Trump expected to pick vaccine skeptic Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as Minister of Health

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By JILL COLVIN and AMANDA SEITZ

NEW YORK (AP) — President-elect Donald Trump says he will nominate anti-vaccine activist Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to lead the Department of Health and Human Services, putting a man whose views public health officials have condemned as dangerous in charge of a massive agency that oversees everything from drugs, vaccines and food safety to medical research and the social safety net programs Medicare and Medicaid.

“For too long, Americans have been crushed by the industrial food complex and pharmaceutical companies that have engaged in deception, misinformation and disinformation when it comes to public health,” Trump said Thursday in a post on his Truth Social website announcing the appointment. Kennedy, he said, would “stop the chronic disease epidemic” and “Make America great and healthy again!”

Kennedy is one of them most prominent anti-vaccine activists in the world and has long advanced rejected the idea that vaccines cause autism and other health problems.

Trump also announced Thursday that he has chosen Doug Collins, a former congressman from Georgia, to lead the Department of Veterans Affairs. Collins is a chaplain in the US Air Force Reserve Command. The Republican served in Congress from 2013 to 2021, and he helped defend Trump during his first impeachment trial.

Kennedy comes from one of the country’s most famous political families and is the son of the late Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy and the nephew of President John F. Kennedy. He first challenged President Joe Biden for the Democratic nomination last year. He then ran as an independent before abandoning his bid after striking a deal to give Trump his endorsement with a promise to have a role overseeing health care policy in another Trump administration.

He and the newly elected president have since become good friends. The two campaigned extensively together during the final stretch of the race, and Trump had made it clear that he intended to give Kennedy a major role overseeing public health as part of a “Make America Healthy Again” campaign.

“I’m going to let him go wild on health,” Trump said at a rally last month.

During his victory speech in Palm Beach, Florida, last week, Trump exclaimed, “Have a good time, Bobby!”

Still, it was unclear exactly which job he would be offered. In an October interview on CNN, Trump’s transition chairman Howard Lutnick assured that there was no way Kennedy would accept the job he was given.

The appointment drew alarms from public health experts.

“Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., is not remotely qualified for the role and should not be anywhere near the science-based agencies that protect our nutrition, food safety and health,” said Dr. Peter Lurie, chairman of the public health watchdog. group Center for Science in the public interest.

Dr. Mandy Cohen, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, told the Associated Press: “I don’t want to go backwards and see children or adults suffer or lose their lives to remind us that vaccines work, and I am so concerned.” .”

“Any misinformation that comes from places of influence, of power, is troubling,” she said.

During the campaign, Kennedy told NewsNation that Trump had asked him to “reorganize” agencies including the CDC, the National Institutes of Health and the Food and Drug Administration.

Kennedy has pushed against processed foods and the use of herbicides such as Roundup weed killer. He has long criticized the large commercial farms and animal feed companies that dominate the industry.

But he is perhaps best known for his criticism of childhood vaccines.

Time and again, Kennedy has made his opposition to vaccines clear. In July, he said in a podcast interview that “There is no vaccine that is safe and effective” and told FOX News that he still believes long since rejected idea that vaccines can cause autism.

In a 2021 podcast, he urged people to “resist” CDC guidelines advising when children should receive routine vaccinations.

“I see someone on a hiking trail carrying a little baby and I tell him, ‘better not get them vaccinated,'” Kennedy said.

Repeated scientific studies in the United States and abroad have found no link between vaccines and autism. Vaccines have been proven safe and effective in laboratory tests and in the real world for hundreds of millions of people over decades. The World Health Organization credits childhood vaccines with prevent as many as 5 million deaths per year

In his first term, Trump launched Operation Warp Speed, an effort to speed up the production and distribution of a vaccine to combat COVID-19. The resulting vaccines were widely credited, including by Trump himself, with saving many lives.

Trump said in his announcement that HHS under Kennedy would “play a major role in helping to ensure that everyone will be protected from the harmful chemicals, pollutants, pesticides, pharmaceuticals and food additives that have contributed to the overwhelming health crisis in this country.” But HHS does not have jurisdiction over many of these issues, which fall under the Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of Agriculture.

Kennedy is a lawyer who has built a loyal following over several decades of people who admire his lawsuits against large pesticide and pharmaceutical companies. He has pushed for tighter rules around the ingredients in food.

With the Trump campaign, he worked to shore up support among young mothers in particular with his message to make food healthier in the United States, promising to model regulations after those imposed in Europe. In a nod to Trump’s original campaign slogan, he called the effort “Make America Healthy Again.”

It’s still unclear how that fits with Trump’s history of deregulation of major industries, including food. Trump has pushed for fewer inspections of e.g. the meat industry.

Kennedy’s position on vaccines raises questions about his ability to be confirmed, even in a GOP-controlled Senate.

He has also said he would recommend removing fluoride from drinking water, even though fluoride levels are mandated by state and local governments. The addition of the material has been cited to lead to improved dental health and is considered safe at low levels.

He has said he would try to ban certain food additives by cracking down on substances such as food dyes and preservatives that are regulated by the Food and Drug Administration. He has also targeted pesticides, which are jointly regulated by the Environmental Protection Agency and the FDA.

Kennedy has also made headlines for his history with wild animals. He admitted to dumping a dead bear in New York’s Central Park – placing it as if it had been hit by a bicycle – and found himself the subject of a federal probe after his daughter revealed he had cut off the head of a stranded whale and strapped it to the roof of his car to take home.

HHS has more than 80,000 employees across the country. Kennedy has promised to take a hard look at those who work for HHS and its agencies, including the Food and Drug Administration, the National Institutes of Health and the CDC.

He has said he is particularly focused on ending the “revolving door” of staffers who previously worked for pharmaceutical companies or are leaving public service to work for that industry, his former campaign communications director, Del Bigtree, told the AP last. month. Bigtree is also an anti-vaccine organizer.

Kennedy said he wanted to lay off 600 employees at the National Institutes of Health, which oversees vaccine research.

The expected appointment was first reported by Politico on Thursday.

Kennedy’s anti-vaccine nonprofit group, Children’s Health Defense, currently has a lawsuit pending against a number of news organizations, among them The Associated Press, accusing them of violating antitrust laws by taking steps to identify misinformation, including about COVID-19 and COVID-19 vaccines. Kennedy took a leave of absence from the group when he announced his presidential candidacy, but is listed as one of its attorneys in the lawsuit.

Trump also announced Thursday that he will nominate Jay Clayton, who served as chairman of the US Securities and Exchange Commission in his first term, to serve as US attorney for the Southern District of New York.

__ Seitz reported from Washington. Associated Press writers Zeke Miller in Washington and JoNel Aleccia in Temecula, Calif., contributed to this report.

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