Nov. 14, 2024 – Present-elect Donald Trump has nominated Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to be the country’s next secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), succeeding Xavier Becerra, who has served as the department’s secretary since 2021.
The former president broke the news on X and Truth Social.
“Mr. Kennedy 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!” he wrote in his post.
Kennedy, 70, has been an emphatic supporter of the anti-vaccine movement. He has claimed that vaccines are tied to autism, though evidence has repeatedly disproved that claim. He has also been a proponent of drinking raw milk, despite warnings against this from the FDA.
The HHS oversees a group of government agencies, including the CDC, FDA, National Institutes of Health (NIH), Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), and Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA).
“FDA’s war on public health is about to end,” Kennedy wrote on X in October. “This includes its aggressive suppression of psychedelics, peptides, stem cells, raw milk, hyperbaric therapies, chelating compounds, ivermectin, hydroxychloroquine, vitamins, clean foods, sunshine, exercise, nutraceuticals and anything else that advances human health and can't be patented by Pharma.”
Kennedy has also spoken out against the presence of fluoride in public water systems, which many experts agree is safe for consumption and beneficial for health. He has stated that on the first day of Trump’s 2025 presidency, “the Trump White House will advise all U.S. water systems to remove fluoride from public water.”
The U.S. Public Health Service has recommended the addition of fluoride to public drinking water since 1962. According to the CDC, community water fluoridation both prevents cavities and saves money for families and health care systems.
After the election was called, Kennedy told NPR News about what he hopes to achieve in a Trump administration.
“President Trump has given me three instructions,” Kennedy said. “He wants the corruption and the conflicts out of the regulatory agencies. He wants to return the agencies to the gold standard, empirically-based, evidence-based, science and medicine that they were once famous for. And he wants to end the chronic disease epidemic with measurable impacts on a diminishment of chronic disease within two years.”