Robert F. Kennedy Jr. would "clear out" entire departments of the Food and Drug Administration that are “not doing their jobs,” he told MSNBC on Wednesday.
“In some categories there are entire departments, like the nutrition department at FDA, that have to go, that are not doing their jobs, that are not protecting our kids,” Kennedy said. "I can get the corruption out of the agencies, it’s what I’ve been doing for 40 years."
Kennedy, who suspended his independent presidential campaign in August and endorsed President-elect Donald Trump, is known for his opposition to vaccinations, particularly among children. He emerged as a leading opponent of vaccination during the COVID-19 pandemic and is also vocal critic of pesticides, water fluoridation and the pharmaceutical industry.
“FDA’s war on public health is about to end,” Kennedy wrote in a post on X. “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."
Last week, Kennedy told supporters that Trump promised him “control” of several public health agencies, including the FDA, th Department of Health and Human Services and the Department of Agriculture.
The Trump campaign later denied that Kennedy would have a position at HHS, even as Trump has repeatedly confirmed his intentions to put Kennedy in charge of health policy. “I’m gonna let him go wild on health. I’m gonna let him go wild on the food. I’m gonna let him go wild on medicines,” Trump said during his rally at Madison Square Garden last month.
The president-elect again mentioned RFK Jr. in his victory speech on Tuesday night.
“He’s going to help make America healthy again,” Trump said as the crowd chanted “Bobby."
Experts have warned of the consequences of appointing Kennedy, whose organization, Children's Health Defense (CHD), has campaigned against vaccinations around the world.
“It’s very sad to me that as a community, we have taken the most magnificent innovation in human health in the history of humanity and turned it into a political weapon,” physician Catherine Ohmstede told NBC News.
In 2019, Kennedy visited the pacific island of Samoa with CHD to campaign against a measles vaccine. Vaccination rates dropped from 60-70% to 31% before measles swept through Samoa and killed 83 people, the majority of whom were children, Mother Jones reported.
Kennedy’s own cousin, healthcare lawyer Ted Kennedy Jr., said he was “deeply concerned” by Trump’s decision to elevate his cousin.
“We can’t put anyone in charge of healthcare who doesn’t understand how doctors and scientists develop best practices and keep us safe, and has no medical background and no knowledge about how health care is organized, delivered and paid for,” he told Stat.
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