NEW YORK (AP) — President-elect Donald Trump has selected Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to lead the Department of Health and Human Services.
Kennedy will lead the agency that oversees drugs, vaccines, food safety, medical research and Medicare and Medicaid programs.
“For too long, Americans have been crushed by the industrial food complex and drug companies who have engaged in deception, misinformation, and disinformation when it comes to Public Health,” Trump said in a statement released to media Thursday afternoon.
Kennedy, a former Democrat who ran as an independent in this year’s presidential race, abandoned his bid after striking a deal to give Trump his endorsement with a promise to have a role in health policy in the administration, according to the Associated Press.
It remains unclear how that will square with Trump’s history of deregulation of big industries, including food. Trump pushed for fewer inspections of the meat industry, for example, the Associated Press reported. At the time, Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue said Trump’s deregulation was a modernization of a 50-year-old process.
Health and Human Services has more than 80,000 employees across the country and houses the Food and Drug Administration, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Medicare and Medicaid programs and the National Institutes of Health.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
