SUNDAY, Nov. 24, 2024 (HealthDay News) -- President-elect Donald Trump has now picked his nominees to head the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Food and Drug Administration, as well as his choice to be the new U.S. surgeon general.
To run the CDC, Trump has turned to Dr. David Weldon, a long-time internist who interrupted his medical career to represent a Florida district for seven terms in the U.S. House of Representatives before returning to medical practice.
According to The New York Times, some of Weldon's opinions have been controversial, including endorsing the notion that thimerosal, a preservative used in some vaccines, is a cause of autism in children. That theory has long been discredited by science.
In 2007, Weldon also sponsored a failed bill in Congress, which called for vaccine safety research to be conducted by a separate agency within the Department of Health and Human Services.
Weldon's positions on vaccine are likely to be supported by his potential boss, Robert F. Kennedy Jr, the controversial anti-vaccine activist tapped by Trump to run Health and Human Services.
Trump has turned to Johns Hopkins School of Medicine pancreatic surgeon Dr. Martin Makary to run the FDA, which, along with the CDC, helps approve vaccines for COVID-19, flu and other infectious diseases.
According to the Times, Makary is on the whole supportive of childhood vaccines, although he has voiced concern about certain shots, such as the hepatitis B vaccine for newborns and the need for a third COVID booster for healthy children.
He's also been a vocal critic of vaccine mandates, claiming instead that doctors underestimate the power of natural immunity in warding off disease.
Speaking to The Wall Street Journal, Makary has said, “I think there are questions that we can ask that have been taboo to ask."
Jennifer Nuzzo directs the Pandemic Center at Brown University and is a former colleague of Makary. She told the Times that while she does not agree with all of his positions, "I believe Marty is a man of science. I think he will look at the scientific evidence carefully and interpret it using the training and skills that he has."
But Kennedy will be Makary's boss, as well, noted Dr. Ashish Jha, dean of the Brown University School of Public Health. Jha directed the Biden administration’s coronavirus pandemic response.
"How does he withstand the pressure of an HHS secretary who fundamentally doesn’t believe in modern medicine?” Jha told the Times.
Trump's pick to be the new surgeon general is Dr. Janette Nesheiwat. She is medical director of CityMD, a chain of urgent care centers, and a frequent Fox News contributor, according to the Times.
She's on record as being generally supportive of COVID vaccines, once telling Fox News that they were a "gift from God." But she's also voiced opposition to vaccine mandates, the Times noted.
Nesheiwat also sells her own line of vitamins and is the author of a forthcoming book, “Beyond the Stethoscope: Miracles in Medicine,” which the publisher notes discusses the “transformative power of prayer.”
She's also politically well-connected: Her sister Julia Nesheiwat was homeland security adviser in the first Trump administration and is the wife of U.S. Rep. Michael Waltz, the Florida Republican who is Trump’s pick for national security adviser.
“I feel pretty good about the appointment of the surgeon general,” Dr. Peter Hotez, a vaccine expert at the Baylor School of Medicine in Houston, told the Times. “I’ve spoken to her many times and texted her during the pandemic. She’s open-minded, thoughtful and is evidence-based."
However, the overarching question on the minds of health experts is how any of these new appointees will conduct business under the leadership of Kennedy.
On the Trump campaign trail, Kennedy often warned of a dramatic shake-up of all federal health agencies, and some scientists and doctors warn that politics and ideology could undermine or replace scientific expertise at HHS, FDA and CDC.
Kennedy “is just in a category by himself,” Nuzzo said. “R.F.K. Jr. just willfully disregards existing evidence, relies on talking points that have been consistently debunked.”
Dr. Paul Offit is director of the Vaccine Education Center at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and a current adviser to the Food and Drug Administration.
He told the Times, “I’m very, very worried about the way that this all plays out."
SOURCE: The New York Times, Nov. 24, 2024
