President-elect Donald Trump has announced the appointment of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as Secretary of Health and Human Services. “For too long, Americans have been crushed by the industrial food complex and drug companies,” Trump said in a statement published on X (formerly Twitter), adding that “Mr. Kennedy will restore these Agencies to the traditions of Gold Standard Scientific Research” through his position as HHS Secretary. Kennedy was an independent presidential candidate in this election cycle before dropping out and endorsing Trump in August.
That Kennedy would have a public-health-related role in the upcoming administration has been clear for some time, although questions remained as to what exactly that would be. In his Madison Square Garden rally one week before the election, Trump told the audience that he would let Kennedy “go wild on health […] the food […] and the medicines,” – a sweeping portfolio for any public official, even at the federal level. Kennedy echoed this sentiment as the election drew near as well, stating that “the key that President Trump has promised me is control of the public health agencies, which are HHS and its sub-agencies, CDC, FDA, NIH, and a few others, and then also the USDA.” The USDA is run by the Secretary of Agriculture, not HHS.
There are still hurdles that may keep Kennedy from taking this position. Secretary of Health and Human Services is Cabinet-level position requiring Senate confirmation, an obstacle that could undo Trump’s appointment, as Kennedy’s unorthodox and conspiratorial views on public health would be exposed and interrogated in Senate hearings. During the COVID pandemic, RFK Jr. claimed that the virus was “targeted to attack Caucasians and Black people. The people who are most immune are Ashkenazi Jews and Chinese.” No evidence has indicated that the virus has attacked particular races over others, nor does medical science indicate that it could, as genetic differences within races are as varied as that between races, if not more so. An environmental lawyer by trade, Kennedy has no professional or academic background in any kind of scientific discipline, let alone one related to human health.
RFK Jr. has also been a longtime anti-vaccine advocate, repeating falsehoods about their development and use in countless forums over the years. On Joe Rogan’s widely viewed podcast, he stated this summer that “none of the vaccines are ever subjected to true placebo-controlled trials,” a lie that he had also previously stated on Fox News just a few months prior. He founded and ran Children’s Health Defense, an anti-vaccine group that has consistently promoted the long-debunked claim that vaccines are linked to autism. In 2019, Kennedy and his nonprofit’s misinformation contributed to a massive outbreak of measles in American Samoa, which got 5,700 people sick and killed 83. Children’s Health Defense also advocates against the fluoridation of water, another of RFK Jr.’s stated policy goals in Trump’s administration. According to the CDC, water fluoridation “has been one of the most practical, cost-effective, fair, and equitable measures that communities can take to improve residents’ oral health and made substantial contributions to narrowing oral health disparities.”
According to the Associated Press, Trump is demanding that Republicans in the Senate allow him to make recess appointments, which would bypass the confirmation process. The party has so far backed the president-elect with near-total support, although his appointment of non-mainstream figures like Kennedy – as well as Tulsi Gabbard and Matt Gaetz – to Cabinet-level positions is a test of their loyalty.
