President-elect Donald Trump plans to appoint Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to guide the Division of Well being and Human Providers in a controversial selection that might elevate the distinguished vaccine skeptic to a place overseeing the nation’s main well being companies, together with the Meals and Drug Administration and Facilities for Illness Management and Prevention.
Trump named Kennedy to the function by way of a publish on Fact Social Thursday afternoon.
“For too lengthy, People have been crushed by the commercial meals advanced and drug firms who’ve engaged in deception, misinformation, and disinformation in the case of public well being,” Trump wrote. “Mr. Kennedy will restore these companies to the traditions of gold customary scientific analysis, and beacons of transparency, to finish the power illness epidemic, and to make America nice and wholesome once more!”
A Democrat turned unbiased candidate for president, Kennedy threw his assist behind Trump after ending his personal marketing campaign. At rallies, Trump pledged to let Kennedy “go wild” on healthcare, seeming to embrace Kennedy’s imaginative and prescient to go after the meals and drug industries, which he has lengthy criticized.
For years, Kennedy has crusaded towards the widespread adoption of accepted vaccines for infectious illnesses, citing disproven hyperlinks to autism and different well being circumstances. His appointment to a job overseeing each the FDA, which approves vaccines, and the CDC, which develops suggestions for his or her use in particular populations, is prone to elevate alarms amongst many public well being officers.
Information of Kennedy’s nomination, which was first reported by Politico earlier than the inventory market’s shut, despatched shares in vaccine makers like Pfizer, Moderna and GSK down sharply. The XBI, an change traded fund that tracks the broader biotechnology trade, additionally fell.
Kennedy has additionally known as for the elimination of fluoride from the nation’s water provide, focusing on an initiative that’s been credited with enhancing the dental well being of People.
Extra just lately, Kennedy has mentioned Trump is tasking him with ridding the FDA and different regulatory companies of “corruption,” an accusation for which he’s provided no proof. In posts to X, he’s claimed he’ll finish the “FDA’s struggle on public well being,” citing what he describes as regulator’s “aggressive suppression” of stem cells, uncooked milk, nutraceuticals and the malaria capsule hydroxychloroquine for COVID-19 remedy.
Trump’s announcement of Kennedy as his choose for HHS observe’s the president-elect’s nomination of different controversial figures to distinguished posts inside his administration, together with former Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz as lawyer common and Fox Information host Peter Hegseth as secretary of protection.
Presidential cupboard nominations, amongst them HHS secretary, have to be confirmed by a majority of the Senate. If confirmed, Kennedy would succeed Xavier Becerra, who’s led the division beneath President Joe Biden.
Editor’s word: This story has been up to date with extra data.
