono: “Mr. Kennedy will be guided not by science, but by the conspiracy theories he’s pursued for decades on vaccines, raw milk, stem cell treatment, and much more.”
WASHINGTON, DC – Today, U.S. Senator Mazie K. Hirono (D-HI) took to the Senate floor to warn against the confirmation of Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., President Trump’s nominee to become the Secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). Senator Hirono joined several of her Senate Democratic colleagues in holding the Senate floor to oppose Mr. Kennedy’s nomination. During her remarks, Senator Hirono called out Mr. Kennedy’s history as an anti-vaccine activist who peddles and profits from conspiracy theories. If confirmed, Mr. Kennedy would be responsible for overseeing 13 federal agencies that carry out the department’s mission to enhance the health and wellbeing of all Americans in areas such as medicine, public health, and social services.
“One would hope the President’s nominee to lead such an important department would be a level-headed individual, guided by science and data. Instead, Donald Trump has nominated the total opposite: Robert Kennedy, Jr.,” said Senator Hirono during her remarks. “And it’s clear Mr. Kennedy will be guided not by science, but by the conspiracy theories he’s pursued for decades on vaccines, raw milk, stem cell treatment, and much more.”
Senator Hirono condemned Mr. Kennedy’s activism against vaccines, citing her own experiences as a child growing up in rural Japan where there was not widespread access to most vaccinations.
“As a child, I remember getting measles, mumps, whooping cough—when one kid in our village got sick, it just spread like wildfire in our village and all the kids got sick,” said Senator Hirono. “I know what it means to be vaccinated. To willingly submit our children to such a fate—like what happened to us, to me, in Japan—would be cruel, counterproductive, and deadly.”
Senator Hirono also underscored the threat that Mr. Kennedy and President Trump pose to the health and safety of communities in Hawaii and across the country. In her remarks, the Senator highlighted the disastrous potential impacts that the overhead funding cap recently announced by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) could have on Hawaii’s research institutions—which include the University of Hawaii Cancer Center and John A. Burns School of Medicine—that receive critical biomedical research federal funding.
“Eliminating access to health care, promoting conspiracy theories, firing researchers, and undermining evidence-based policy making will do nothing to make us healthier,” continued Senator Hirono. “It will, instead, unleash chaos on patients, providers, and countless other Americans who rely on the services, funding, and research emanating from HHS.”
During her remarks, Senator Hirono also read excerpts from an op-ed published in the New York Times by Hawaii’s Governor, Dr. Josh Green. She commended Governor Green for expressing his strong objections to Mr. Kennedy’s confirmation as HHS Secretary.
The full transcript of Senator Hirono’s floor speech is below. Video of her floor speech is available here.
M. President, in Hawaii, thousands of our keiki—children—attend Head Start, setting them up for lifetimes of success. After the devastating wildfires on Maui in 2023, the U.S. Public Health Service was on the ground within days, providing care to survivors and first responders. On Oahu, the University of Hawaii’s Cancer Center is leading on critical NIH-funded research on breast, liver, and lung cancer, studying diseases that disproportionately impact the Native Hawaiian and Asian American communities.
All of these programs are vital for people in Hawaii, and they are all made possible by the Department of Health and Human Services, or HHS. HHS does critical work across our country, keeping communities healthy, and researching deadly diseases—from cancer, to COVID, and so much more. Americans trust HHS because their mission has historically been guided, not by politics, but by science and data. But already, Donald Trump is taking a sledgehammer to HHS and the essential work it does.
For weeks, HHS employees have been prohibited from making any external communications and have been directed to withhold grant disbursements—illegal, by the way—halting critical updates on emerging public health threats and delaying or denying funding for community health centers without explanation. These edicts are already forcing clinics to consider reducing services and staff or worse—closing these services—endangering health care access for our most vulnerable populations.
And just last Friday, the National Institutes of Health, or NIH, announced it would slash indirect cost rates nationwide—funds that keep the lights on and the bills paid at America’s medical schools, hospitals, and research institutions, enabling our country to lead globally on biomedical research. This is lifesaving research. These across-the-board cuts aren’t hypothetical. They will harm real people in need of help.
Just yesterday, I spoke with the University of Hawaii John A. Burns School of Medicine, who explained the catastrophic consequences this cap would have. This illegal action, as I mentioned, would compromise plans for the UH Cancer Center to begin offering Phase 1 clinical trials in Hawaii for the first time. What does this mean for the people of Hawaii? For the first time, the people in Hawaii would not have to go to the mainland to participate in these trials, but with the help of this NIH funding—now being slashed. For the first time, people of Hawaii would be able to stay in Hawaii to participate in these very important clinical trials.
M. President, if allowed to stand, these actions will be catastrophic for our country, and for global efforts to combat the spread of diseases. And all of these actions have been taken without a confirmed secretary in place at HHS. One would hope the President’s nominee to lead such an important department would be a level-headed individual, guided by science and data. Instead, Donald Trump has nominated the total opposite: Robert Kennedy, Jr.
Mr. Kennedy is an anti-vaccine activist who peddles, and profits from, conspiracy theories and has a troubling history of misconduct. In his confirmation hearings, Mr. Kennedy appeared not to know the difference between Medicare and Medicaid, essential programs that 66 million and 72 million people, respectively, rely on for access to health care.
Mr. Kennedy purports to be a proponent of ‘bodily autonomy’ when it comes to vaccines, as if we know better than scientists about the efficacy and safety of medical treatments. But, Mr. Kennedy’s commitment to bodily autonomy suddenly flies out the window when it comes to women’s right to control our own bodies.
He has shown he’ll do Donald Trump’s bidding in his war on women and our freedom—where’s our bodily autonomy? As they work to reverse the FDA’s approval of mifepristone, which has been used safely for medication abortion for more than 20 years—so much for bodily autonomy. And it’s clear Mr. Kennedy will be guided not by science, but by the conspiracy theories he’s pursued for decades on vaccines, raw milk, stem cell treatment, and much more.
Vaccines are a modern miracle that have saved an estimated 154 million lives and enabled us to all-but eradicate diseases like polio and smallpox. But due to the activism of conspiracy theorists like Mr. Kennedy, public trust in vaccines have eroded, endangering countless lives and threatening the herd immunity that protects us all.
M. President, I grew up in rural Japan, where we didn’t have widespread access to most vaccines. As a child, I remember getting measles, mumps, whooping cough—when one kid in our village got sick, it just spread like wildfire in our village and all the kids got sick. I know what it means to be vaccinated. To willingly submit our children to such a fate—like what happened to us, to me, in Japan—would be cruel, counterproductive, and deadly. But Mr. Kennedy seems not to care about those impacts.
M. President, we all agree there are things we can do to make our country healthier and I stand ready to work with my colleagues to do that important work. But eliminating access to health care, promoting conspiracy theories, firing researchers, and undermining evidence-based policy making will do nothing to make us healthier. It will, instead, unleash chaos on patients, providers, and countless other Americans who rely on the services, funding, and research emanating from HHS.
Mr. Kennedy will not ‘Make America Healthy Again’—yet another empty slogan. He will, in fact instead, make us less healthy, less safe, and less prosperous. We know this, because it’s exactly what happened in Samoa after misinformation about vaccines, pushed in part by Mr. Kennedy, led to a deadly measles outbreak there.
Hawaii’s governor, Josh Green, is also a physician and traveled to Samoa at the invitation of the country’s health minister to help stem the consequences of this deadly misinformation. He recently wrote about his experiences in an op-ed in the New York Times and I’d like to read portions of that op-ed now:
Our governor wrote: “When vaccination rates fall, preventable diseases can regain a foothold and pose a new danger. And that’s precisely what happened in Samoa, after misinformation spread by anti-vaccine activists eroded trust in vaccines and led to the 2019 outbreak. Thousands of preventable cases of measles sprang up, leading to the deaths of 83 people, mostly children. One of the most prominent voices behind the anti-vaccine campaign was Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.”
Governor Green goes on to say that: “We witnessed the deadly consequences of the anti-vaccine campaign. We arrived at one home just minutes after a toddler girl had died from measles, her mother bursting into tears as we approached. The child was lying on a makeshift bed in the middle of the family’s one-room house, her face still red from fever. I put my hands on her face and could feel the warmth in her skin, but her eyes were fixed and glazed over. My stethoscope confirmed she was no longer breathing.”
Governor Green went on to write: “Mr. Kennedy and others fanned the flames of fear with misinformation. The people of Samoa shared with me that they got very little news from outside their community, but that in the months before the 2019 epidemic they were bombarded with social media posts claiming that vaccinations were unsafe and would harm or even kill their children. Activists from other countries, including Mr. Kennedy, claimed vaccines were dangerous. Many Samoans were afraid to vaccinate their children, and by late 2019, the epidemic was raging, overwhelming Samoa’s national health care system.”
Governor Green concluded by saying: “As we look to the future, the possibility of his being confirmed—he’s talking about Robert Kennedy—being confirmed as the Secretary of Health and Human Services is cause for grave concern. I worry that he would jeopardize half a century of progress and success gained by the United States as a result of vaccination programs. Too much depends on our commitment to truth and the lifesaving power of vaccines to entrust Mr. Kennedy with the direction of these programs. Our children’s lives depend on it.”
I thank the Governor for his service to the people of Samoa, for so eloquently describing what’s at stake with Mr. Kennedy’s nomination. Our governor was so concerned that he recently traveled all the way from Hawaii to Washington, D.C. to speak to as many Senators that he could directly about what’s at stake. Governor Green was that concerned about what this nominee could do to HHS.
During his confirmation hearing, Mr. Kennedy had the opportunity to take responsibility for his role in Samoa’s measles outbreak. Instead, he stuck to his old tricks—blaming vaccines and spreading misinformation.
Governor Green is correct—our children’s lives depend on our commitment to vaccinations, and all of our lives depend on the science and research done by HHS. Mr. Kennedy poses a dire threat to that science, and indeed, to the American people. For those reasons, I urge my colleagues to vote no on his forthcoming nomination.
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