President-elect Trump has appointed Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a longtime environmental lawyer and vaccine skeptic, to the nation’s top health care job, leading the Department of Health and Human Services.
Trump announced the choice on the social media platform Truth Social, and said that RFK Jr. will be charged with ending what he called the country’s chronic disease epidemic and reforming America’s science and health institutions.
“For too long, Americans have been crushed by the food industrial complex and pharmaceutical companies that have engaged in deception, disinformation and disinformation when it comes to public health,” Trump wrote.
“HHS will play a major role in ensuring that everyone is protected from the harmful chemicals, pollutants, pesticides, pharmaceuticals and food additives that have contributed to this country’s overwhelming health crisis,” he continued.
The Senate will ultimately decide whether RFK Jr. is confirmed in the role, although Trump has raised the prospect of bypassing lawmakers. Although Republicans have a majority, many have so far withheld their opinions on his potential nomination, saying they will consider Trump’s choice based on the person’s qualifications for the role.
“RFK Jr. has championed issues like healthy eating and the need for greater transparency in our public health infrastructure,” said Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.), who is expected to lead the Senate committee that will consider the nomination. “I look forward to learning more about his other policy positions and how they will support a conservative, pro-American agenda.”
If confirmed, RFK Jr. taking charge of a $1.7 trillion agency that oversees vaccines, drugs, scientific research, public health infrastructure and the health care plans of Americans who rely on Medicare, Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act marketplaces. The directors of the Food and Drug Administration, National Institutes of Health, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, which have yet to be nominated, all report to the HHS secretary.
Donna Shalala, who led HHS during the Clinton administration, mentioned RFK Jr. “completely unsuitable” for the role.
“This is a very dangerous arrangement,” she said. “He is dangerous to the health of people in our country and around the world.”
Several health care advocacy groups stated that they opposed the nomination.
“Nominating an anti-vaxxer like Kennedy to HHS is like putting a Flat Earther at the head of NASA,” Peter G. Lurie, president of the Center for Science in the Public Interest, said in a statement. CSPI is a consumer advocacy organization that partly lobbies for better food policy.
Consumer rights group Public Citizen also opposed this choice, stating that RFK Jr. “is a clear and present danger to the health of the country.”
RFK Jr. joined forces with Trump this summer when he endorsed the former president after he dropped his own presidential campaign. He first ran in the Democratic primaries before deciding to seek independent office. His “Make America Healthy Again” agenda to overhaul the food and drug agencies quickly gained momentum with Republicans and Trump himself, who said he would target RFK Jr. would ‘let go’ in the areas of health, food and medicine.
These promises, and RFK Jr.’s long history of vaccine skepticism, have alarmed current and former health officials. For years, he and the group he chairs, Children’s Health Defense, have questioned the safety of vaccines and advanced baseless theories that immunizations can cause autism and chronic diseases.
During his election campaign, RFK Jr. moved that rhetoric to broader concerns about a chronic disease crisis in America and criticized inaction among public health agencies. In recent weeks, he has pledged to end “corporate corruption” at federal health and science agencies and purge their staffs when he takes on his new role. He said he would clean up”entire departments” at the Food and Drug Administration and could fire at least 600 employees at the National Institutes of Health.
“We don’t think he’s the right guy based on training, experience or temperament,” said Georges Benjamin, executive director of the American Public Health Association. “We absolutely do not support his nomination and hope that the Senate will do its job and take a thorough look at his background and see that he is not qualified.”
RFK Jr. has presented its proposed reforms of the agency as strategies to curb chronic diseases. Trump has reiterated that message, citing a “stunning” rise in chronic diseases and publicly addressing some of RFK Jr.’s proposals. supported, such as a plan to discourage the addition of fluoride to drinking water. That “sounds good to me,” the said the president-elect.
Trump transition co-chair Howard Lutnick suggested in October that RFK Jr. could reduce the number of vaccines federally recommended and potentially remove vaccine developers’ protection from lawsuits. But RFK Jr. has this year backed away from some of its broader anti-vaccine claims. He told NBC after Trump’s victory which he is “not going to accept [vaccines] away” but that “people should have a choice.”
Now that Trump has been nominated RFK Jr., other prominent faces in the “Make America Healthy Again” movement could also find their way into the administration.
According to an open-source website for potential nominations started by RFK Jr., nutrition-focused physician Casey Means is a popular choice to lead the FDA, along with several right-wing critics of public health agencies. FDA commissioners need Senate confirmation, just like nominees to lead the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
“There is an opportunity for generations to reverse the crisis of chronic childhood diseases and become the healthiest country in the world,” said Calley Means, Casey’s sibling. wrote on X.
GOP lawmakers who have criticized public health authorities in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic were also quick to applaud the announcement.
“Finally someone who can detox the place after the Fauci era,” Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ken.) wrote on X. “Get ready for healthcare freedom and MAHA!”
Senator Ron Johnson, (R-Wis.) who in September a round table convened with many of the MAHA crowd celebrating on Thursday, wrote on X that RFK Jr. is “a brilliant, courageous truth-teller” with an “unwavering commitment to transparency.”
RFK Jr. started as an assistant district attorney in New York before turning his focus to environmental law and advocating for pollution protection. Him first floated publicly debunked conspiracy theories about vaccines and autism in a 2005 article. In 2015, he joined the board of the anti-vaccine group Children’s Health Defense and launched a series of lawsuits against vaccine makers and public health agencies.
Rachel Cohrs Zhang and Isabella Cueto contributed reporting for this article.