美国当选总统唐纳德·特朗普(Donald Trump)周四在社交媒体上宣布，他已选择对疫苗持怀疑态度的小罗伯特·F·肯尼迪(Donald Trump .)担任卫生与公众服务部(Department of Health and Human Services)部长。
川普说，甘乃迪将“恢复”HHS领导下的机构，“恢复黄金标准科学研究的传统和透明度的灯塔，结束慢性病流行，让美国再次伟大和健康!”
卫生和福利部(Health and Human Services)监管主要的卫生机构如疾病控制和预防中心、食品药品监督管理局和医疗保险中心和医疗补助服务，等等。
这项工作需要参议院的批准。
肯尼迪，他暂停了他的8月独立竞选总统，并支持特朗普，在选举日之前说特朗普曾“承诺”他“控制公共卫生机构”。
知情人士告诉美国广播公司新闻，肯尼迪已经就健康相关的任命向特朗普和过渡团队提供了广泛的建议。消息人士称，肯尼迪还多次被发现出现在Mar-a-Lago，并参与了包括特定内阁和健康相关工作候选人的介绍。
肯尼迪是一个反疫苗活动家并成立了儿童健康防御组织，这是一个著名的反疫苗非营利组织，致力于反对免疫接种和其他公共卫生措施，如水的氟化。医学专家表达关切肯尼迪参选导致医疗错误信息增加。值得注意的是，肯尼迪错误地声称儿童疫苗会导致自闭症，尽管最初提出这种联系的研究已经撤回，随后许多高质量的研究反驳这一理论。
本月早些时候，甘乃迪在NPR的一次采访中声称他“从未反对过疫苗”
“如果疫苗对某人有效，我不会把它们拿走。人们应该有选择，而且这种选择应该由最好的信息来决定。因此，我将确保科学的安全研究和伦理道德是存在的，人们可以对该产品是否对他们有益做出个人评估，”Kennedy告诉NPR。
肯尼迪曾公开表示，他希望减少政府的过度干预，他经常将这种干预框定为医疗自由的问题。
在竞选活动中，特朗普吹捧肯尼迪在帮助他“理顺我们的健康”方面的作用，但开玩笑说，他担心他在环境问题上的强硬立场，特朗普说他希望继续钻探。
川普在上个月的艾尔·史密斯晚宴上首次提出了肯尼迪领导其政府的医疗工作的想法。他说肯尼迪将“让我们成为一个更健康的地方”
特朗普在晚宴上说:“我们会让他疯狂一会儿，然后我可能会让他回来，因为他有一些非常疯狂的想法，但大多数都非常好。”。“我认为他是个好人，他相信环境，相信健康的人。他想要健康的人，他想要健康的食物。他会做到的。他将有很大的机会做到这一点，因为我们确实需要它。”
特朗普和肯尼迪并不总是相处融洽双方在竞选过程中互相辱骂。
当肯尼迪首次表示计划参加2024年的竞选时，特朗普表示，他相信肯尼迪会从总统乔·拜登那里夺走选票，给他贴上极左翼自由派的标签。
“肯尼迪是一个激进的左翼民主党人，永远都是!!!这对MAGA来说很好，但共产党将使他很难参加投票，”特朗普3月在他的社交媒体平台上发帖说。
肯尼迪在4月份的一篇关于X的帖子中进行了反击，批评这位前总统，并说特朗普对他的咆哮“是一系列疯狂和不准确的说法”，并要求特朗普进行辩论。
Trump picks Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to head Department of Health and Human Services
President-elect Donald Trump said Thursday he has picked Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a vaccine skeptic, to lead the Department of Health and Human Services, he announced in a social media post.
Trump said that Kennedy will "restore" the agencies under HHS "to the traditions of Gold Standard Scientific Research, and beacons of Transparency, to end the Chronic Disease epidemic, and to Make America Great and Healthy Again!"
HHSoversees major health agenciessuch as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Food and Drug Administration and the Centers for Medicare& Medicaid Services, among others.
The job requires Senate confirmation.
Kennedy, who suspended hisindependent presidential campaign in August and endorsed Trump, said ahead of Election Day thatTrump had "promised" him "control of the public health agencies."
Kennedy has broadly advised Trump and the transition team on health related-appointments, sources familiar with the matter told ABC News. Kennedy had also been spotted at Mar-a-Lago multiple times and had been engaging in presentations that included candidates for specific Cabinet and health related jobs, sources said.
Kennedy has been ananti-vaccine activistand founded the Children's Health Defense, a prominent anti-vaccine nonprofit that has campaigned against immunizations and other public health measures like water fluoridation. Medical expertsexpressed concernsabout a rise in medical misinformation through Kennedy's candidacy. Notably, Kennedy has falsely claimed that childhood vaccines cause autism, despite the retraction of the study that originally suggested this link, and numerous subsequent high-qualitystudiesdisproving this theory.
Earlier this month,Kennedy claimed in an NPR interviewthat he has "never been anti-vaccine."
“If vaccines are working for somebody, I’m not going to take them away. People ought to have a choice, and that choice ought to be informed by the best information. So, I’m going to make sure scientific safety studies and ethics are out there, and people can make individual assessments about whether that product is going to be good for them," Kennedy told NPR.
Kennedy has said publicly that he wants to reduce government overreach, which he often frames as an issue of medical freedom.
On the campaign trail, Trump touted Kennedy's role in helping him "straighten out our health," but joked that he's worried about his strong stance on the environment, Trump saying he wants to keep drilling.
Trump first floated the idea of Kennedy leading his administration's health efforts during the Al Smith Dinner last month. He said Kennedy will "make us a healthier place."
"We're gonna let him go wild for a little while, then I'm gonna have to maybe rein him back, because he's got some pretty wild ideas, but most of them are really good," Trump said at the dinner. "I think he's a he's a good man, and he believes, he believes the environment, the healthy people. He wants healthy people, he wants healthy food. And he's going to do it. He's going to have a big chance to do it, because we do need that."
Trump and Kennedyhaven't always gotten alongwith both hurling insults throughout their campaigns.
When Kennedy first signaled plans to jump into the 2024 race, Trump said he felt confident that Kennedy would take votes away from President Joe Biden, labeling him a far-left liberal.
"Kennedy is a Radical Left Democrat, and always will be!!! It's great for MAGA, but the Communists will make it very hard for him to get on the Ballot," Trump posted on his social media platform in March.
Kennedy fired back in an April post on X, criticizing the former president and saying that Trump's rant against him "is a barely coherent barrage of wild and inaccurate claims" and challenged Trump to a debate.
