Trump fills his key public health roles

CNN
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President-elect Donald Trump announced Friday his picks for critical remaining public health roles in his incoming administration.

Trump appointed Dr. Janette Nesheiwat to US Surgeon General; Dr. Marty Makary as Commissioner of the US Food and Drug Administration; and Dr. Dave Weldon, a former congressman from Florida, as director of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Trump’s choice to serve as director of the National Institutes of Health remains outstanding.

The announced elections come as some in the public health world have already expressed concern over the president-elect’s intention to elevate Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a prominent anti-vaccine conspiracy theorist, to the nation’s top health post as secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Services. Trump’s pick, revealed during a flurry of cabinet and staff announcements Friday night, paints a fuller picture of what the health agency would look like under Kennedy if confirmed by the U.S. Senate.

A person familiar with the search told CNN’s Kaitlan Collins that Kennedy played a key role in selecting the names to fill the department, including the FDA commissioner and the CDC director.

The appointees, if also confirmed, would fall under Kennedy, who has stressed the importance of ridding the department and its agencies of corruption. Trump, for his part, said on the campaign trail that he would let Kennedy “get lost on health.”

Also known as the “nation’s physician,” the surgeon general is a doctor who focuses on educating and advising Americans on how to improve their health. He or she issues advice, reports and calls to action to offer the best available scientific information on critical issues. He or she also serves as vice admiral of the US Public Health Service Commissioned Corps, overseeing this group of uniformed officers who seek to advance the nation’s health.

Nominees for Surgeon General must be confirmed by the Senate to serve.

Nesheiwat is a family practitioner and Fox News medical contributor who is board certified by the American Board of Family Medicine. She attended medical school at the American University of the Caribbean in St. Maarten, according to her medical profile in New York, and did postgraduate work at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences.

“We’re approaching the five-year anniversary of Covid,” Nesheiwat said Sunday in a Fox News segment about mpox. “And if you remember, under the leadership of the President Trump administration, you’ll remember that we had an incredible public health policy, President Trump’s unique creation of Operation Warp Speed ​​was one that we’ve never seen before. And it’s a vaccine, that saved thousands of lives, and we continued to see lives saved even after President Trump left office.”

The Commissioner of Food and Drug Administration oversees the FDA, which is responsible for the safety, effectiveness, and security of drugs, biological products, medical devices, foods, and cosmetics. Vaccine approval or approval falls under the purview of the FDA. It also regulates the manufacture, marketing and distribution of tobacco products.

The commissioner is traditionally a physician, and nominees are subject to Senate confirmation.

Makary is a surgeon and researcher at Johns Hopkins University. He received a medical degree from the Sidney Kimmel Medical College of Thomas Jefferson University and attended graduate school at the Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health. He was elected to the National Academy of Medicine, Johns Hopkins says, and helped direct the World Health Organization’s patient safety program.

Makary, like Nesheiwat, has Fox News ties. In one opinion piece published on Fox News when the pandemic was at its peak in 2021, Makary claimed that Covid-19 had revealed that the FDA was a “broken” administration “that is mired in politics and bureaucracy.”

The agency moved too slowly with its approval of the antiviral pill molnupiravir, he said, and stubbornly clung to its recommendations on Covid vaccine spacing. “It is time for our old medical guard leaders to step aside in advisory roles and let new scientists, those who are not afraid to speak up, take charge,” he wrote.

He became a paid contributor to the network when the pandemic ended in March 2024 and remained in the role until mid-2024, according to a Fox News spokesperson. He appeared on Fox News Sunday earlier this week to endorse Kennedy for HHS secretary.

During the pandemic, Makary was an advocate for the importance of natural immunity derived from Covid-19 infection.

In February 2021, he predicted The Wall Street Journal that this natural immunity would help the nation achieve herd immunity against the coronavirus within two months. Later that year he wrote a opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal argues that workers who had natural immunity and who had been fired for not being fully vaccinated should be reinstated. “The superiority of natural immunity over vaccinated immunity is clear.”

The director of the CDC leads the nation’s leading public health agency, which deals with disease prevention and control and environmental health. Among his or her most prominent duties is making final recommendations on vaccinations and immunization schedules. He or she also serves as administrator of the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, which responds to large-scale hazardous exposures such as chemical spills.

Previously appointed by the president, the CDC director position will be subject to Senate confirmation beginning in January.

Weldon earned a medical degree from SUNY-Buffalo on an Army scholarship and did postgraduate training in internal medicine at Letterman Army Medical Center. He served six years on active duty and eight in the Army Reserve, according to a biography on his U.S. Senate campaign website. He is certified by the American Board of Internal Medicine.

“As a physician, Dr. Weldon became involved in many health policy issues, including efforts to ban human cloning and vaccine safety,” he said. campaign website notes. “He helped lead the effort to remove toxic mercury containing preservatives from childhood vaccines.”

In 2007, then Rep. Weldon introduced the Vaccine Safety and Public Trust Act, which aimed to create an “Agency for Vaccine Safety Evaluation” within HHS. “The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are responsible for promoting both high immunization rates and vaccine safety, duties perceived by some as a conflict of interest,” the legislation noted.

In 2005, during the legal battle over Terri Schiavo, a Florida woman who was left in a persistent vegetative state after cardiac arrest, Weldon introduced incapacitated Persons Legal Protection Act to allow a federal court to review the issue.

CNN’s Kaitlan Collins, Brian Stelter and Meg Tirrell contributed to this report.