Now that Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has been picked by President-elect Donald Trump to be secretary of the Division of Well being & Human Companies (HHS), the environmental lawyer may oversee quite a few authorities companies.
Throughout a charity dinner final month in New York Metropolis, Trump pledged that Kennedy would “go wild on well being” and that Kennedy “desires wholesome individuals, he desires wholesome meals.”
Lots of Kennedy’s well being proposals have alarmed docs and the general public well being neighborhood. Different coverage proposals are seen as extra cheap, however public well being officers have warned that Kennedy’s exaggerated and typically unfounded claims about well being dangers may erode belief in docs and well being companies.
Listed here are among the companies and workplaces that Kennedy would oversee if his nomination is confirmed by the Senate.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. attends a marketing campaign occasion for Republican presidential nominee and former President Donald Trump in Milwaukee, Nov. 1, 2024.
Joel Angel Juarez/Reuters, FILE
Facilities for Illness Management and Prevention
The CDC’s mission is to guard public well being, alerting Individuals about illness and dealing to forestall them from spreading diseases.
The company provides suggestions about vaccines, which regularly are adopted by states; tracks ailments and diseases, together with threats comparable to COVID-19 and foodborne diseases; and gives info and instruments to forestall illness, damage or incapacity.
Whereas the CDC can affect native governments on well being insurance policies, it isn’t an enforcement company and its suggestions are solely tips. The one energy the CDC does have, nonetheless, is that it could possibly detain a person at U.S. ports of entry or set guidelines on migration into the U.S. to forestall the unfold of communicable ailments.
The CDC oversees 10 facilities together with the Nationwide Institute for Occupational Security and Well being, the Nationwide Middle for Start Defects and Developmental Disabilities and the International Well being Facilities.
Signage stands outdoors the Facilities for Illness Management and Prevention (CDC) headquarters in Atlanta, March 14, 2020.
Elijah Nouvelage/Bloomberg through Getty Pictures, FILE
Meals and Drug Administration The FDA opinions the security and efficacy of medical units, medicines, and biologics, that are merchandise that embrace vaccines, blood parts and gene remedy.
The company additionally regulates the security of meals, cosmetics, units that emit radiation and tobacco merchandise. It oversees eight facilities and workplaces together with the Middle for Biologics Analysis and Analysis and the Oncology Middle of Excellence.
Kennedy has criticized the FDA and has claimed in interviews there are “complete departments” just like the vitamin division that “must go” as a result of its employees are “not doing their job.”
Kennedy has vowed to crack down on synthetic meals dyes and take away ultra-processed meals from college lunches, saying that weight loss program can result in persistent ailments.
A view of the Meals and Drug Administration’s White Oak campus Dec. 17, 2020, in Silver Spring, Md.
Brendan Smialowski/AFP through Getty Pictures, FILE
“When you work for the FDA and are a part of this corrupt system, I’ve two messages for you: 1. Protect your data, and a pair of. Pack your baggage,” he wrote on the social platform X in late October.
Nationwide Institutes of Well being
The NIH is the nation’s medical analysis company, made up of 27 completely different parts, referred to as Institutes or Facilities.
Every part focuses on explicit ailments or physique methods, researching to assist stop ailments and enhance well being.
Kennedy proposed in an op-ed in The Wall Road Journal to dedicate half of the NIH’s analysis finances towards “preventive, various and holistic approaches to well being.”
Workplace of the Surgeon Common
Known as the “nation’s physician,” the surgeon basic is tasked with “offering Individuals with the most effective scientific info out there on tips on how to enhance their well being and scale back the chance of sickness and damage.”
Indian Well being Service
The IHS works to advertise public well being providers to federally acknowledged tribes of American Indians and Alaska Natives.
Company for Poisonous Substances and Illness Registry
ATSDR enters communities uncovered to pure or man-made hazardous substances and determines the “public well being results of environmental exposures and to guard individuals from these exposures.”
Well being Sources and Companies Administration
The HRSA focuses on offering equitable well being care and packages to communities in want, together with individuals with low incomes, individuals with HIV, pregnant individuals, youngsters, rural communities, transplant sufferers and the well being workforce.
Substance Abuse and Psychological Well being Companies Administration
SAMHSA is a department of the HHS with a mission to cut back the influence of substance abuse and psychological sickness in U.S. communities by public well being efforts.
Administration for Strategic Preparedness and Response
ASPR works to assist medical and public well being companies and employees put together for, reply to and get better from catastrophe and public well being emergencies.
For instance, ASPR was behind the federal authorities program that mailed free COVID at-home checks to U.S. households.
Superior Analysis Initiatives Company for Well being
ARPA-H’s mission is to put money into breakthrough applied sciences and platforms to assist rework drugs and well being “for the good thing about all sufferers and that can’t readily be completed by conventional analysis or business exercise.”
The OIG focuses on offering oversight to “promote the economic system, effectivity, effectiveness, and integrity” of HHS packages.
Former President and Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on the Turning Level PAC marketing campaign rally on the Gasoline South Area, in Duluth, Ga., Oct. 23, 2024.
Erik S Lesser/ EPA through Shutterstock
Administration for Youngsters and Households
ACF is a division of the HHS that promotes packages together with welfare help, adoption help and different assist to advertise the financial and social well-being of youngsters and households.
Administration for Neighborhood Dwelling
ACL works to assist older adults and folks with disabilities select the place and with whom they dwell and take part of their communities.
Facilities for Medicare & Medicaid Companies
CMS administers the Medicare program, the federal medical insurance program for these aged 65 and older and people with disabilities.
The company additionally works with state packages to manage Medicaid, which is medical insurance for these with low incomes, and Youngsters’s Well being Insurance coverage Program, which gives low-cost protection to youngsters with households that do not qualify for Medicaid.
