President-elect Trump has finished making selections for the top public health roles in his incoming administration after he issued a flurry of nominations late Friday and tapped a leader for the National Institutes of Health (NIH) on Wednesday.

Trump pledged to shake up health care in the U.S. during his campaign, and his picks to head the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the NIH and to serve as surgeon general signal he is preparing to do just that.

Trump quickly made waves by tapping prominent vaccine skeptic Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to lead HHS in the days after his victory, after promising he would let Kennedy “go wild on health” during a campaign rally at Madison Square Garden shortly before the election.

Unlike Kennedy, the president-elect's subsequent picks for top health posts have all been doctors. But like Kennedy, they hold controversial views on health care and appear to be responsive to Kennedy’s plans to shake up the agency and the 13 public health and human service subagencies it oversees in an effort to "Make America Healthy Again."

Trump’s choices are not set in stone and will need Senate approval. But they appear on track to be confirmed without much pushback.

Meet Trump’s health care picks for his administration so far:

HHS secretary: Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

Kennedy is an environmental lawyer and prominent vaccine skeptic. He has no formal medical training.

His selection has raised concerns among public health experts due to his history of promoting controversial medical views that go against established scientific findings.

He founded the antivaccination group Children’s Health Defense and led the organization until stepping down in 2023. That year he launched a presidential campaign, which he ultimately “paused” earlier this year to support Trump.

Kennedy has falsely linked vaccines to numerous health conditions, arguing, for instance, that the mercury-containing vaccine preservative thimerosal causes neurological disorders in children, particularly autism.

The majority of childhood vaccines today no longer contain thimerosal, and the CDC has said there is no research linking the small amounts of the preservative used in vaccines to autism.

Kennedy has also challenged the causal link between HIV and AIDS despite long-standing scientific evidence establishing the connection. Instead, Kennedy has theorized that the disease is caused by environmental toxins, a “gay lifestyle” and alkyl nitrite inhalants commonly known as “poppers.”

During the COVID-19 pandemic, Kennedy pushed back against the COVID-19 vaccine and even promoted the conspiracy theory that the vaccine was developed to control people via microchips. He was banned from the social media platform Instagram in 2021 for repeatedly spreading vaccine misinformation.

© The Hill