Hawaii Governor Josh Green (D), the only state governor who is also a practicing physician, warned on Tuesday in a New York Times op-ed that confirming Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as Health and Human Services Secretary would be a mistake and dangerous for the nation's children. 

Green objects to the President-elect Donald Trump nominee because of his anti-vaccine viewpoints, which are controversial and not shared by most of the healthcare community.

"As the only physician governor, I need to explain what are good picks and what maybe aren't so good picks for the cabinet," Green said in a video prior to his Washington, D.C. efforts to lobby against Kennedy. "[Kennedy's] appointment to be the head of Health and Human Services is not consistent with safety for our children."

Green said his objection was nothing personal, and that he would be exploring other positions that might be better for Kennedy inside Trump's cabinet.

Will he have the votes?

Whether Kennedy will have the votes for confirmation is an open question on Capitol Hill after incoming chair of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions, Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-LA) said Kennedy was "wrong on vaccines."

There has been concern that Kennedy would try to get rid of the polio vaccine after news broke that one of his former colleagues advocated for that position in 2019.

Both Kennedy and Trump have said they would not seek to get rid of that or any vaccine.

Still, it would be unusual for the head of HHS to be anti-vaccine in any way.

It is speculated that Kennedy agreed to drop out of the race against Trump and endorse him in exchange for the HHS nomination, but Trump can't guarantee confirmation of any nominee.

"Our children's lives depend on it"

Green also objected to Kennedy's handling of a measles outbreak in Samoa when he chaired Children's Health Defense, a children's medical nonprofit.

According to a letter Kennedy sent, he speculated that the measles vaccine could have made the outbreak worse.

Parents who believed that rhetoric and refused to vaccinate their children exposed them to serious complications if they did contract measles.

According to Greene, Kennedy "used misinformation to scare all the people of Samoa away from being vaccinated" and served to "torpedo" the country's vaccination efforts.

"Too much depends on our commitment to truth and the lifesaving power of vaccines to entrust Mr. Kennedy with the direction of these programs. Our children’s lives depend on it," Green wrote.