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Health and Human Services secretary nominee Robert F. Kennedy Jr....

Health and Human Services secretary nominee Robert F. Kennedy Jr. testifies at his confirmation hearing Thursday. Credit: AP/Rod Lamkey

The most powerful moment in two days of confirmation hearings for Robert F. Kennedy Jr., whom President Donald Trump nominated to head Health and Human Services, came from Louisiana Republican Sen. Bill Cassidy. A physician, Cassidy told Kennedy of an 18-year-old patient with hepatitis B who suffered from liver failure and needed a transplant.

Cassidy, chair of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, told Kennedy Thursday he feared that another 18-year-old who was unvaccinated “because of the policies or attitudes you bring to the department” would die of a vaccine-preventable illness. That, Cassidy said, would “cast a shadow over President Trump’s legacy.”

Every senator should consider Cassidy’s words as they vote on Kennedy’s confirmation.

Kennedy has proved he is an unqualified, unfit and dangerous choice to head the agency responsible for policies that affect the health of all Americans. Kennedy said in his testimony he was “pro-vaccine,” but that posture belies his lengthy history as a vaccine denier, which was clearly established under the questioning of Cassidy and others regarding the nominee’s longtime insistence that vaccines cause autism.

This is where we are after Thursday’s confirmation hearings for several key Trump nominees: The proposed head of HHS refuses to admit that vaccines don’t cause autism. The proposed director of national intelligence refuses to say that Edward Snowden was a traitor for leaking highly classified national security information. And the proposed head of the FBI refuses to say whether he would investigate former heads of the nation’s top law enforcement agencies or others for being on an “enemies list” he once created and vowed to pursue.

It was a tumultuous day in Washington. The hearings for Kennedy, Tulsi Gabbard as DNI director, and Kash Patel for the FBI illustrated severe shortcomings in all three candidates, as the nation was reeling from the midair collision between a commercial jet and a military helicopter that killed 67 people Wednesday evening. The danger that politics, rather than policy or competence, is overtaking the nation’s most critical operations was on full display.

That peril is particularly clear when it comes to Kennedy, who got the nomination as payback for his support of Trump’s candidacy.

Kennedy is right to highlight the nation’s battles with chronic disease and obesity but he doesn’t have the skills to lead that fight. He’s wrong on far more. He lacks medical, financial and supervisory experience and doesn’t understand the intricacies of Medicare or Medicaid. He is best known for sowing fear and doubt over the safety and efficacy of vaccines, despite settled science. His base of support comes from those who resisted the COVID vaccine, such as the Suffolk County PBA, the Long Beach-based Autism Action Network, and New York’s Teachers for Choice. That’s not a credential that should entrust him with the responsibility for safeguarding the nation’s health.

If granted that power, he could do irreparable harm. For every 18-year-old like Cassidy’s patient, the Senate must not give Kennedy that chance.

MEMBERS OF THE EDITORIAL BOARD are experienced journalists who offer reasoned opinions, based on facts, to encourage informed debate about the issues facing our community.

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