President-elect Trump has tapped Johns Hopkins surgeon Martin “Marty” Makary, who has made a name for himself by challenging status quo ideas in the medical establishment, to serve as the next commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration.
Trump announced the pick on Truth Social, where he said Makary would guide the agency to address “harmful” chemicals and pharmaceuticals to combat childhood chronic illnesses.
Makary will “restore FDA to the Gold Standard of Scientific Research, and cut the bureaucratic red tape at the Agency to make sure Americans get the Medical Cures and Treatments they deserve,” Trump said in a statement.
Makary is a close ally of Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Trump’s pick for Health and Human Services secretary. Both positions require Senate confirmation. Makary and RFK Jr. are proponents of the “Make America Healthy Again” movement, which aims to end chronic disease by improving the nation’s food supply and rooting out corruption in health care.
As leader of the FDA, Makary would be in charge of regulating food, drugs, medical devices, and tobacco products. He would answer to RFK Jr., whose FDA agenda, based on his public statements, might include loosening regulation of raw milk, applying extra scrutiny to vaccine safety data, and pushing to eliminate drug and device company user fees that help fund the agency. Those user fees are set by Congress.
RFK Jr. has a long history of anti-vaccine advocacy, including through a nonprofit he founded called Children’s Health Defense. He and other MAHA members backed off more inflammatory anti-vaccine rhetoric recently, instead emphasizing their desire for more transparency and data around the products. It’s unclear exactly what data they are seeking.
“What is scary and dangerous for health care is not RFK Jr.,” Makary told Fox News on Nov. 17. “It’s the food pyramid lie that’s been out there for 60 years. It’s the medical establishment that lied to us about opioids for 20 years saying that it was not addictive. It’s the vaccine mandates ignoring natural immunity.”
Makary, a pancreatic surgeon, has been a celebrity in the medical world for years. He rose to prominence in the early 2000s for developing a simple pre-operation routine to reduce surgical errors called “The Surgery Checklist.” Public health expert Atul Gawande popularized the approach in his 2009 book, “The Checklist Manifesto.”
In addition to his role at Johns Hopkins, he’s the chief medical officer of the telehealth company Sesame and serves on the board of the ophthalmology company Harrow Health.
Makary has criticized and researched various flaws in the U.S. health care system throughout his career, from investigating deaths due to medical errors to calling out drugmakers for exploiting the FDA’s rare disease drug program. He’s pushed for hospital price transparency and for many nonprofit hospitals to pay taxes.
Makary became a more controversial figure with the arrival of the Covid-19 pandemic. He aligned with traditional public health experts in some ways, supporting universal masking and the early doses of the Covid-19 vaccines. On the other hand, he called the practice of compulsory masking for children “abusive,” opposed Covid vaccine mandates, and questioned whether the potential risks for young people of Covid-19 shots, including myocarditis, outweighed mRNA vaccine benefits.
In 2021, Makary criticized FDA leadership for not approving drugs quickly enough during the pandemic. Fellow MAHA advocates have more recently lambasted the agency for being too lenient on drug companies, with many pointing to the revolving door between FDA and industry as evidence of corruption. It’s unclear whether Makary will follow through on RFK Jr.’s promise to intimidate FDA career civil servants who he sees as “part of this corrupt system.” It’s also unclear how RFK Jr.’s vaccine skepticism would affect Makary’s approach to these products.
As a doctor and health care researcher, Makary may have an easier path to confirmation compared with other MAHA members who were considered for the job. But both he and RFK Jr. will have to win over moderate Republicans, many of whom have stayed mum on how they will vote. The confirmation process for HHS and FDA leaders has been more like a battle in recent years, with just 50 senators voting for Biden’s HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra and for FDA Commissioner Robert Califf.