Senator Murray Statement on Meeting with HHS Secretary Nominee RFK Jr.

Murray: "It takes no imagination to see how dangerous it would be to confirm RFK Jr. as Health Secretary, and it takes mountains of willful ignorance to ignore it."

ICYMI: In Seattle, Senator Murray Highlights Importance of Vaccines and Lifesaving Scientific Research, Calls Out Threat RFK Jr. as HHS Secretary Would Pose to Americans' Health and Safety

ICYMI: Senator Murray Condemns RFK Jr. Nomination, Urges Senate Republicans to Join Her in Opposition

Washington, D.C. - Today, U.S. Senator Patty Murray (D-WA), a senior member and former Chair of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee (HELP), released the following statement after meeting with Robert F. Kennedy (RFK) Jr., President-elect Donald Trump's nominee to be Secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS):

"I have great respect for the Senate's role to advise and consent to the President's nominees-that's why I met with RFK Jr. today, despite my firm opposition. I appreciated the opportunity to share my deep concerns about his long history of anti-vaccine activism, and discuss the other challenges our nation faces where HHS has a crucial role. But as I have said from the outset-I utterly oppose RFK Jr.'s nomination. If you cannot tell American families the same thing centuries of science and experience tells us-that vaccines save lives-you have no business leading HHS. A vaccine denier should not be our highest-ranking health care official-it's that simple.

"RFK Jr. has spent considerable time, effort, and money over the years not just questioning vaccines, not just criticizing them, but mobilizing against them. There is simply no reason whatsoever to believe that if finally given the levers of power to wreck access to vaccines and public confidence in them, he will abandon a cause he has championed. It takes no imagination to see how dangerous it would be to confirm RFK Jr. as Health Secretary, and it takes mountains of willful ignorance to ignore it. If he were in this same role just a few years ago, we might still not have a COVID vaccine which he once called the 'deadliest vaccine ever made.'

"At a time when vaccination rates are dropping and deadly diseases are returning, having a leader at HHS who will help reverse those trends instead of boosting conspiracies is a genuine matter of life and death. Diseases like measles, whooping cough, rubella, and so many more can kill-especially infants and children-and it doesn't take the most extreme steps RFK Jr. could pursue, like pulling vaccines off the market, to give them the opportunity.

"I strongly urge every one of my colleagues to be honest with themselves about the stakes of putting one of the anti-vaccine movement's loudest, proudest champions in charge of HHS and join me in opposing RFK Jr.'s nomination."

Senator Murray was the top Democrat on the Senate HELP Committee during the COVID-19 pandemic, where she played a key role conducting oversight of the Trump Administration's handling of the crisis and in negotiating legislation to help the country recover and end the pandemic. Even before the COVID-19 pandemic, she was raising alarm about anti-vaccine misinformation and conspiracies. In 2019, she and then-Chair Senator Alexander (R-TN) held a hearing on how vaccines save lives, and the importance of addressing misinformation and promoting vaccine confidence.

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