Trump names RFK Jr., anti-vaccine activist, as U.S. health secretary

U.S. President-elect Donald Trump said Thursday helium is nominating anti-vaccine activistic Robert F. Kennedy Jr to pb the Department of Health and Human Services, putting him successful complaint of a monolithic bureau that oversees everything from drug, vaccine and nutrient information to aesculapian probe and the societal information nett programs Medicare and Medicaid.

“For excessively long, Americans person been crushed by the concern nutrient analyzable and cause companies who person engaged successful deception, misinformation, and disinformation erstwhile it comes to Public Health,” Trump said successful a station connected his Truth Social tract announcing the appointment. Kennedy, helium said, would “Make America Great and Healthy Again!”

Kennedy, a erstwhile Democrat who ran arsenic an autarkic successful this year’s statesmanlike race, abandoned his bid aft striking a woody to springiness Trump his endorsement with a committedness to person a relation successful wellness argumentation successful the administration.

He and Trump person since go bully friends, with Kennedy often receiving large applause astatine Trump’s rallies.

A longtime vaccine skeptic, Kennedy is an lawyer who has built a loyal pursuing implicit respective decades of radical who respect his lawsuits against large pesticide and pharmaceutical companies. He has pushed for tighter regulations astir the ingredients successful foods.

With the Trump campaign, helium worked to enactment up enactment among young mothers successful particular, with his connection of making nutrient healthier successful the U.S., promising to exemplary regulations imposed successful Europe. In a motion to Trump’s archetypal run slogan, helium named the effort “Make America Healthy Again.”

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It remains unclear however that volition quadrate with Trump’s past of deregulation of large industries, including food. Trump pushed for less inspections of the nutrient industry, for example.

Kennedy’s stance connected vaccines has besides made him a arguable fig among Democrats and immoderate Republicans, raising question astir his quality to get confirmed, adjacent successful a GOP-controlled Senate. Kennedy has espoused misinformation astir the information of vaccines, including pushing a wholly discredited mentation that puerility vaccines origin autism.

He besides has said helium would urge removing fluoride from drinking water. The summation of the worldly has been cited arsenic starring to improved dental health.

HHS has much than 80,000 employees crossed the country. It houses the Food and Drug Administration, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Medicare and Medicaid programs and the National Institutes of Health.

Kennedy’s anti-vaccine nonprofit group, Children’s Health Defense, presently has a suit pending against a fig of quality organizations, among them The Associated Press, accusing them of violating antitrust laws by taking enactment to place misinformation, including astir COVID-19 and COVID-19 vaccines.

Kennedy took permission from the radical erstwhile helium announced his tally for president but is listed arsenic 1 of its attorneys successful the lawsuit.