President-elect Trump will nominate Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., to head the Department of Human Services. In that position, Kennedy will have a huge role in deciding the priorities for the $48 billion HHS research budget, as well as the agencies responsible for approving drugs and making nutritional recommendations. Taking to Truth Social to make the announcement, Trump said Kennedy, a 70-year-old environmental lawyer and anti-vaccine activist, “will restore these Agencies to the traditions of Gold Standard Scientific Research, and beacons of Transparency, to end the Chronic Disease epidemic, and to Make America Great and Healthy Again!”
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The appointment is hardly unexpected. At Trump’s victory rally, Kennedy was mentioned:
“He’s going to help make America healthy again. … He wants to do some things, and we’re going to let him get to it,” Trump said in his victory speech. “Go have a good time, Bobby.”
While Kennedy is most famous for his campaigns against vaccines, he has been focusing on food additives in recent years.
Needless to say, Kennedy’s confirmation hearing will be “lit,” as the kids say. Kennedy promises to be a “change agent” who can unravel the cycle of HHS staff approving drugs and food additives, moving directly to Pharma or the food processing industry, and then hopping back into research and regulatory roles at HHS. Billions and billions of dollars are at stake, and the opposition will be fierce.
