By Liz Essley Whyte, Andrew Restuccia and Vivian Salama
WASHINGTON -- President-elect Donald Trump said he would nominate environmental lawyer and vaccine skeptic Robert F. Kennedy Jr.to serve as health and human services secretary, putting a noted critic of U.S. public policy atop the country's vast health bureaucracy.
Kennedy has promised sweeping changes to food and drug regulation and government-funded scientific research, in recent days saying the Food and Drug Administration's entire nutrition department needed to be eliminated and warning the agency's employees to "pack your bags."
Kennedy, 70, abandoned his independent presidential bid in August and endorsed Trump, promising that he and the Republican would work to " make America healthy again."
"For too long, Americans have been crushed by the industrial food complex and drug companies who have engaged in deception, misinformation, and disinformation when it comes to Public Health," Trump wrote in a social-media post.
Billionaire Elon Musk and the president's son, Donald Trump Jr., both advocated behind the scenes for Trump to pick Kennedy, according to people familiar with the discussions.
The scion of an American political dynasty, Kennedy in recent years has been best known for his critiques of public health leaders' approaches to the Covid-19 pandemic and vaccines. He has argued that unhealthy food, medicines and water have fueled the rise of chronic disease in America, and that government regulators have been corrupted by corporate influence.
Kennedy, who could face a tough confirmation battle, would take over a department with an annual budget that tops $1.7 trillion, more than 80,000 employees and 13 operating divisions, including the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the National Institutes of Health and the Food and Drug Administration. Most of its spending goes to Medicare and Medicaid.
The department funds healthcare for millions of Americans, including the elderly and disabled; decides which drugs are safe and effective; investigates food-borne illnesses; prepares for pandemics; funnels tens of billions of dollars to basic scientific research, and much more.
Kennedy has pledged to advise against fluoride in drinking water -- a stance that puts him at odds with public health officials. He has also said he would ask for more data on vaccine safety to be made public, though he told NBC last week he would not "take away" vaccines. He is also eager to investigate food colorings and pesticides restricted in European countries but widely used in the United States.
In a post on X before the election, he said the Food and Drug Administration's "war on public health is about to end."
Scientists and public health leaders have said they are worried about Kennedy's influence if he were to land a position of power in Trump's administration, pointing to children's measles vaccination rates that are already below the health department's targets and dropping. Vaccine scientists worry he could put his fellow skeptics on key boards overseeing immunization advice.
"He's a science denialist," said Dr. Paul Offit, an infectious disease physician at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia. "He's taken his name, which is a famous name, and used that as a platform to frighten parents unnecessarily about vaccine safety."
Kennedy would face some barriers to sweeping changes. For instance, he has pilloried the user fees that drug companies pay to the Food and Drug Administration to ensure the agency has the staff needed to do speedy reviews of drug applications. But eliminating those would require congressional action.
In other areas, Kennedy would have free rein. Drug approval decisions are typically made by career staff scientists, for example, but can be overturned.
"It's totally within the law for the president or the HHS secretary to overrule the entire FDA," said current FDA Commissioner Robert Califf this week before a gathering of cancer researchers. "So that could happen."
Trump's selection of Kennedy underscores how willing he is to back controversial nominees and ignore objections from regulated industry and even members of his first administration with more traditional health policy credentials.
Kennedy may face a difficult path to confirmation, as public health allies in the Senate are likely to be wary of his views on vaccines especially.
Although Republicans are set to take control of the Senate in January, Trump has demanded that the chamber suspend its power to confirm nominations and instead go out of session so that he can use "recess appointments" to install at least some administration officials, such as cabinet secretaries, without Senate approval. That request has taken on greater urgency after Trump has floated controversial nominees, including former Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida for attorney general.
Kennedy, the third child of former Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, spent his early career as an environmental lawyer, suing companies that activists blamed for polluting rivers. A longtime Democrat before his independent presidential run, he has said he twice sued Trump in the 1980s to block his golf courses from being built or expanded. In 1999, TIME Magazine named Kennedy one of its "Heroes for the Planet."
In 2005, he wrote an article in Rolling Stone and Salon.com linking vaccines to autism. Both publications issued corrections to the article, and scientists have shown Kennedy's claims to be false. A 1998 study that suggested a link between the measles, mumps and rubella $(MMR.AU)$ vaccine and autism was retracted, and numerous subsequent studies showed no link. A 2015 study in JAMA of the health records of 95,000 children showed the MMR vaccine didn't increase the risk of autism.
Kennedy repeated his claims that vaccines leave children at higher risk for autism in a podcast with Joe Rogan aired in June.
Kennedy founded the nonprofit Children's Health Defense, where for nearly two decades he continued to question vaccine scientists and public health officials.
Kennedy has questioned the safety of the Covid-19 vaccines, using unverified reports to conclude they are the "deadliest vaccines ever made." All medical interventions have risks, but the Covid-19 shots' benefits outweigh their risks and are safe, public health officials have said.
Kennedy has also questioned whether HIV causes AIDS. The National Academies of Science said in 1988 that HIV causes AIDS is "scientifically conclusive."
Kennedy has insisted that he is not "antivaccine" and instead wants transparency and informed consent for parents.
A former heroin addict, Kennedy now attends Alcoholics Anonymous meetings daily and has said he wants to fight opioid overdose deaths by making addiction treatment simple and affordable.
He has said that since 2005 he has prayed every morning that God would allow him to "end the chronic disease epidemic." He views the role leading HHS as an answer to that prayer, a person close to him said.
Kennedy is married to actress Cheryl Hines. She is writing a book about his presidential campaign, he said in a podcast interview Nov. 9, and one of the titles she is considering is: "I didn't see this coming."
--Anna Wilde Mathews, Rebecca Ballhaus and Dana Mattioli contributed to this article.
Write to Liz Essley Whyte at liz.whyte@wsj.com, Andrew Restuccia at andrew.restuccia@wsj.com and Vivian Salama at vivian.salama@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
November 14, 2024 16:44 ET (21:44 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2024 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
