MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
We're going to hear about Trump's pick to run an agency that affects the health of hundreds of millions of Americans - the Department of Health and Human Services.
STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:
The environmental advocate and vaccine skeptic RFK Jr., Robert F. Kennedy Jr., has claimed that he will drastically reduce the rates of chronic disease in just two years. He has also, during this campaign, spread a lot of conspiracy theories, for example, that Wi-Fi causes cancer or that school shootings are linked to antidepressants.
MARTIN: Joining us to tell us more about Kennedy's background and what his confirmation could mean for the agency is NPR health policy correspondent Selena Simmons-Duffin. Selena, good morning.
SELENA SIMMONS-DUFFIN, BYLINE: Morning, Michel.
MARTIN: So, obviously, many people have heard of Kennedy. He's part of a very famous democratic political family that includes the former president, John F. Kennedy. But tell us more about him as a public figure.
SIMMONS-DUFFIN: Well, most recently, he ran for president as an independent before dropping out in August and endorsing Trump, who's been enthusiastically using his make America healthy again line. Kennedy is an attorney. He went to Harvard in the '70s and got his law degree at UVA. He struggled with drug addiction, and it was actually an arrest for heroin possession in the '80s that led to volunteering with the Natural Resources Defense Council to fulfill community service hours. That led to a whole career in environmental advocacy. And around 20 years ago, he got interested in vaccine conspiracy theories, especially in the disproven link between vaccines and autism. That has been a huge focus of his work and life since then.
MARTIN: OK, so what about the agency he would be in charge of? Give us a tour of the Department of Health and Human Services.
SIMMONS-DUFFIN: So HHS is enormous. It's got one of the biggest budgets in the federal government - $1.7 trillion. That's trillion with a T. That's about the GDP of Australia. And within the HHS are a lot of health agencies. Medicare and Medicaid are under HHS, so is the Food and Drug Administration, the National Institutes of Health, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Those are probably the health agencies people hear the most about. But there are all these other agencies, like one that runs community health centers across the country. There's another for mental health. In all, HHS employs about 90,000 people across these agencies. Trump has promised to let Kennedy, quote, "go wild on health and dramatically shake things up."
MARTIN: Do we have any idea of what Kennedy going wild on health might look like?
SIMMONS-DUFFIN: Well, he recently said he'd like to fire 600 NIH employees. He's talked a lot about rooting out corruption. Some of his ideas are pretty mainstream, like promoting nutritious foods and addressing chronic disease. He said he wants to ban prescription drug advertisements. He rightly points out that American life expectancy is really pretty bad and lags behind other wealthy countries by a lot. But he has some views that are really far out of the mainstream. We've talked about vaccine skepticism. Current CDC director Mandy Cohen wrote to NPR yesterday, quote, "I don't want to go backwards and see children or adults suffer or lose their lives to remind us that vaccines work, and so I'm concerned," unquote. The idea of someone who's actively sowed misinformation about vaccines being in charge of the government's scientific research and public health agencies really horrifies a lot of people in those fields.
MARTIN: This is a Senate-confirmed position. Do we have a sense of whether he will have the votes to be confirmed?
SIMMONS-DUFFIN: Well, we'll have to see. Some Republican senators have responded enthusiastically to his nomination. Others won't say yet. Interestingly, his campaign website says he supports abortion access. He wrote, quote, "I'm for choice and medical freedom." We'll see how that position plays out among Republicans who are eager to curtail abortion access federally once they take power in Washington.
MARTIN: That is NPR's Selena Simmons-Duffin. Selena, thank you.
SIMMONS-DUFFIN: You're welcome. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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