RFK Jr nominated as health secretary sparks public health debate

Last week, president-elect Donald Trump nominated former presidential candidate Robert F Kennedy Jr. as Secretary of Health and Human Services.

Will Humble, Executive Director at Arizona Public Health Association, joined “Arizona Horizon,” to discuss the ramifications of this decision.

“He has a long track record of believing things that don’t have evidence associated with them,” Humble said. “If you put a person who doesn’t believe in the scientific method and doesn’t use evidence to drive his decision making in charge of those agencies, it’s alarming.”

Kennedy would have control of the world’s largest public health agency, and its $1.7 trillion budget, including the National Institutes of Health, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Food and Drug Administration, and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid.

RFK Jr. has threatened to fire Food and Drug Administration employees, aiming at the agency’s regulatory powers.

Kennedy has publicly doubted vaccines’ safety and efficacy—a critical achievement in public health—despite overwhelming scientific consensus on their role in preventing diseases and saving millions of lives.

“He’s anti-vaccine,” Humble said. “He’s actively against vaccines. He says he doesn’t believe any vaccines are safe and effective.”

His proposal to improve SNAP’s nutritional impact by limiting purchases to healthier foods is a reasonable initiative that could positively affect health outcomes for low-income families.