Washington (AP) President-elect Donald Trump has put together a group of health care skeptics and medical contrarians to carry out his agenda, which aims to change the way the federal government regulates nutrition, health programs, and medications.
Tuesday night, Trump appointed Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, a critic of vaccine mandates and pandemic lockdowns, to head the National Institutes of Health, the country’s premier medical research organization. He is the most recent of several Trump nominees who have opposed COVID-19 health reforms.
It is anticipated that Bhattacharya and the other nominees will be crucial in carrying out Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s sprawling “Make America Healthy Again” agenda, which calls for eliminating thousands of additives from American foods, eliminating conflicts of interest at government agencies, and providing incentives for healthier options in school lunches and other nutrition initiatives. Kennedy was Trump’s choice to lead the Department of Health and Human Services, which is in charge of the National Institutes of Health and other federal health organizations.
Trump’s first term’s health priorities, which centered on reducing regulations for food, pharmaceutical, and agricultural corporations, are not very similar to the new ones.
“As we enter this new Trump administration, you’re hearing a very different tune,” said Gabby Headrick, a nutrition researcher at the School of Public Health at George Washington University. We must all exercise prudence going forward and keep in mind some of the public health losses we witnessed initially.
Trump’s picks are skilled at discussing health on television, but they lack expertise managing huge bureaucratic organizations.
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.
Like several of Trump’s other Cabinet picks, some of them have ties to Florida. For example, Dave Weldon, the candidate for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, served as a representative for the state in Congress for 14 years.
The following examines how the nominees might implement Kennedy’s proposals to restructure agencies, which employ 80,000 scientists, researchers, physicians, and other officials and have a total budget of $1.7 trillion:
Health National Institutes
With a $48 billion budget, the National Institutes of Health both carries out its own research and provides grants to experts around the country to support medical research.
In October 2020, Bhattacharya, a Stanford University doctor and health economist, was one of three authors of the Great Barrington Declaration, a document arguing that lockdowns were causing irreversible harm.
Prior to the development of COVID-19 vaccines, the document advocated for herd immunity, which holds that low-risk individuals should continue to live their normal lives while developing immunity to COVID-19 through infection. According to the proposal, protection should instead target those who are more vulnerable.
During a panel discussion organized by Florida Governor Ron DeSantis in March 2021, Bhattacharya stated, “I believe the lockdowns were the single biggest public health mistake.”
While illness professionals universally condemned the Great Barrington Declaration, certain members of the first Trump administration supported it. Dr. Francis Collins, the head of the NIH at the time, described it as risky and outside the mainstream of research.
The Senate would have to ratify his nomination.
Kennedy has stated that NIH’s research on infectious diseases and drug development would be halted in favor of chronic disorders. Additionally, he wants NIH financing from conflicting interests to remain in place. He claimed in 2017 that the government wasn’t conducting enough study on the long-debunked theory that vaccines cause autism.
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. According to estimates from the World Health Organization, immunizations have prevented approximately 150 million deaths in the last 50 years, with 100 million of those deaths being in babies.
Kennedy met Weldon 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.
Except for the inactivated flu 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. However, research after research has not shown that thimerosal causes autism.
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.
The Food and Drug Administration
Kennedy has been harshly critical 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, is a cancer specialist, a professor at Johns Hopkins University, and a qualified surgeon. On a number of issues, he closely agrees with Kennedy.
Makary has criticized the use of pesticides on food, the overprescription of medications, and the power of insurance and pharmaceutical firms over medical professionals and government authorities.
Kennedy has threatened to remove FDA personnel for aggressively suppressing a variety of dubious products and therapies, such as stem cells, raw milk, psychedelics, and discredited COVID-era medications like hydroxychloroquine. He has even stated that he will abolish entire FDA departments.
Makary’s contrarian opinions during COVID-19 included doubting the necessity of giving young children COVID-19 vaccine boosters.
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. If approved, Oz has a huge agency to manage with a $1.1 trillion budget and over 6,000 employees—an organization about which Kennedy hasn’t said much.
Kennedy has not yet attacked the Affordable Care Act, despite Trump’s attempt to repeal it during his first term.
On Tuesday, the Biden administration unveiled a new plan to require Medicare and Medicaid to pay for weight-loss medications like Zepbound and Wegovy for a large number of obese Americans. Kennedy has criticized the plan, arguing that more coverage for gym memberships and healthier foods should be provided by government-sponsored insurance programs.
Trump declared during his campaign that he would defend Medicare, an insurance program for senior citizens.Oz has supported the expansion of Medicare Advantage, a well-liked but often fraudulent privately operated version of Medicare.
General Surgeon
Kennedy doesn’t seem to have expressed his preferences for the surgeon general in public.
Although the nation’s top physician has limited administrative authority, he or she can influence what constitutes a public health hazard and how to address it by issuing recommendations and recommending things like warning labels for products. In June, Vivek Murthy, the current surgeon general, declared gun violence to be a public health emergency.
Nesheiwat, Trump’s choice, works as a medical director for CityMD, a chain of urgent care centers in New York City. She also has appeared on Fox News and other TV shows, authored a book on the transformative power of prayer in her medical career and endorses a brand of vitamin supplements.
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Associated Press writers Mike Stobbe, Amanda Seitz, Carla K. Johnson, Matthew Perrone and Erica Hunzinger contributed to this report.
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