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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 means he will be appointing 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.
Kennedy, he said, 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 he 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 there was no way Kennedy would 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.
