Why Choose RFK Jr. to lead HHS is raising alarms among many public health specialists

With newly elected President Donald Trump’s choice of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as his nominee To lead the Department of Health and Human Services, numerous public health leaders are expressing fears that the nation’s top health agencies will be weakened at a time when the country faces increasing threats from infectious diseases, lobbyists encouraged from the industry and the dangerous consequences of medical misinformation.

If Kennedy is confirmed as secretary of HHS, he is in favor medical conspiracies and one self-described “poster child for the anti-vax movement” – would oversee agencies such as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Food and Drug Administration, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services and the National Institutes of Health.

Like the two most recently confirmed HHS secretaries, Xavier Becerra and Alex Azar, Kennedy is a lawyer with no formal scientific or medical qualifications. His scope includes programs and departments that he has harshly criticized in the past, often in ways that opponents say distort or ignore facts and misinterpret the science.

Many of the issues Kennedy has publicly said he wants to address are concerns widely shared by healthcare providers, public health officials and members of the public. These include widespread chronic disease, poor nutrition and the ubiquity of processed foods containing artificial chemicals.

But his appointment has alarmed many public health and medical officials, who say they worry that the solutions Kennedy sees fit could undermine American health in the long term.

Read more:Food, fluoride and financing: how another Trump term could impact health in California

“Putting someone in charge who is unable to tell the difference between good and bad science is truly dangerous to the American people,” he said Dr. Peter Luriepresident and executive director of the Center for Science in the Public Interest.

“Yes, there are some things he supports and that we agree with, but they feel more like a stopped clock that is synchronized twice a day,” Lurie said, citing food additives as an example. “There are opportunities for small victories. … But overall it’s dissolved into so many bad ideas that it’s absolutely not worth it.”

Kennedy declined to discuss his plans for HHS with The Times, but he has outlined some priorities for the agency in previous public statements.

For example, he said Trump would do that advise against water fluoridation on his first day at work. He told NBC News he wouldn’t “take away” vaccines, but he would “ensure that scientific studies of safety and efficacy are available, and that people can individually judge whether that product will be good for them.”

More than a half-dozen experts who spoke to The Times said Kennedy’s suggestions were that the science around vaccines is unsound would undermine public health.

The United States has “the best vaccine safety system in the world,” he said Dr. Richard Bessera former acting CDC director who now heads the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. “RFK Jr. has done a lot to undermine confidence in that.”

There are indeed cases of this measles has increased in the US as vaccinations for children lag behind, especially since the COVID-19 pandemic. The CDC has identified 277 cases of measles this year, up from 59 in 2023.

“I don’t want us to go backwards to remind ourselves that vaccines work.” Dr. Mandy Cohenthe director of the CDC, said this week at the Milken Institute Future of Health Summit in Washington, DC

Kennedy’s zeal to remove fluoride from drinking water based on claims that the mineral causes neurodevelopmental disorders and other health problems is another example of avoiding the best science, said Dr. Walter Willettprofessor of epidemiology and nutrition at the Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health.

“That has been carefully looked at and that is true no evidence of a connection,” said Willett. “On the other hand, there are serious problems with lead in water systems.”

Read more:A Trump victory could mean big changes for California’s drinking water, RFK Jr. says

Vaccines and fluoride are just two areas where Kennedy will have the opportunity to implement ideas that lack strong scientific support.

Last month, he denounced the FDA’s “aggressive crackdown” on unproven health drugs such as dietary supplements and ivermectin. and warned: “If you work for the FDA and are part of this corrupt system, I have two messages for you: 1. Save your information, and 2. Pack your bags.”

But food safety advocates, who shared many of Kennedy’s criticisms of lax regulations, said gutting the agency is not the answer. Any effort to reduce or eliminate chemical additives in foods would require experienced staffers to draft new rules and shepherd them through the required regulatory process, said Ken Cookchairman of the Environmental Working Group.

“If you get rid of all the bureaucrats, who is going to write the regulations?” said Cook.

Or consider the FDA’s dependence on user fees from companies that want the agency to approve its medical products. Such compensation makes up for it almost half of the agency’s operating budget. Kennedy and others have criticized such fees, but if those dollars disappear, Congress is unlikely to refund them, Lurie said.

“Ending user fees is tantamount to starving the agency,” he said. “That would mean a food program that is limited in what it can do, medicines coming to market more slowly and vaccines being even less well monitored for safety.”

Lurie said he wouldn’t be surprised if Kennedy sees researchers at the National Institutes of Health looking for harmful side effects from vaccines and elusive benefits from potential therapies already shown to be ineffective, such as chelation as a treatment for autism. and ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine for COVID-19.

“He seems to think these are promising,” Lurie said. “Most of these ideas are a drain on government spending, which is ironic given the Trump administration’s perceived commitment to efficiency.”

As important as HHS’s role is, Kennedy would still find his powers limited by the limits of the agency’s reach — and possibly the whims of his boss.

Willett said he agrees with Kennedy that the nation’s health is declining and that our food and health care systems “are dysfunctional in many ways.” He would appreciate efforts to limit the numbers salt allowed in foods and to limit consumption of added sugars, refined grains and sugar-sweetened beverages.

But if Kennedy takes such steps, “we’re sure he will encounter resistance from the industry,” Willett said. “It would be interesting to see if he is willing to take on Coca-Cola.”

Read more:RFK Jr. says he had a dead worm in his brain. What are these parasites and how common are they?

Although Kennedy is passionate about reducing pesticides and other chemicals in foods, it is up to the Department of Agriculture to regulate the use of pesticides on crops, and it is the job of the Environmental Protection Agency to determine what exposure levels are considered safe considered for humans, Cook said. Nor would Kennedy have the power to reform farm subsidies to encourage organic and regenerative agriculture.

“He doesn’t have much to spend on pesticides from where he is,” Cook said. “That’s not really an HHS thing or an FDA thing.”

The FDA has the authority to regulate the chemicals that come off food packaging and can end up in food, and Kennedy could prioritize that, Cook said.

It is also possible that Kennedy could protect US budgets National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences and the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registrysaid Cook.

To help him achieve his goals, Kennedy has invited the public to weigh in on people who could fill important roles within the federal government’s health agencies.

Names that have collected thousands of votes in the Category “America’s Health”. from his ‘Nominees for the People’ website includes Dr. Sherri Tenpenny, who claimed there were COVID-19 vaccines made people magneticand dr. Simone Gold, the anti-vaccination doctor from Beverly Hills whose medical license was suspended after her pleaded guilty to illegally entering the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021. (Her license has since been revoked restored.)

Kennedy’s own ascension to the post of HHS secretary is not yet certain. The Cabinet’s positions would need to be confirmed by the Senate, although Trump has suggested he could use recess appointments to sidestep the need for lawmakers’ approval.

Dr. Georges Benjaminexecutive director of the American Public Health Assn., said that even if Kennedy wins confirmation, it is uncertain how long he will remain in Trump’s good graces.

“I remind people that his first health minister lasted less than a year,” Benjamin said. “We’ll see what happens here.”

This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.