Washington – President-elect Donald Trump said in a social media post that he will nominate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to lead the Department of Health and Human Services.
“I am pleased to announce Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as the Secretary of Health and Human Services of the United States (HHS),” he said in a post on X. He said that America has been “struck by the industrial food complex and pharmaceutical companies that have engaged in lies, misinformation , and disinformation” about public health, and that Kennedy would “Make America Great and Healthy Again!”
Kennedy has a long record of criticism vaccineincluding spreading misleading claims about safety.
He has vow to fight The “epidemic” of chronic disease and the belief that large drug and food companies are to blame for many diseases. Kennedy has claimed several health problems have worsened due to the lack of federal action, including autism, attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, sleep disorders, infertility rates, diabetes and obesity. He also invited remove fluoride from drinking water.
Kennedy must be confirmed by the Senate. The chances of clearing a Democratic-led Senate are slim, given the party’s long record of what it calls “anti-science, fringe public health attitudes,” but with Republicans in the majority come January, Trump’s nomination will be easier to confirm.
Despite the expected opposition to Kennedy’s nomination – along with others controversial choice to lead the national security agency and former Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz to lead the Department of Justice – Trump has told his colleagues recently that he has chosen to be the health chief.
“Nobody can talk to him,” one source familiar with the selection said Thursday.
Trump promised during the campaign that Kennedy, a vaccine skeptic and former environmental lawyer, would “take care” of issues related to health, food and medicine.
“I’m going to let them go wild on health. I’m going to let them go wild on food. I’m going to let them go wild on medicine,” Trump said in the final days before the election. “The only thing I don’t think I’ll let him even get close to is the liquid gold that we have at our feet… sometimes called as oil and gas.”
The sprawling HHS department includes several agencies, including the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the National Institutes of Health, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services and the Food and Drug Administration. As HHS Secretary, Kennedy will also oversee it Refugee Settlement Officewho is charged with caring for undocumented and unaccompanied children apprehended at the border.
The Center for Science in the Public Interest, a watchdog group that has often clashed with the FDA and in some ways aligned with Kennedy’s calls to get chemicals out of food, issued a statement condemning the nominee.
“Nominating an anti-vaxxer like Kennedy to HHS is like putting a Flat Earther at the head of NASA,” the group’s president, Dr. Peter G. Lurie, said in a statement. “CSPI opposes this nomination and other candidates who are a direct threat to science and evidence-based solutions.”
But one prominent Democrat, Colorado Governor Jared Polis, said in a social media post that he was “thrilled with the news” of Kennedy’s nomination. He praised Kennedy for helping defeat a vaccine mandate in Colorado in 2019 but said he hoped Kennedy would vote for personal preference on vaccines, rather than banning them. He also said he was optimistic about Kennedy’s vow to take down big pharma and the high cost of medicine for Americans. Polis also supported Kennedy’s criticism of “all departments, like the nutrition department at the FDA” that “are not doing their job, they are not protecting our children,” especially from pesticides used in agriculture.
At the same time, Polis has also launched a policy entity with Illinois Governor JB Pritzker that aims to take on another part of Trump’s agenda.
As co-chairman of Trump’s transitionKennedy has been vetting a slate of staff who can fill top positions throughout the Trump administration. He said he expects “every nutrition scientist” in the Department of Health and Human Services and the Department of Agriculture to be “fired on Day One.”
Kennedy, who faced an expensive and time-consuming process to appear in the general election as an independent candidate, ending his longshot bid for the White House in August and endorsed Trump.
Kennedy said there were three issues that made him support Trump: free speech, the war in Ukraine and what he called “the war on our children.” He said processed foods, chemicals and obesity are harming the health of children in the US
In August’s public meeting with Kennedy, Trump promised to create a panel to investigate chronic health problems and childhood illnesses, as well as to create an independent presidential commission on attempted assassinations that would be tasked with releasing all documents still related to President John F. Kennedy’s assassination. Kennedy was the nephew of the late president and the son of the late senator, attorney general and presidential candidate. Robert F. Kennedy.
Caitlin Huey-Burns and Ed O’Keefe contributed to this report.
Fin Gómez
