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Floor Speech

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Mr. KAINE. Mr. President, I am so happy that I follow my colleague from Massachusetts. I will build upon some of the points that she has made, but we have served as colleagues together on the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee during earlier terms of Congress, and you won't find a better champion for the health of the American public than Senator Warren.

I stand to continue the dialogue about Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., and his unfitness for the position to which he has been nominated, the Secretary of Health and Human Services, and I will give you the punch line but then go into it in some detail.

I don't believe Mr. Kennedy can separate fact from fiction. I don't believe Mr. Kennedy can separate conspiracy from content. Now, you wouldn't want someone suffering from that challenge in any position of leadership at any level of government--local, State, or Federal. But this particular position, the Secretary of Health and Human Services-- one of the most important positions in the Nation as with respect to people's physical and mental health, is exactly the wrong kind of a position for someone who can't tell fact from fiction or content from conspiracy, because the American public needs to be able to rely on HHS and other critical Agencies for information that is not just about the state of their savings account or housing costs. This is about life and death. This is about life and death.

I want to talk about two elements of Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.--my colleagues have been going into many of them--that lead me to the conclusion that here is a guy who can't separate fact from fiction or conspiracy from content.

The first was ably described by Senator Warren, and that is Mr. Kennedy's skepticism about vaccines. I know many of my colleagues trod this ground during speeches today, so I am not going to go into the breadth of his vaccine skepticism. I am going to talk about one vaccine in particular that is made in Virginia, Gardasil. I represent the Commonwealth of Virginia. There is a facility in Elkton, VA, in the Shenandoah Valley, near Harrisonburg, that makes Gardasil, the vaccine that has been effective--significantly effective--in preventing and reducing the incidence of cervical cancer.

Think about it for a minute. Vaccines do a lot of different things, but a vaccine that can prevent cancer is truly, truly revolutionary.

Cervical cancer and other associated cancers pose very significant challenges to men and women. In the early 2000s, the FDA approved a cervical cancer vaccine. There are a number of vaccine manufacturers, but one of the largest is Merck that manufactures Gardasil in Virginia. I visited the plant a couple of years back as a member of the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee. I went to the plant, and I talked to the workers and saw the pride that they have in being able to develop a product that has had such a significant impact around the world.

When I was Governor of Virginia, with two Republican houses, we acted to have a mandate around the Gardasil vaccination, around the cervical cancer vaccination. There are other cancer vaccine manufacturers as well. By making it mandatory, we enabled people to access it for free. We allowed any parent or student who didn't want to receive the vaccine to opt out with no excuse. But we have made it widely available in Virginia--we are one of three States to have done this--and it has had a tremendously positive benefit on folks' health.

So this is a relatively new vaccine. I mean, it started and got approval and began to be deployed significantly about 15 years ago; and even in 15 years, the results have been remarkable. And I want to just share with my colleagues and with the public some of the results between 15 and 20 years of the HPV cervical cancer vaccine. I will give you results from many countries and from many research institutions and hospitals to show you that this is not a question of significant medical controversy.

A publication that is one of the signature healthcare publications in England is called The Lancet, and there was an article in The Lancet in February of 2020, titled ``The Impact of HPV Vaccination and Cervical Screening on Cervical Cancer Elimination.'' This particular article summarized the study that looked at data from 78 countries. The researchers who examined this data were from England, China, France, Canada, and Switzerland.

Their research in analyzing the data of hundreds of thousands of patients in 78 countries concluded:

High HPV vaccination coverage of girls can lead to cervical cancer elimination in most low-income and lower middle-income countries by the end of the century.

Fancy that--eliminating cancer with a vaccine. This was from the data from 78 countries.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention website, cdc.gov, has a section: the ``Impact of the HPV Vaccine'':

Among teen girls, infections with HPV types that cause most HPV cancers and genital warts have dropped 88 percent [because of the vaccine].

The American Society of Clinical Oncology, in 2024, published an article titled ``Effects of HPV vaccination on the development of HPV- related cancers.'' This is the American society for physicians who work in the clinical oncology area.

Here is the conclusion they reach:

Males vaccinated for HPV were at decreased odds for HPV- related cancers. . . . Females vaccinated for HPV had lower odds for cervical cancers and HPV-related cancers overall.

Let's go to Scotland. The Journal of the National Cancer Institute in Scotland last year published a study titled ``Invasive Cervical Cancer Incidence following bivalent HPV vaccination,'' studying the healthcare results of people following vaccination. This was just published last year. Let me read you the quote:

No cases of invasive cancer were recorded in women immunized at 12 or 13 years of age irrespective of the number of doses. Women vaccinated at 14 to 22 years of age and given 3 doses of bivalent vaccine showed a significant reduction in incidence compared with . . . unvaccinated women.

Again, those first few words: ``No cases of invasive cancer were recorded in women'' who were vaccinated and studied in Scotland in this study that came out in 2024.

Another article in the Lancet looked not at 78 countries, but it looked at the effects of HPV vaccination programs in England. This article was published in 2021:

The HPV vaccination program [in the UK] has almost successfully eliminated cervical cancer in women born since September 1, 1995.

The elimination of cervical cancer, no cases of invasive cancer.

There was a study done in Australia in 2013 by BMC Medicine. The article was entitled ``Impact of a population-based HPV vaccination program on cervical abnormalities.'' This was still relatively early in the mass vaccination because Gardasil and any other HPV vaccinations weren't used until the mid-2000s--2007, 2008. Here is the conclusion reached about the Australians' experience:

Australia was one of the first countries to introduce a publicly-funded national HPV vaccination program that commenced in April 2007. . . . [It] significantly reduced cervical abnormalities . . . within five years of implementation, with the greatest vaccine effectiveness observed [in] the youngest women.

The New England Journal of Medicine, which, in many ways, is the gold standard in the United States, published a study in 2020 about the effects of vaccination in Sweden:

Among Swedish girls and women 10 to 30 years old, quadrivalent HPV vaccination was associated with a substantially reduced risk of invasive cervical cancer at the population level.

All right, those are the studies by the researchers in the journals, but I also wondered--you know, I am not a great scientist. I don't generally read medical journals. But what about our healthcare institutions that are just in the business of providing health advice to everyday Americans who are seeking information about their health?

I went to the website of the Mayo Clinic. Here is what mayoclinic.org says:

HPV vaccine: Who needs it, how it works.

They say on their website: ``Getting vaccinated against HPV helps prevent cancer in men and women''--period. No qualification, no waffling, no wobbling. That is the advice that the Mayo Clinic gives to its patients and to all who go to mayoclinic.org to seek health information.

The Cleveland Clinic, another internationally known healthcare provider, my.clevelandclinic.org in 2025, the website says as follows:

The HPV vaccine is an injection that prevents infections of two types of human papillomavirus. The vaccine lowers your risk of getting cervical cancer.

MD Anderson Hospital, another internationally known hospital based in Houston, TX--mdanderson.org. Here is what they say to their patients or others going to the website to seek advice:

All males and females--

All males and females-- ages 9-26 should get the HPV vaccine. It is a safe and effective method of protection against HPV infection.

So what I have just done is read you a variety of conclusions from a variety of researchers and healthcare providers, from a variety of countries, all pointing to the effectiveness of HPV vaccinations to prevent HPV infections that lead to cancers and other serious medical conditions.

But what does Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., say? He has said that the vaccination is one of the most dangerous vaccines ever created. He has said that it is dangerous and defective.

On one of his website articles on his blog, he said:

It is inescapable that Gardasil kills girls.

The weight of medical evidence is that this is an effective tool to prevent cervical cancer. Robert F. Kennedy--with no medical training, with no scientific research background--claims otherwise. He cannot separate fact from fantasy, content from conspiracy.

Now, is that just because his brain doesn't wrap itself around facts, or is there something more serious? I needn't repeat at length what my colleague Senator Warren said, but she laid out the facts that Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., has a massive financial stake in lawsuits against the manufacturer of the HPV vaccine.

In fact, he disclosed it on his ethics form, that if there are recoveries against HPV manufacturers in lawsuits, he is entitled to 10 percent--10 percent--of the recovery in massive class-action lawsuits.

When we pressed him in the hearing, first he said he wasn't going to give up that 10-percent stake. But he eventually felt some pressure, and so he transferred it to his adult son. His family stands to gain significantly if these lawsuits hit.

As the Secretary of HHS, he would have the ability to have a huge influence on the Vaccine Injury Compensation Program.

Vaccine manufacturers get an immunity from civil suit until a case has gone through the vaccine compensation court. That was put in place many years ago because the number of vaccine manufacturers were in precipitous free fall. They were going out of business or stopping making vaccines because they were getting hit with big lawsuits. So there is a special court that focuses on any arguments against vaccines in these courts.

He would have significant ability to even remove immunity protection from the manufacturers of vaccines. And if you remove immunity protection, the value of lawsuits goes up, and the value of his family's 10 percent stake goes up.

This should cause everyone serious concern about putting someone in who stands, without any medical training, against the weight of medical evidence saying that vaccination against cervical cancer is a remarkable thing that should be done and that has been successful since the mid-2000s.

I am going to conclude in a minute because my able colleague from Colorado is here, but I want to raise one more issue. I want to raise one more issue.

This inability to tell the difference between fact and fiction and content and conspiracy would be dangerous enough if it was just about health information, if it was just about vaccines. That, in and of itself, should disqualify Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., from being the HHS Secretary. But this individual's inability to tell the difference between fact and fiction and between conspiracy and content is not limited just to health.

In July of 2024, when he was running for President of the United States, Robert F. Kennedy tweeted this:

My take on 9/11: It's hard to tell what is a conspiracy theory and what isn't. But conspiracy theories flourish when the government routinely lies to the public. As President, I won't take sides on 9/11 or any of the other debates. But I can promise is that I will open the files and usher in a new era of transparency.

``I won't take sides on 9/11''--I represent the Commonwealth of Virginia. The Pentagon was attacked on 9/11. The World Trade Center in New York was attacked on 9/11. A plane went down in a farm field in Pennsylvania on 9/11. A lot of Virginia families lost loved ones that day. I know people who were in the Pentagon on 9/11 who had to race through a burning building to go to the childcare center to make sure they could get their child out and that their child was safe. I don't take it very well when someone says they won't take sides about 9/11, when someone admits: ``It's hard to tell what is a conspiracy theory and what isn't.''

I asked Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.: Is this a common problem for you? I mean, that is kind of a candid thing to admit: ``It's hard to tell what is a conspiracy theory and what isn't.''

No, it is not. It is not hard for Virginians to understand what happened on 9/11. They lost loved ones. They went to funerals. Their family members never came home. And then, in the aftermath of 9/11, we were in 20 years of war, where tens of thousands of Virginians were deployed to battle against al-Qaida, the perpetrators of 9/11, and many lost their lives then.

``I won't take sides on 9/11''--well, like, what side is there? What side is he talking about?

I mean, it is a bad thing. Does he think it is a good thing? It was an attack by Osama bin Laden and al-Qaida. Does he think it was an inside job or something else?

And why would he even do this? This tweet is dated July 5, 2024. It was 23 years after 9/11--23 years after 9/11. For some reason, on July 5, he just says: Well, why don't I just share with people that I won't take sides on 9/11; that I still can't tell, 23 years later, what is a conspiracy theory and what isn't.

If you cannot tell what happened on 9/11, if you decide to just freelance an opinion 23 years later and tell the American public--and he was running for President at the time--I will not take sides on 9/ 11, you should not have been nominated for this position in the first place.

I am finding it very hard to believe that my colleagues in this body, whom I sat with on the Armed Services Committee, whom I sat with on the Foreign Relations Committee, who have invested their time and energy in making investments to battle terrorism around the world, to battle al- Qaida and other terrorist groups, the group that perpetrated the 9/11 attack--many of my colleagues served in the military and were deployed in the War on Terror in the aftermath of 9/11. They are now going to be OK with a guy who says he won't take sides on 9/11; who says he can't tell the difference between what is a conspiracy theory and what isn't?

This is a very, very dangerous vote that we will cast tomorrow. Of any position in the Federal Government that needs somebody who can tell the difference between fact and fiction, conspiracy and content, HHS Secretary is that position, and Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., so badly flunks the test of what is needed--careful, reasoned, information that people can count on--that I urge my colleagues, even if you voted in a committee, even if you voted on a procedural resolution to move this to the floor, stop now. You can still stop now. Don't hurt this country. Don't hurt the health of this country by putting someone in office who can't even understand what happened on 9/11.

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