President-elect Donald Trump introduced on Thursday that he would nominate former unbiased presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to run the Division of Well being and Human Companies (HHS). It’s the success of an implied promise that Trump made at a rally at Madison Sq. Backyard in New York in late October, the place he stated he would let Kennedy “go wild on well being.”
Kennedy, a former Democrat and scion of the rich political household, first rose to prominence as an environmental lawyer and anti-vaccine activist. Round 2015, he joined the board of the nonprofit Youngsters’s Well being Protection, which alleges that situations like autism and a spotlight deficit hyperactivity dysfunction are attributable to environmental elements, together with dangerous brokers in vaccines. Kennedy has repeatedly unfold misinformation about vaccines and in 2021 was named by the Heart for Countering Digital Hate as one of many “disinformation dozen,” spreading misinformation concerning the Covid-19 pandemic throughout Instagram, Twitter, and Fb.
He has recommended, in contradiction to all respected scientific analysis, that Covid-19 might have been “ethnically focused” to spare Ashkenazi Jews and Chinese language folks and that HIV doesn’t trigger AIDS, and has implied that vaccine mandates are worse than the Holocaust. He additionally stated in a 2012 deposition {that a} worm ate a part of his mind after which died.
Kennedy’s account was banned from Instagram in 2021 for spreading vaccine misinformation. His account was restored in 2023, when he introduced his run for workplace.
In August, Kennedy suspended his marketing campaign and threw his help behind Trump, saying, “If President Trump is elected and honors his phrase, the huge burden of power illness that burdens and bankrupts the nation will disappear.” He launched a parallel slogan to Trump’s MAGA—Make America Wholesome Once more (MAHA)—targeted on “prioritizing regenerative agriculture, preserving pure habitats, and eliminating toxins from our meals, water, and air.”
HHS oversees 13 federal companies—which Kennedy has indicated he would intestine—together with the Nationwide Institutes of Well being, the Meals and Drug Administration, and the Facilities for Illness Management.
Kennedy’s place, nevertheless, remains to be contingent on congressional approval. Earlier HHS leaders have had lengthy careers within the public well being discipline or throughout the division itself earlier than serving as the top. A Republican-controlled Senate would possibly defer to Trump, or it’d level to Kennedy’s aggressive promotion of conspiracy theories, lengthy profession as a loyal Democrat, and muddled positions on abortion as causes to dam his accession.
Although Kennedy has promised to overtake your entire system, specialists who spoke to WIRED say that he would seemingly come up in opposition to long-standing rules that may be laborious to outmaneuver. Well being insurance policies are additionally closely knowledgeable by advisory committees, that are stacked with medical and public well being specialists, and would take time to shift with the intention to absolutely change the federal government’s suggestions.
Nonetheless, as HHS director, Kennedy would have substantial energy to dismiss workers and declare public well being emergencies.
