{"id":817433,"date":"2025-01-06T00:11:51","date_gmt":"2025-01-06T06:11:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/2025\/01\/06\/medical-groups-wary-of-rfk-jr-nom-to-lead-hhs\/"},"modified":"2025-01-06T00:11:51","modified_gmt":"2025-01-06T06:11:51","slug":"medical-groups-wary-of-rfk-jr-nom-to-lead-hhs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/2025\/01\/06\/medical-groups-wary-of-rfk-jr-nom-to-lead-hhs\/","title":{"rendered":"Medical Groups Wary of RFK Jr. Nom to Lead HHS"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Some public health and medical organizations are expressing concern over President-elect Donald Trump\u2019s nomination of Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. to be secretary of the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), citing his vaccine skepticism and unorthodox medical views.<\/p>\n

Kennedy has falsely linked vaccines to autism<\/a> and opposes community water fluoridation to prevent tooth decay. During the COVID-19 pandemic, he promoted unproven remedies such as ivermectin<\/a>. He has said he would focus on chronic disease, food policy, and rooting out \u201ccorruption\u201d in the department.<\/p>\n

If his nomination is approved, Kennedy would preside over a sprawling agency that employs more than 80,000 people and includes the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), National Institutes of Health (NIH), Food and Drug Administration (FDA), and Centers for Medicare and Medicaid.\u00a0<\/p>\n

CDC Director Mandy Cohen, MD, told the New York Times<\/a> she feared that Kennedy could spread misinformation and sow distrust if given a leadership position.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Benjamin Hoffman, MD, president of the American Academy of Pediatrics, said in a statement<\/a> that Kennedy\u2019s nomination \u201coffers an important opportunity to share the settled science on vaccines with government leaders, policymakers and the American public.\u201d Hoffman added, \u201cVaccines are the safest and most cost-effective way to protect children, families and communities from disease, disability and death.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tina Tan, MD, FIDSA, FPIDS, FAAP, president of the Infectious Diseases Society of America, said in a statement that the group \u201csupports a comprehensive vetting and confirmation process for any nominee charged with protecting and promoting the nation\u2019s health.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Ashish K. Jha, MD, MPH, former White House COVID-19 response coordinator and dean of Brown University\u2019s School of Public Health wrote on X<\/a> (formerly Twitter): \u201cThe HHS Secretary shapes health policy in profound ways. \u2026 [Kennedy\u2019s] ideas may sound good on bumper stickers but are unserious and often downright harmful. Our healthcare system is far from perfect. But it has spurred so much progress that has benefitted the American people. This appointment, if confirmed, puts all of that at risk.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Worldwide Reaction<\/h2>\n

Kennedy\u2019s nomination has reverberated overseas. \u201cThere is a real concern that his appointment could provide a new platform which he might use to pursue the same anti-science positions on life-saving public health interventions that he has advanced previously, and that he could continue to promote and misrepresent evidence to support spurious claims on vaccines,\u201d said Sir Andrew Pollard FMedSci FRS, director of the Oxford Vaccine Group at the University of Oxford, in a statement<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Peter G. Lurie, MD, MPH, a former associate commissioner at the FDA and now president of the Center for Science in the Public Interest<\/a> (CSPI), said in a statement that Kennedy \u201cis not remotely qualified for the role and should be nowhere near the science-based agencies that safeguard our nutrition, food safety, and health.\u201d CSPI opposes Kennedy\u2019s nomination \u201cand any other nominees who are a direct threat to science and evidence-based solutions,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

HHS has 13 operating divisions, including 10 agencies in the US Public Health Service and three human services agencies. HHS regulates and makes policy on issues ranging from new drugs and medical devices to food additives, vaccines, tobacco and health information technology, substance abuse<\/a>, and mental health. It also funds basic scientific research and training of new physicians, among many other functions.<\/p>\n

The HHS budget in 2023 \u2014 at $889 billion \u2014 was the largest<\/a> of any federal agency, including the Department of Defense.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWe need a [Secretary who] believes in an NIH and medical research enterprise that continues to be a crown jewel of science in the world, as well as a CDC that continues to be highly competent and capable of taking on public health problems across the gamut that is also world class,\u201d said Tom Inglesby, MD, on X<\/a>. The director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security at the Bloomberg School of Public Health said he had \u201cmajor concerns\u201d about Kennedy\u2019s nomination.<\/p>\n

Some US Senators \u2014 who will be responsible for confirming Kennedy, unless Trump bypasses the confirmation process \u2014 were neutral, while others expressed disdain.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Republican Senator Mike Crapo of Idaho, who as the likely chairman of the Finance Committee will oversee the confirmation hearing, said in a statement posted to X<\/a> that he believed that Kennedy \u201chas prioritized addressing chronic diseases through consumer choice and healthy lifestyle.\u201d Crapo added, \u201cI look forward to considering his nomination before the Finance Committee.\u201d<\/p>\n

Senator Patty Murray<\/a> (D-Washington) said on X that Kennedy\u2019s nomination \u201ccould not be more dangerous,\u201d adding, \u201cThere’s no telling how far an anti-vaxxer & fringe conspiracy theorist like RFK Jr. could set America back in terms of public health, reproductive rights, research, & more.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kennedy has said he would seek to eliminate ties between the drug industry and the FDA and its employees. His \u201cMake America Healthy Again\u201d<\/a> campaign said on its website that one of its missions is \u201cto dismantle the corporate stranglehold on our government agencies that has led to widespread chronic disease, environmental degradation, and rampant public distrust.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA) said in a statement<\/a>, \u201cthis industry is a crown jewel of the American economy, giving American patients more medicine choices than anywhere else in the world and supporting millions of high-paying, high-tech jobs around the country.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe want to work with the Trump administration to further strengthen our innovation ecosystem and improve health care for patients,\u201d said PhRMA President and CEO Stephen J. Ubl, and reminded Kennedy that the industry had long thought that \u201cthe U.S. must do more to address the growing epidemic of chronic disease.\u201d<\/p>\n

Alicia Ault is a Saint Petersburg, Florida-based freelance journalist whose work has appeared in publications including JAMA and Smithsonian.com. You can find her on X @aliciaault.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Read More<\/a>
\n Michele Catt<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Some public health and medical organizations are expressing concern over President-elect Donald Trump\u2019s nomination of Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. to be secretary of the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), citing his vaccine skepticism and unorthodox medical views. Kennedy has falsely linked vaccines to autism and opposes community water fluoridation to prevent tooth<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":817434,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[25219,3850],"tags":[5276],"class_list":["post-817433","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-groups","category-medical","tag-medical"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/817433","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=817433"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/817433\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/817434"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=817433"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=817433"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=817433"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}