If confirmed, Kennedy will oversee the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Food and Drug Administration, and other agencies.
President-elect Donald Trump on Nov. 14 said he is “thrilled to announce” Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as his nominee to lead the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), in a statement on social media.
“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 wrote on X as part of his announcement.
“HHS will play a big role in helping ensure that everybody will be protected from harmful chemicals, pollutants, pesticides, pharmaceutical products, and food additives that have contributed to the overwhelming Health Crisis in this Country.”
The HHS, created in 1979, oversees 13 separate agencies. The most well-known are the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), and the National Institutes of Health (NIH).
Kennedy thanked Trump for the appointment in a statement on X, saying, “We have a generational opportunity to bring together the greatest minds in science, medicine, industry, and government to put an end to the chronic disease epidemic.”
Kennedy said he looks forward to “working with more than 80,000 employees at HHS to free the agencies from the smothering cloud of corporate capture so they can pursue their mission to make Americans once again the healthiest people on Earth.”
“Together we will clean up corruption, stop the revolving door between industry and government, and return our health agencies to their rich tradition of gold-standard, evidence-based science. I will provide Americans with transparency and access to all the data so they can make informed choices for themselves and their families,” he added.
The president-elect later on Thursday flagged his expectations for Kennedy as HHS secretary.
“We want you to come up with things and ideas and what you’ve been talking about for a long time,” Trump said at a gala for the America First Policy Institute at the Mar-a-Lago in Florida.
“And I think you’re going to do some unbelievable thing—nobody’s going to be able to do it like you.”
By Austin Alonzo and Jeff Louderback
