PROVIDENCE, R.I. >> A letter submitted to the U.S. Senate that states it was sent by physicians in support of Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s nomination as secretary of Health and Human Services includes the names of doctors who have had their licenses revoked, suspended or faced other discipline, The Associated Press has found.

The letter was meant to lend credibility to Kennedy’s nomination, which has faced strenuous opposition from medical experts due to his two decades of anti-vaccine activism. Republican Sen. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, a medical doctor who boasts on his official website of an effort he created to vaccinate 36,000 children against hepatitis B, expressed hesitancy about Kennedy’s nomination and is seen as a key vote.

The AP found that in addition to the physicians who had faced disciplinary action, many of the nearly 800 signers are not doctors. The letter with the names of those who signed was provided to the AP by Sen. Ron Johnson’s office after he entered it into the Congressional Record on Wednesday during the first of Kennedy’s two confirmation hearings.

Among those who signed it were a self-described journalist, a certified public accountant, a firefighter/paramedic, a certified health coach and someone who said they had a bachelor’s degree “with an emphasis on Jungian Psychology.” The signers include at least 75 nurses, as well as physician assistants. More than 90 did not include any credentials at all.

Over 20 were chiropractors, representing an industry that has funded Kennedy’s work. An AP investigation found that donations from a chiropractic group represented one-sixth of the revenues collected by Kennedy’s anti-vaccine nonprofit in 2019.

The letter was organized and submitted by MAHA Action, which is run by Del Bigtree, who worked for Kennedy’s presidential campaign and is a longtime anti-vaccine activist. The Washington Post reported Wednesday that Kennedy transferred the trademark for the “MAHA” slogan to an limited liability company run by Bigtree. Kennedy reported that he received $100,000 in income from licensing the slogan and said in his financial disclosures that he had transferred the trademark for “no compensation.”

MAHA stands for “Make America Healthy Again,” a play on President Donald Trump’s “Make America Great Again.”

Emma Post, a MAHA Action spokesperson, said in an email that the letter was “shared and circulated organically in a grassroots manner with explicit instructions that it was for physicians only to sign on to.”

The letter includes the header “ Doctors for Robert F. Kennedy Jr.” and begins with the words, “We, the undersigned physicians.” It says lower down that it “reflects the collective voice of physicians and medical professionals” committed to addressing chronic disease.

The AP’s review found that at least 10 doctors who signed the letter had run into trouble with state medical boards or their board certification body for a variety of alleged misconduct. Sanctions they faced included having their license revoked or suspended, being put on probation, receiving a reprimand or other action.