Donald Trump chooses anti-vaccine activist Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as Health Secretary

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President-elect Donald Trump says he will nominate anti-vaccine activist Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to lead the Department of Health and Human Services.

This would put a man whose views public health officials have decried as dangerous in charge of a massive agency that oversees everything from drug, vaccine, 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 drug companies who have engaged in deception, misinformation, and disinformation when it comes to Public Health,” Trump said Thursday in a post on his Truth Social site announcing the appointment. He said Kennedy would “end the Chronic Disease epidemic” and “Make America Great and Healthy Again!”

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

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

Hailing from one of the nation’s most storied political families, Kennedy 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 policy in a second Trump administration.

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

“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, “Go have a good time, Bobby!”

Still, it was unclear precisely what job he would be offered. In an October interview on CNN, Trump transition co-Chair Howard Lutnick assured that Kennedy would not receive the job he got.

The appointment drew alarms from public health experts.

“Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., is not remotely qualified for the role and should be nowhere near the science-based agencies that safeguard our nutrition, food safety, and health,” said Dr. Peter Lurie, president 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 backward and see children or adults suffer or lose their lives to remind us that vaccines work, and so I am concerned.”

“Any misinformation coming from places of influence, of power, are concerning,” 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 criticized processed foods and the use of herbicides like Roundup weed killer. He has also long criticized the large commercial farms and animal feeding operations that dominate the industry.

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

Again and again, Kennedy has made his opposition to vaccines clear. In July, he said in a podcast interview that “There’s no vaccine that is safe and effective” and told FOX News that he still believes in the long-ago debunked idea that vaccines can cause autism.

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

“I see somebody on a hiking trail carrying a little baby, and I say to him, ‘Better not get them vaccinated,’” Kennedy said.

Repeated scientific studies in the U.S. and abroad have found no link between vaccines and autism. Vaccines have been proven safe and effective in laboratory testing and in real-world use in hundreds of millions of people over decades. The World Health Organization credits childhood vaccines with preventing as many as 5 million deaths a year.

During 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 vaccines, including those by Trump himself, were widely credited with saving many lives.

In his announcement, Trump said that, under Kennedy, HHS would “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.” However, HHS does not have jurisdiction over many of those issues, which fall under the purview of the Environmental Protection Agency and Department of Agriculture.

Kennedy is an attorney who has built a loyal following over several decades of people who admire his lawsuits against major pesticide and pharmaceutical companies. He has pushed for tighter regulations around food ingredients.

With the Trump campaign, he worked to shore up support among young mothers in particular. With his message of making food more healthful in the U.S., he promised to model regulations after those imposed in Europe. In a nod to Trump’s original campaign slogan, he named the effort “Make America Healthy Again.”

It remains unclear how that will fit with Trump’s history of deregulating big industries, including food. Trump has pushed for fewer inspections of the meat industry, for example.

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

He also has said he would recommend removing fluoride from drinking water, although state and local governments mandate fluoride levels. The addition of the material has been cited as improving dental health and is considered safe at low levels.

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

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

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

His former campaign communications manager, Del Bigtree, told the AP last month that he is mainly focused on ending the “revolving door” of employees with a previous history working for pharmaceutical companies or leaving government service to work for that industry. Bigtree is also an anti-vaccine organizer.

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

The expected appointment was first reported by POLITICO Thursday.

Kennedy’s anti-vaccine nonprofit group, Children’s Health Defense, is suing several news organizations, including The Associated Press, accusing them of violating antitrust laws by taking action to identify misinformation, including about COVID-19 and COVID-19 vaccines. Kennedy took leave from the group when he announced his run for president but is listed as one of its attorneys in the lawsuit.

Trump also announced Thursday that he will nominate Jay Clayton, who served as Chair of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission during his first term, to serve as U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York.

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Republished with permission of The Associated Press.