Many of President-elect Donald Trump’s candidates for federal health agencies have promoted policies and goals that put them at odds with one another or with Trump’s choice to run the Department of Health and Human Services, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., setting the stage for internal friction over public health initiatives.
The picks hold different views on matters such as limits on abortion, the safety of childhood vaccines, the covid-19 response, and the use of weight-loss medications. The divide pits Trump picks who adhere to more traditional and orthodox science, such as the long-held, scientifically supported findings that vaccines are safe, against often unsubstantiated views advanced by Kennedy and other selections who have claimed vaccines are linked with autism.
The Trump transition team and the designated nominees mentioned in this article did not respond to requests for comment.
It’s a potential “team of opponents” at the government’s health agencies, said Michael Cannon, director of health policy studies at the Cato Institute, a libertarian policy organization.
Kennedy, he said, is known for rejecting opposing views when confronted with science.
“The heads of the FDA and NIH will be spending all their time explaining to their boss what a confidence interval is,” Cannon said, referring to a statistical term used in medical studies.
Those whose views prevail will have significant power …