RFK Jr. nomination to head HHS could impact agriculture

The silence from industry and advocacy groups in reaction to President-elect Trump’s announced intention to nominate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to be Health and Human Services secretary has been deafening, but there have been a few reactions. If confirmed, Kennedy would oversee the Food and Drug Administration, but he also filmed a video in front of the Agriculture Department in which he said he plans to “push” changes to U.S. agricultural policy. While Kennedy seems likely to focus on vaccines and other health matters, he could also make changes to food matters such as dyes and reduce restrictions on raw milk, The Washington Post said.

Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La., a medical doctor who is the ranking member of the Senate Health Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee and who is expected to chair the committee in the next Congress, said Kennedy “has championed issues like healthy foods and the need for greater transparency in our public health infrastructure.”
“I look forward to learning more about his other policy positions and how they will support a conservative, pro-American agenda,” Cassidy said.
The HELP Committee has jurisdiction over HHS and Cassidy would chair Kennedy’s confirmation hearing unless his nomination is cleared through a recess appointment.

Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., a former chair of the HELP Committee and current chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee, said she is opposed to Kennedy’s nomination and urged Republicans to join her in opposition.
Murray said, “Donald Trump’s selection of a notorious anti-vaxxer to lead HHS could not be more dangerous — this is cause for deep concern for every American.”
“There is no telling how far a fringe conspiracy theorist like RFK Jr. could set back America in terms of public health, reproductive rights, research and innovation, and so much else,” Murray said.
“The consequences here are not theoretical or superficial — health care access, coverage, research, and public health are life or death issues for people — and the COVID pandemic was an all too recent, all too painful reminder,” she said.
“The last time Donald Trump was president he sent the uninsured rate skyrocketing and did quite possibly irreparable damage to trust in public health — and he has made clear he plans to do much worse in a second term, no matter the consequences. Confirming RFK Jr. as HHS secretary would be nothing short of a disaster for the health of millions of families.
“I urge my Senate Republican colleagues to join me in forcefully condemning and opposing this catastrophic nomination,” Murray said.

Colorado Gov. Jared Polis was a rare Democrat to praise the nomination.
On X, Polis said, “I’m excited by the news that the President-elect will appoint @RobertKennedyJr to @HHSGov.”
“He helped us defeat vaccine mandates in Colorado in 2019 and will help make America healthy again by shaking up HHS and FDA,” Polis said.
“I hope he leans into personal choice on vaccines rather than bans (which I think are terrible, just like mandates) but what I’m most optimistic about is taking on big pharma and the corporate ag oligopoly to improve our health.”
Polis also said he hopes Kennedy will allow imported, cheaper drugs, that the “entire nutrition department” at the FDA has “to go” and that “We’ve got to get off of pesticide-intensive agriculture.” (See link for details.)
Kennedy responded, with his post on X, “Thank you, Governor Polis. I look forward to working with you. Let’s Make America Healthy Again.”

Former Vice President Mike Pence said he opposes the Kennedy nomination because Kennedy is pro-abortion, The Washington Post reported.
Pence said in a statement that Kennedy’s nomination was an “abrupt departure from the pro-life record of our administration and should be deeply concerning to millions of Pro-Life Americans who have” long supported Republicans.
If confirmed, Pence added, Kennedy “would be the most pro-abortion Republican appointed secretary of HHS in modern history,” the Post reported.

Alliance for a Stronger FDA Executive Director Steve Grossman said today in his weekly analysis for members that Kennedy “has been more interested and quite a lot more outspoken about FDA (and NIH, too) than his predecessors as HHS secretary.”
‘His remarks certainly lend themselves to the assumption the agency’s work and policies would be under intense scrutiny should he be confirmed by the Senate as secretary of HHS,” Grossman said.
“As widely reported, his comments have created quite a bit of angst among FDA employees looking for some indication of whether their work will be appreciated and valued.
“In practice, we have no idea what any of that means, now or in the future. There can be a big difference between being the outsider speaking publicly about their point of view and being the leader on the inside who can decide next steps within a wide (but not unlimited) scope of possible actions.
The Senate confirmation process itself plays a role–few nominees emerge without having made at least a promise or two that restricts their future positions or actions,” Grossman said.

Center for Science in the Public Interest President Peter Lurie said, “Robert F. Kennedy Jr., is not remotely qualified for the role and should be nowhere near the science-based agencies that safeguard our nutrition, food safety, and health.”
“Nominating an anti-vaxxer like Kennedy to HHS is like putting a Flat Earther at the head of NASA. CSPI opposes this nomination and any other nominees who are a direct threat to science and evidence-based solutions,” Lurie said.
“If unassuming little viruses could talk, measles, mumps, and rubella would be loudly cheerleading for the nomination of this prolific spreader of scientific misinformation.
“This nomination, like all of Trump’s nominees, must be subject to the advice and consent of the United States Senate. There must be a confirmation hearing and an up-or-down vote. Any attempt to ram through Kennedy or other unqualified nominees using recess appointments — which would require Congress to create a fake, unscheduled recess—would be profoundly undemocratic,” Lurie said.

Environmental Working Group President Ken Cook said in a series of posts on X, “Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is the latest revenge-prank nomination to emerge from the patio of Mar-a-Lago.”
“This joke will be at the expense of all Americans, not just those who voted for Donald Trump. Far from being funny, the decision to make Bobby Kennedy America’s top health official could well be deadly.
“President-elect Trump has selected someone guaranteed to seriously erode the credibility of the federal government with the medical and public health communities,” Cook said.

Marty Irby, president at Competitive Markets Action and secretary at the Organization for Competitive Markets, said, “We applaud President Trump’s bold move to Make America Healthy Again with the nomination of RFK Jr., and believe his confirmation will be a game changer for the American people that will rein in corporate capture and save countless human lives.”
“Our health is the key to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, and big PHARMA and other industries are about to get a big wakeup call when RFK, Jr. dismantles the current systems that protect corporations and allow Americans to be poisoned at the plate,” Irby said.

Jerold Mande, a former Agriculture Department and Food and Drug Administration official who is CEO of Nourish Science; an adjunct professor of nutrition at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health; and a non-resident senior fellow at the Tisch College of Civic Life, Tufts University, said, “Putting food-caused chronic disease at the center of the nation’s health policy is a public health win for Americans.”
“It’s the cause of shorter U.S. lifespans and children with chronic disease. We should ensure that every child reaches age 18 at a healthy weight and in good metabolic and mental health. Bobby Kennedy is committed to doing that,” Mande said

The National Review called Kennedy “pro-abortion” while the New York Post said putting Kennedy in charge of health “breaks the first rule of medicine. Do no harm.”
The Post said an interview the newspaper conducted revealed that Kennedy’s views “were a head-scratching spaghetti of what we can only call warped conspiracy theories, and not just on vaccines.”
Semafor said Trump “may be spoiling for a big fight over what to do with Robert F. Kennedy Jr., as appetite grows among his advisers for the vaccine critic to get tapped for a Senate-confirmed position.”
Semafor noted that Trump’s transition co-chair, Howard Lutnick, told CNN that Kennedy is “not getting” nominated to lead HHS but Trump nominated him anyway because there is so much support for Kennedy among Trump’s supporters.
The New York Times said that Trump is “setting up a debate over whether Mr. Kennedy, whose vaccine skepticism and unorthodox views about medicine make public health officials deeply uneasy, can be confirmed.”

-The Hagstrom Report