Environmental lawyer, with no medical background, chosen to lead the US Department of Health and Human Services. His stance against the pharmaceutical industry and promotion of controversial health theories raise concerns.
An environmental lawyer with no medical or public health training, Kennedy is an unconventional pick to lead the vast agency, which comprises the Food and Drug Administration, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Institutes of Health, and Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.
Kennedy has been a vocal opponent of the pharmaceutical industry over the years, while also promoting alternative health practices, spreading vaccine misinformation, and embracing conspiracy theories such as the claim that HIV does not cause AIDS. This week, more than 75 Nobel Laureates signed a letter urging the Senate to oppose Kennedy's nomination, saying he would “put the public’s health in jeopardy.” Yet Kennedy has also made some common-sense health proposals that cut across party lines, such as cracking down on ultraprocessed foods and promoting preventive health care. After endorsing Trump, Kennedy launched the Make America Healthy Again campaign, which focuses on combatting chronic diseases—such as diabetes and heart disease—and laid out a handful of policy ideas to do that in a September Wall Street Journal editorial. Some of those policy proposals take direct aim at the pharmaceutical industry, including reforming the Prescription Drug User Fee Act, or PDUFA, and reviewing direct-to-consumer pharmaceutical ad guidelines. Enacted by Congress in 1992, PDUFA authorizes the FDA to collect fees from pharma companies when they submit new drug applications to the agency. In fiscal year 2022, user fees represented 46 percent of the FDA’s total budget of $6.2 billion. In his WSJ editorial, Kennedy said the practice “creates a barrier to entry to smaller firms and puts bureaucrats’ purse strings in the hands of the pharmaceutical industry.” PDUFA was created in response to a bottleneck in new medicine approvals due to what the industry saw as an understaffed and underfunded FDA. User fees were adopted as a way to boost the FDA’s ability to review new drug application
HEALTHCARE PHARMACEUTICAL INDUSTRY VACCINE MISINFORMATION CONSPIRACY THEORIES NOMINATION
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