President-elect Donald Trump has appointed a retired congressman, a surgeon, and a former talk-show host to head government health agencies in his second term.
They could all be crucial to achieving a new political goal that could alter how the government protects the health of Americans in areas ranging from food safety and scientific research to medical care and medications. Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a well-known environmental attorney and anti-vaccine activist, will lead the team as secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services if Congress agrees.
Although most of the finalists lack experience managing huge bureaucratic organizations, they are skilled at discussing health on television. Medicare and Medicaid centers select Dr. Mehmet Ozhosted is a well-known wellness and lifestyle influencer who hosted a talk show for 13 years. Dr. Janette Nesheiwat, the surgeon general, and Dr. Mary Makary, the Food and Drug Administration’s nominee, both frequently contribute to Fox News.
The COVID-19 measures, such as masking and youth booster vaccinations, were criticized by several on the list. Like many of Trump’s other Cabinet choices, some of them have connections to Florida:Dr. Dave Weldon, a CDC pick, is connected to a medical group on the state’s Atlantic coast and served as the state’s representative in Congress for 14 years. Trump appointed Rep. Mike Waltz, R-Fla., Nesheiwat’s brother-in-law, as his national security adviser.
The nominees’ prospective roles in completing what Kennedy claims is the task of reorganizing agencies that employ 80,000 scientists, researchers, doctors, and other officials, have a total budget of $1.7 billion, and have an impact on the lives of all Americans are examined below.
The Centers for Disease Prevention and Control
With a core budget of $9.2 billion, the Atlanta-based CDC is tasked with safeguarding Americans against public health hazards such as disease epidemics.
Kennedy has long lambasted the CDC and opposed vaccines, accusing the organization of corruption on numerous occasions. In a 2023 podcast, he stated that there is no vaccine that is both safe and effective, and he encouraged individuals to disregard the CDC’s recommendations regarding when and if children should receive vaccinations.
Kennedy met Weldon, the 71-year-old nominee to lead the CDC, decades ago. Weldon was an Army veteran and internal medicine physician before serving as a representative for a central Florida congressional district from 1995 to 2009.
Beginning in the early 2000s, Weldon played a significant role in the discussion about the potential link between autism and thimerosal, a preservative used in vaccines. He attempted to have thimerosal removed from all vaccines and was one of the original members of the Congressional Autism Caucus. Kennedy, a senior lawyer for the Natural Resources Defense Council at the time, thought thimerosal was linked to autism and accused the government of hiding evidence of the risk.
Except for the inactivated influenza vaccine, all vaccinations produced for the US market and generally advised for children aged 6 and under have either no thimerosal or just trace levels of it since 2001. Meanwhile, there is no proof that thimerosal causes autism, according to research after study.
Given his voting history in Congress, Weldon might support Republican proposals to reduce the size of the CDC, including the elimination of the National Center for Injury Prevention and Control, which studies shooting deaths, drug overdoses, and drownings. Weldon’s pro-gun rights voting record earned him an A rating from the National Rifle Association, and he also voted to prohibit federal financing for needle-exchange programs as a way to prevent overdoses.
The Food and Drug Administration
Kennedy is a harsh opponent of the FDA, which employs 18,000 people and is in charge of ensuring the efficacy and safety of vaccines, prescription medications, and other medical supplies. The FDA also regulates cosmetics, e-cigarettes, and the majority of foods.
Trump’s choice to lead the FDA, Makary, shares many views with Kennedy. The overprescription of medications, the use of pesticides on food, and the excessive power of pharmaceutical and insurance firms over physicians and government regulators have all been criticized by the Johns Hopkins University professor who is a trained surgeon and cancer specialist.
Kennedy recently threatened to fire FDA employees for aggressively suppressing a variety of unsubstantiated products and therapies, including stem cells, raw milk, psychedelics, and discredited COVID-era treatments like ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine. He has also suggested that he will clear our entire FDA departments.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, Makary held opposing opinions on the necessity of masking and administering COVID vaccine boosters to young children.
However, rescinding long-standing vaccination and medication approvals or loosening FDA restrictions would be difficult tasks for Makary and Kennedy to accomplish. The agency’s stringent conditions for taking medications off the market are derived from federal statutes that Congress has approved.
Medicaid and Medicare Services Centers
More than 160 million people are covered by the agency’s Medicaid, Medicare, and Affordable Care Act programs. It also determines Medicare payment rates for physicians, hospitals, and other providers. With over 6,000 workers and a $1.1 trillion budget, Oz has a huge agency to manage if confirmed, yet Kennedy hasn’t discussed it much in relation to his ambitions.
Kennedy has not yet attacked the Affordable Care Act, despite Trump’s attempt to repeal it during his first term. However, he has criticized Medicare and Medicaid for paying for pricey weight-loss medications, even though neither program generally covers them.
Trump declared during his campaign that he would defend Medicare, an insurance program for senior citizens.In an AARP inquiry, Oz has supported expanding Medicare Advantage, a popular but often fraudulent privately administered version of Medicare, both in a 2020 Forbes op-ed alongside a former Kaiser Permanente CEO and during his unsuccessful 2022 race for a U.S. Senate seat in Pennsylvania.
Along with three co-authors, Oz stated in a Washington Examinerop-ed that if people lived longer and were healthier, they would work longer and contribute more to the GDP, which would help close the U.S. budget deficit.
Medicaid, the insurance program for Americans with low incomes, has received little attention from either Trump or Kennedy. The program was changed during Trump’s first presidency, enabling states to impose work requirements on beneficiaries.
General Surgeon
Kennedy, who is the country’s top physician and in charge of 6,000 members of the U.S. Public Health Service Corps, doesn’t seem to have made many public statements about what he wants to see from the surgeon general post.
Despite having limited administrative authority, the surgeon general may have a significant impact as a government spokesperson on what constitutes a public health risk and how to address it, offering suggestions such as product warning labels and recommendations. In June, Vivek Murthy, the current surgeon general, declared gun violence to be a public health emergency.
Nesheiwat, Trump’s choice, has worked for CityMD, a network of urgent care centers in the New York and New Jersey region, for 12 years as a medical director in New York City. She has also endorsed a line of vitamin supplements, written a book on the transformational effect of prayer in her medical career, and made appearances on Fox News and other TV programs.
During the pandemic, she promoted COVID-19 vaccinations, referring to them as a divine gift in a February 2021 Fox News opinion piece, along with antiviral medications such as Paxlovid. Nesheiwat stated in a 2019 Q&A with the Women in Medicine Legacy Foundation that she can write a dissertation on hand washing alone and that she is a strong proponent of preventative medicine.
Health National Institutes
Trump has yet to appoint a leader for the National Institutes of Health, which conducts its own research and provides grants to researchers across to support medical research, as of Saturday. Its budget is $48 billion.
Kennedy has stated that in order to concentrate on chronic illnesses, he has halted research on infectious diseases and therapeutic development. He wants to prevent researchers with conflicts of interest from receiving NIH funds, and in 2017, he chastised the agency for failing to conduct adequate study on the long-debunked theory that vaccines cause autism.
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This report was written by Associated Press editors Erica Hunzinger and Amanda Seitz and Matt Perrone.
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