Between now and Inauguration Day, President-elect Donald Trump and his allies will have the Herculean task of appointing 4,000 people to staff his administration. Trump campaign surrogate and “Make America Healthy Again” flagbearer Robert F. Kennedy Jr. seems positioned to exert broad influence on who will run the nation’s health-related agencies. He’s already begun soliciting nominees — albeit in an unconventional way.
It’s still unclear whether Kennedy himself will land in the Department of Health and Human Services or elsewhere, and so anyone he recommends is an even more uncertain prospect. But that hasn’t stopped Kennedy from launching a webpage to crowdsource potential appointees for roles across the government. So far, the people’s picks are the standard MAHA fare of unconventional influencers, wellness entrepreneurs and physicians with dubious claims to fame.
The public page, called “Nominees for the People,” allows anyone to submit names for consideration (there does appear to be some screening to avoid a Boaty McBoatface situation). Kennedy announced its roll-out in a tweet just before Election Day. Users can vote and comment on nominations, while moderators handle the more mind-numbing tasks of flagging incomplete forms and grouping redundant submissions. The page uses an open-source platform created by the company Discourse.
Unsurprisingly, many users want to see Kennedy in a leadership position, such as HHS Secretary. That idea seems fragile after comments last week by Trump transition lead Howard Lutnick. Nonetheless, if Kennedy truly gets to “go wild” on health, he may look to the people his supporters are fond of, including doctors who promoted Covid misinformation, prominent anti-vaccine influencers and others with resentment toward the scientific establishment. STAT has reached out to the Trump transition team for comment about the site.
Casey Means, the nutrition-focused functional medicine doctor, is a popular nominee on the portal. She is reportedly being considered for a job in the Food and Drug Administration, but STAT has not independently confirmed that claim.
Among the top nominees on the site is Simone Gold, who founded America’s Frontline Doctors, a right-wing group of physicians who railed against Covid vaccines and protocols, and recommended ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine as Covid treatments. Large studies and meta-analyses failed to support their use. (However, the surge of interest in hydroxychloroquine in 2020 made it difficult for many patients who’d been taking the drug to get refills.)
Gold gained additional clout among her fans when she was sentenced to two months in prison for illegally entering the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6 after Trump’s failed 2020 reelection bid. Earlier this year, Gold was reprimanded by the California Medical Board for taking part in the insurrection.
Like many in the MAHA sphere, Gold also has a health-related business. In 2022, she started a membership-based wellness and telehealth service called GoldCare. “We offer a gateway to leave the Medical Industrial Complex, removing conflicts of interest from government and insurance, providing a path to wellness rather than managed sickness, and placing you in charge of your health,” the website says.
As of midday Friday, Gold had received 610 votes on the MAHA nomination portal.
The vaccine haters
Kennedy fans also support other physicians who became famous for opposing public health guidance during the pandemic. Some want to see their persecuted icons ascend to the very public health titles that previously ostracized Covid deniers and vaccine skeptics — a form of poetic justice.
Pierre Kory is one such figure. He is president of Frontline Covid-19 Critical Care Alliance, and promoted ivermectin before going full-tilt against vaccines, conventional medicine and pharmaceutical companies. His book, “The War on Ivermectin,” was published under an imprint run by Kennedy pal Tony Lyons, who also started a pro-Kennedy PAC. Earlier this year, the American Board of Internal Medicine revoked Kory’s board certification for promoting misinformation.
The cardiologist Peter McCullough became internet-famous as a Covid contrarian, exchanging his job as vice chief of internal medicine at Baylor University Medical Center for a podcast and 1.1 million followers on X. He is vocal against Covid mRNA vaccines, and tweeted Friday that stopping childhood vaccination against Covid “should be THE top #MAHA priority over trans fats and fluoride.”
His McCullough Foundation does the behind-the-scenes labor: producing a wide range of media, funding infectious disease research, advising lawmakers on policy and supplying legal help in cases where doctors lost their jobs for spreading misinformation.
Sherri Tenpenny fits the bill as an anti-vaccine activist and osteopathic doctor. She has promoted the unsupported idea that vaccines cause autism, and gained notoriety when she told Ohio legislators that Covid vaccines made people who received them “magnetic,” and were connected to cell phone towers. The Ohio State Medical Board revoked her license for not cooperating with an investigation. It was quickly restored.
“It’s an incredible honor to be nominated for roles in America’s Health and the Department of Health and Human Services,” Tenpenny posted on Instagram Thursday, urging her nearly 70,000 followers to vote for her on the MAHA website. She continues to run an osteopathic clinic and sell supplements.
The wild cards
One contender that emerged seemingly overnight is the social media influencer Gretchen Adler. As the founder of Gretchy, Adler shares recipes and tips for following an “ancestral diet” — avoiding seed oils, artificial sugars, dyes and preservatives “at all costs.” She is one in a generation of online “tradwives,” or traditional wives, who use a soothing vocal delivery, elaborate cooking projects and aesthetically pleasing surroundings to promote a return to domesticity. Nearly 700 people had voted online for Adler to be appointed to HHS as of Friday afternoon.
If Kennedy’s followers could handpick the new FDA leadership, it seems their top choice would be Zen Honeycutt, founding executive director of the nonprofit Moms Across America. Nearly 900 users had upvoted her nomination as of Friday. Honeycutt’s group focuses on environmental toxins, and got Costco to stop selling the weed-killer Roundup. (Kennedy worked as a lawyer on cases against RoundUp maker Monsanto.)
Honeycutt promotes using certain diets to cure “food allergies, autism symptoms, and asthma.” She has also appeared in videos by the Children’s Health Defense, the anti-vaccine group Kennedy founded.
One final wild card, Joel Salatin, says he has already been offered a position as an adviser in the Department of Agriculture. A self-labeled “Christian libertarian environmentalist capitalist lunatic farmer,” Salatin and his style of farming have gained traction in the online wellness circles. Kennedy has spoken about a need to invest in regenerative agriculture and small organic farmers.
In a blog post about the supposed job offer, Salatin blasted his foes: income taxes, Big Agriculture, federal involvement in education, government lobbyists and public health officials.
“This is a watershed moment to take a creative and serious look at the sacred cows in our nation and fry some serious burgers,” he wrote.
STAT’s coverage of chronic health issues is supported by a grant from Bloomberg Philanthropies. Our financial supporters are not involved in any decisions about our journalism.