RFK Jr. says Trump 'promised' him 'control of the public health agencies'
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said this week that if elected, former President Donald Trump will put him in "control" of America's public health agencies.
Kennedy made the remarks on a Zoom call with supporters Monday night.
The agencies Kennedy mentioned include the Centers for Disease Control, the Federal Drug Administration, the National Institute of Health and the United States Department of Agriculture.
"The key, which President Trump has promised me, is control of the public health agencies, which is HHS and its sub-agencies, CDC, FDA, NIH, and a few others. And also the USDA, which is, you know, key to making America healthy, because we’ve got to get off of seed oils and we’ve got to get off of pesticides... and we need to make that transition to regenerative agriculture," Kennedy said.
RFK Jr., who made his own bid for president in the 2024 election, told supporters what he would do if appointed the position.
"I want to make sure to reorient NIH, so that instead of developing drugs and serving as an incubator for new pharmaceutical products, that instead NIH will be figuring out what’s causing these autism rates and autoimmune diseases and the neurodevelopmental diseases," Kennedy said.
"And I want to make sure that the FDA -- that the people on the panels at FDA do not have conflicts of interest, their people are genuinely interested in public health," he added.
"I want to end the financial entanglements – the fact that the FDA gets half of its budget from the pharmaceutical companies. I’d like to get the pharma ads off of TV," Kennedy said.
Kennedy’s remarks drew condemnation from Trump’s former surgeon general Jerome Adams.
"If RFK has a significant influence on the next administration, that could further erode people's willingness to get up to date with recommended vaccines, and I am worried about the impact that could have on our nation's health, on our nation's economy, on our global security,” Adams said at a public health conference, according to according to New York Times reporter Sheryl Gay Stolberg.
-ABC News' Will McDuffie