Sen. Bill Cas­sidy (R-LA) vot­ed to ad­vance Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s nom­i­na­tion for HHS sec­re­tary to the full Sen­ate, a key show of sup­port from one of the nom­i­nee's most vo­cal crit­ics on the Re­pub­li­can side.

The 14-13 com­mit­tee vote along par­ty lines like­ly so­lid­i­fies Kennedy's con­fir­ma­tion in an up­com­ing Sen­ate floor vote. Fi­nance Com­mit­tee Chair­man Mike Crapo (R-ID) sig­naled last week that the larg­er Sen­ate vote could come at the end of this week.

"I’ve had very in­tense con­ver­sa­tions with Bob­by and the White House over the week­end and even this morn­ing," Cas­sidy tweet­ed ahead of the vote on Tues­day. "I want to thank VP JD specif­i­cal­ly for his hon­est coun­sel. With the se­ri­ous com­mit­ments I’ve re­ceived from the ad­min­is­tra­tion and the op­por­tu­ni­ty to make progress on the is­sues we agree on like healthy foods and a pro-Amer­i­can agen­da, I will vote yes."

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is head­ed for Sen­ate con­fir­ma­tion fol­low­ing Tues­day’s com­mit­tee vote and a state­ment of sup­port from the GOP’s biggest skep­tic.

But it’s still very, very un­clear which Kennedy Amer­i­cans are like­ly to end up with — the an­ti-vac­cine cru­sad­er, or a more mod­er­ate ver­sion who made (vague) promis­es last week that he would let in­de­pen­dent sci­ence lead.

In the space of just a few min­utes on Tues­day, that ques­tion got even mud­di­er. Just ahead of the Sen­ate Fi­nance vote, Trump post­ed on so­cial me­dia that “20 years ago, Autism in chil­dren was 1 in 10,000. NOW IT’S 1 in 34. WOW! Some­thing’s re­al­ly wrong. We need BOB­BY!!!”

Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s chances of be­com­ing HHS chief like­ly hinge on one of his more con­tro­ver­sial stances: that vac­cines con­tribute to the de­vel­op­ment of autism.

And in writ­ten re­spons­es to the Sen­ate Fi­nance Com­mit­tee, Kennedy con­tin­ued his re­fusal to walk back from that view.

When asked, “Yes or no, do you be­lieve vac­cines cause autism,” Kennedy evad­ed.

“If con­firmed, I will do noth­ing as HHS sec­re­tary that makes it dif­fi­cult or dis­cour­ages peo­ple from tak­ing vac­cines,” he wrote in a re­sponse. “As I tes­ti­fied to the Com­mit­tee, I am not an­ti-vac­ci­na­tion. I sup­port trans­paren­cy and sound da­ta for vac­cines.”

Phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal in­dus­try groups cau­tion that Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump’s tar­iffs on Chi­na, Mex­i­co and Cana­da will like­ly ex­ac­er­bate ex­ist­ing drug short­ages in the US, raise drug prices and put gener­ic man­u­fac­tur­ers out of the mar­ket.

The Trump ad­min­is­tra­tion im­posed a 25% tar­iff on im­ports from Mex­i­co and Cana­da and a 10% tar­iff on Chi­na on Sat­ur­day. The tax­es on Mex­i­co have since been de­layed by a month, un­der a deal be­tween Trump and Mex­i­co’s Pres­i­dent Clau­dia Shein­baum, both lead­ers an­nounced Mon­day on X.

The US re­lies on im­port­ing phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal prod­ucts glob­al­ly, in par­tic­u­lar from Chi­na, which is a large sup­pli­er of APIs.

South Ko­re­an bio­phar­ma con­tract man­u­fac­tur­er Cell­tri­on is con­sid­er­ing ac­quir­ing US man­u­fac­tur­ing sites to mit­i­gate Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump’s po­ten­tial tar­iffs on for­eign-made phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals.

Trump is con­sid­er­ing a va­ri­ety of glob­al tar­iffs to re­duce US re­liance on for­eign man­u­fac­tur­ing, in­clud­ing a 25% tar­iff on Cana­da and Mex­i­co and 10% on Chi­na, which could af­fect non-US phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal com­pa­nies and man­u­fac­tur­ers.

In­cheon-head­quar­tered Cell­tri­on al­ready has short- and long-term strate­gies in place in case the drug tar­iffs get im­ple­ment­ed, the com­pa­ny said in a state­ment to share­hold­ers on Thurs­day.

Cell­tri­on has six FDA-ap­proved biosim­i­lar prod­ucts avail­able in the US, as well as its sub­cu­ta­neous in­flix­imab in­jec­tion Zym­fen­tra, which is used to treat in­flam­ma­to­ry bow­el dis­ease. It has three plants in South Ko­rea, which are all cer­ti­fied by the FDA. The com­pa­ny al­so has a con­tract man­u­fac­tur­ing arm, dubbed Cell­tri­on Pharm, with a small mol­e­cule site in Cheongju, which ships prod­ucts to the US, and an oral sol­id dosage fac­to­ry lo­cat­ed in Jin­cheon for do­mes­tic sup­ply.