Robert F. Kennedy Jr., rumored to be Trump’s pick for heading up the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), seems ready to stir up some big changes within the nation’s health and science agencies. Insiders close to Trump have apparently been pushing for Kennedy to take the role, and Kennedy himself isn’t exactly playing coy about it, saying Trump would “fight like hell” to make sure he gets the job. If appointed, Kennedy brings along a vision to overhaul these institutions, especially by tackling what he calls “corporate capture”—a polite way of pointing out that Big Pharma holds a bit too much sway in our public health system.
Kennedy’s blueprint to clean up the country’s health institutions fits squarely with Trump’s own goals of rooting out corruption and returning these agencies to a service-based model rather than a profit-driven one. Kennedy has been vocal about how the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), for instance, relies on pharmaceutical companies for about 75% of its drug-approval budget. That’s a financial dependency that Kennedy views as compromising the agency’s integrity and objectivity. And the FDA isn’t the only target on his radar; Kennedy has plans for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the National Institutes of Health (NIH) as well, setting his sights on removing what he describes as Left-leaning political agendas from the science these institutions are supposed to champion.
Under the Biden administration, the CDC, FDA, and NIH became all too willing to serve as megaphones for policies often thinly disguised as “science-based” but were, in fact, laced with political motivations. These agencies have leaned into ideological battles rather than evidence-based policy, straying from the gold-standard science they claim to uphold. It’s no wonder Kennedy wants to tear down this house built on shaky foundations. He’s backed up by a Senate report from Republican Senator Bill Cassidy, which bluntly laid out the NIH’s ongoing issues with transparency. Among other things, the NIH hasn’t even bothered to meet its obligations to the Senate-mandated Scientific Management Review Board—a group tasked with reviewing the institute’s structure and keeping it in check.
Kennedy has been even more candid about his plans for the NIH. In a recent interview, he made it clear he isn’t going to ease into his role with polite reform if he takes office. He’s got a plan to fire a jaw-dropping 600 NIH employees practically the moment he walks through the door. The message is simple: January 20, the Kennedy team settles in; January 21, 600 NIH staffers are out. It’s a dramatic move, but Kennedy seems confident that such drastic action is exactly what’s needed to revamp an institution he views as bloated and bogged down by its own bureaucracy.
The appointment of RFK Jr. would signal a bold pivot in America’s health policy, returning some focus to impartial science over agenda-driven narratives. It remains to be seen if Trump will officially nominate Kennedy, but if he does, the world of American healthcare and public health policy is in for a seismic shift.
