Key Point: “Robert F Kennedy Jr’s allies fear he has failed to convince enough senators to confirm him as President Donald Trump’s top health official, said people familiar with the matter. … Opposition to Kennedy’s nomination has emerged from influential conservative voices …”

Financial Times: Robert Kennedy allies fear he is losing US Senate support

By Oliver Barnes and Myles McCormick 

• Robert F Kennedy Jr’s allies fear he has failed to convince enough senators to confirm him as President Donald Trump’s top health official, said people familiar with the matter.
  
• Opposition to Kennedy’s nomination has emerged from influential conservative voices, including The Wall Street Journal’s editorial board and Americans Advancing Freedom, a group co-founded by former vice-president Mike Pence …
  
• Kennedy, a vocal vaccine sceptic and critic of the pharmaceutical industry, would control a sprawling department with 13 divisions and agencies and a budget of $1.8tn if he was confirmed. 
  
• One of his closest advisers — lawyer Aaron Siri — also led a lawsuit trying to revoke the most widely used polio vaccine. McConnell, a polio survivor, has taken issue with Kennedy’s antivax comments, warning in December that undermining confidence in “proven cures” was “dangerous.”
  
• Kennedy’s vow to ban high-fructose corn syrup had also worried senators with states in the agricultural heartlands, the people close to him said.