President-elect Donald J. Trump’s pick of Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a longtime vaccine skeptic with no medical or public health training, to be the next health secretary has sent a chill through the American public health sphere.
Among drugmakers, there are already signs of pushback.
David Ricks, the chair and chief executive of Eli Lilly, speaking at The New York Times’s DealBook Summit, said his $750 billion company would fight to defend preserving the Food and Drug Administration as it stands today.
“We’re the only country on Earth that does primary data review,” Mr. Ricks said, explaining that “when the company creates data, only the F.D.A. reviews every digit of that data.”
“I think that’s a value to society we need to keep,” he said. “We’ll argue that strongly with our new regulator.”
Mr. Kennedy posted his plans for the F.D.A. on social media in late October, days before President-elect Trump’s Election Day win and his subsequent nomination of Mr. Kennedy to lead the Department of Health and Human Services.
On X, Mr. Kennedy declared that the agency’s “war on public health is about to end.”
Citing what he called the “aggressive suppression of psychedelics, peptides, stem cells, raw milk, hyperbaric therapies, chelating compounds, ivermectin, hydroxychloroquine, vitamins, clean foods, sunshine, exercise, nutraceuticals and anything else that advances human health and can’t be patented by Pharma,” Mr. Kennedy issued a warning:
“If you work for the FDA and are part of this corrupt system, I have two messages for you: 1. Preserve your records, and 2. Pack your bags.”
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