Kennedy's Views on prescription drugs alarm US health experts

Public health experts are concerned that, if confirmed, Donald Trump's choice for secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) - Robert F Kennedy Jr - could restrict access to pharmaceutical treatments in favor of more experimental approaches.

- Hannah Harris Green

Kennedy has repeatedly expressed distrust for pharmaceuticals and criticized the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for its "aggressive suppression of psychedelics". On his podcast, he called the US "the sickest country in the world", blaming its healthcare system for devoting billions to "the pills and the potions and the powders rather than on actually getting people healthy, building their immune systems".

Kennedy is a surprising choice for a number of reasons. He is a lawyer who lacks government public health experience and criticized Trump harshly during his own independent presidential campaign.

But, like Trump's other cabinet selections, Kennedy has expressed a conspiratorial mistrust for the agency he has been nominated to run. He has promoted conspiracy theories including the debunked belief that vaccines cause autism. Even the New York Post, which has praised Kennedy in the past, warned in an editorial that his confirmation would be disastrous for public health.