President-elect Donald Trump announced Thursday he will name Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to his cabinet to run the department of Health and Human Services, which oversees the National Institutes of Health, the Food and Drug Administration and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention among other health-related agencies.
Trump has previously said he would allow Kennedy to “go wild on health.”
Kennedy, 70, named after his father, the former attorney general, ended his own third-party bid for president in late August and threw his support behind Trump.
In announcing the appointment on social media, Trump said Kennedy “will play a big role in helping ensure that everybody will be protected from harmful chemicals, pollutants, pesticides, pharmaceutical products, and food additives that have contributed to the overwhelming Health Crisis in this Country. Mr. Kennedy will restore these Agencies to the traditions of Gold Standard Scientific Research, and beacons of Transparency, to end the Chronic Disease epidemic, and to Make America Great and Healthy Again!”
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But a number of health experts and others expressed outright horror over the appointment.
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“Naming Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as Secretary of Health and Human Services is absolutely chilling and could have profound consequences for the health of people in America,” said Dr. Richard Besser, former acting director of the CDC, now CEO of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, a health philanthropy.
“Robert F. Kennedy has done more than just about anybody to instill distrust in our public health system,” Besser told USA TODAY.
Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., also voiced concerns about the appointment and urged her colleagues to vote against his confirmation.
“Donald Trump’s selection of a notorious anti-vaxxer to lead HHS could not be more dangerous—this is cause for deep concern for every American,” she said in a statement. “There is no telling how far a fringe conspiracy theorist like RFK Jr. could set back America in terms of public health, reproductive rights, research and innovation, and so much else.”
RFK Jr.’s political background
An environmental lawyer by training, Kennedy gained national prominence in part for his opposition to the childhood measles, mumps and rubella vaccine, publicizing debunked claims that it was linked to autism. During the pandemic, he also came out against the COVID-19 vaccines, and has been accused of circulating misinformation, including from a group called NewsGuard, which has recorded 90 instances of provably false claims spread by Kennedy or his Children’s Health Defense organization.
During his own campaign for president, largely backed by his Silicon Valley running mate Nicole Shanahan and Trump supporter Timothy Mellon, Kennedy emphasized his anti-corporate stance.
Since joining Trump, Kennedy has focused on a “Make America Healthy Again” slogan, emphasizing the need for the government to address chronic health issues. He outlined a list of suggested ways for addressing the fact that a large percentage of Americans have chronic health problems.
Although his diagnosis of the problem is widely accepted, health officials have broadly criticized his suggested solutions as overly simplistic, and his political priorities, such as restricting ultra-processed food, have raised concerns in the food industry and are likely to be at odds with other Trump administration values, including reducing business regulations.
He also criticized Trump’s own diet, including the fast food on his campaign airplane, as “poison.”
In another controversial move, Kennedy has called for the federal government to remove fluoride from public water supplies. Fluoride, which occurs naturally in some water systems, has been shown to reduce tooth decay.
In doses much larger than added to American water systems, fluoride has been linked to lower IQ levels in children, a Department of Health and Human Services’ report earlier this year found. Communities across the U.S. have added fluoride to their public drinking water since 1945. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention described these public water fluoridation efforts as among the top 10 public health achievements of the 20th Century.
In July 2023, Kennedy sparked backlash after saying there is an “argument” that COVID-19 was “ethnically targeted.” He claimed COVID-19 is “targeted to attack Caucasians and Black people” while sparing Ashkenazi Jewish people and Chinese people, which is not true.
The Kennedy family
Kennedy’s mother, Ethel, died in October. He is the third of 11 children born to Ethel and Robert. Educated at Harvard University, he studied law at the University of Virginia and Pace University.
His personal life has also been filled with controversies, famously beginning in the 1980s when he was arrested for heroin possession.
Recently, he stirred controversy when it came out that he had hidden a dead bear in New York’s Central Park and that he had sawed the head off a whale carcass and drove it for five hours on the roof of the family’s minivan. He has also said doctors found a dead worm in his brain.
He is married to the actress and director Cheryl Hines, best known for her role in HBO’s “Curb Your Enthusiasm.”
His first wife, Mary Richardson Kennedy, died by suicide in 2012, two years after the two were separated.
Reaction to his appointment
Health officials were quick to speak out against Kennedy’s appointment and to call on the Senate to reject the appointment.
“Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. is a clear and present danger to the nation’s health,” Robert Weissman, co-president of Public Citizen, the non-profit, consumer rights advocacy group, said in a statement. “He shouldn’t be allowed in the building at the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), let alone be placed in charge of the nation’s public health agency.” “Kennedy is a science-denying, morally-bankrupt conspiracy theorist who will endanger people’s lives if placed in a position of authority over health,” Public Citizen co-president Lisa Gilbert added. “The U.S. Senate should unanimously reject this nomination.”
Dr. Jacob Glanville, CEO of Centivax, a vaccine platform development company, said in a statement that vaccines aren’t perfect, but have had the greatest impact on improving human health since sanitation, preventing disease and death and reducing the cost of medical care.
RFK Jr. has no medical or scientific training and has been susceptible to misinformation, so he is not qualified to be overseeing the health agencies, Glanville said.
“It would be deeply concerning to have RFK hold any federally appointed office with oversight of medical matters and public health concerns,” he said in the statement. “We call on both parties to pick qualified candidates with domain expertise to lead medical policy decisions around vaccines.”
Kennedy had supporters, too.
“We applaud President Trump’s bold move to Make America Healthy Again with the nomination of RFK, Jr., and believe his confirmation will be a game changer for the American people that will rein in corporate capture and save countless human lives,” said Marty Irby, president at Competitive Markets Action, which promotes regenerative and sustainable agriculture and defends against attacks on states’ rights by the federal government.
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