President-elect Trump has tapped Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a longtime environmental lawyer and vaccine skeptic, for the nation’s top health care job, leading the Department of Health and Human Services.
Trump announced the pick on the social media platform Truth Social, and said RFK Jr. will be charged with ending what he called the nation’s chronic disease epidemic and reforming U.S. science and health agencies.
“For too long, Americans have been crushed by the industrial food complex and drug companies who have engaged in deception, misinformation, and disinformation when it comes to Public Health,” Trump wrote.
“HHS 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,” he continued.
The Senate will ultimately decide whether to confirm RFK Jr. to the role, though Trump has raised the prospect of sidestepping lawmakers. While Republicans hold a majority, many have so far withheld their opinions on his potential nomination and have said they will consider Trump’s pick based on the person’s qualifications for the role.
“RFK Jr. has championed issues like healthy foods and the need for greater transparency in our public health infrastructure,” said Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.), who is slated to lead the Senate committee that will consider the nomination. “I look forward to learning more about his other policy positions and how they will support a conservative, pro-American agenda.”
If confirmed, RFK Jr. will take the reins at a $1.7 trillion agency that oversees vaccines, medicines, scientific research, public health infrastructure, and the health care plans of Americans who rely on Medicare, Medicaid, and the Affordable Care Act’s markets. The directors of the Food and Drug Administration, National Institutes of Health, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, yet to be nominated, all report to the HHS secretary.
Donna Shalala, who led HHS during the Clinton administration, called RFK Jr. “totally unqualified” for the role.
“This is a very dangerous appointment,” she said. “He’s dangerous to people’s health in our country and around the world.”
Several health care advocacy groups stated that they opposed the nomination.
“Nominating an anti-vaxxer like Kennedy to HHS is like putting a Flat Earther at the head of NASA,” Peter G. Lurie, president of the Center for Science in the Public Interest, said in a statement. CSPI is a consumer advocacy group that lobbies in part for better food policy.
Consumer rights group Public Citizen also opposed the pick, stating that RFK Jr. “is a clear and present danger to the nation’s health.”
RFK Jr. joined forces with Trump this summer when he endorsed the former president after dropping his own presidential campaign. He first ran in the Democratic primary before deciding to seek office as an independent. His “Make America Healthy Again” agenda of overhauling food and drug agencies quickly found momentum with Republicans and Trump himself, who said he would let RFK Jr. “go wild” on health, food, and medicines.
Those promises, and RFK Jr.’s long history of vaccine skepticism, have alarmed current and former health officials. For years, he and the group he chairs, Children’s Health Defense, have questioned vaccine safety and pushed unfounded theories that immunizations can cause autism and chronic illnesses.
During his run for office, RFK Jr. shifted that rhetoric into a broader concern about a chronic disease crisis in America and criticized inaction at public health agencies. In recent weeks, he has pledged to end “corporate corruption” at federal health and science agencies and purge their staffs when he takes on his new role. He said he would clear out “entire departments” at the Food and Drug Administration and could dismiss at least 600 employees at the National Institutes of Health.
“We don’t think he’s the right guy based on training, experience or temperament,” said Georges Benjamin, executive director of the American Public Health Association. “We absolutely don’t support his nomination and hope that the Senate will do its job and thoroughly look at his background and see that he is not qualified.”
RFK Jr. has cast his proposed agency reforms as strategies to curb chronic illnesses. Trump has echoed that messaging, referencing a “stunning” rise in chronic illnesses and publicly backing some of RFK Jr.’s proposals, such as a plan to advise against adding fluoride to drinking water. That “sounds OK to me,” the president-elect said.
Trump transition co-chair Howard Lutnick suggested in October that RFK Jr. could whittle down the number of vaccines that are federally recommended, and potentially remove vaccine developers’ protections against lawsuits. But RFK Jr. has backed away from some of his broader anti-vaccine claims this year. He told NBC after Trump’s win that he’s “not going to take [vaccines] away” but that “people ought to have a choice.”
Now that Trump has nominated RFK Jr., other prominent faces in the “Make America Healthy Again” movement could find their way into the administration as well.
According to an open-source website for potential nominations started by RFK Jr., nutrition-focused doctor Casey Means is a popular pick to lead the FDA, along with several right-wing critics of public health institutions. FDA commissioners require Senate confirmation, as do nominees to lead the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
“There is a generational opportunity to reverse the childhood chronic disease crisis and be the healthiest country in the world,” Calley Means, Casey’s sibling, wrote on X.
GOP lawmakers who have criticized public health agencies in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic also quickly applauded the announcement.
“Finally, someone to detox the place after the Fauci era,” Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ken.) wrote on X. “Get ready for health care freedom and MAHA!”
Sen. Ron Johnson, (R-Wis.) who this September convened a roundtable with many of the MAHA crowd who celebrated on Thursday, wrote on X that RFK Jr. is “a brilliant, courageous truth-teller” with an “unwavering commitment to transparency.”
RFK Jr. got his start as an assistant district attorney in New York before focusing on environmental law and championing protections against pollution. He first publicly floated disproven conspiracy theories about vaccines and autism in a 2005 article. By 2015, he joined the board of anti-vaccine advocacy group Children’s Health Defense and launched a series of lawsuits against vaccine makers and public health agencies.
Rachel Cohrs Zhang and Isabella Cueto contributed reporting for this article.