The Trump administration’s former director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) endorsed Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as the “right man for the job” to lead a commission on chronic childhood disease.
In an op-ed published Tuesday in Newsweek, Robert Redfield said he believes in Kennedy’s “Make America Healthy Again” agenda.
“After more than 40 years in the public health arena, it might surprise some of my colleagues to know I think President Trump chose the right man for the job: Robert Kennedy, Jr.,” Redfield wrote.
Redfield said he wants former President Trump to follow through on his promise to establish a panel of top experts working with Kennedy to investigate the increase of chronic health problems and childhood diseases.
He mentioned processed foods leading to a rise in obesity, as well as pesticides causing neurodevelopmental issues such as ADHD.
“If the next president prioritizes the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to identify which exposures are contributing to the spike in chronic disease in children, we will finally find out and end what is slowly destroying our children,” Redfield wrote.
When Kennedy officially ended his presidential bid and endorsed Trump earlier this year, he pledged that if he were “given the chance to fix the chronic disease crisis and reform our food production … within two years, we will watch chronic disease burden lift dramatically.”
“I believe him,” Redfield wrote. “And I think President Trump will empower him. I support their noble effort to heal our children.”
In an interview posted on his YouTube channel, Kennedy said he was shocked to read Redfield’s editorial.
“This was breathtaking to me. This is the guy who was head of the CDC that I’ve been criticizing for years,” Kennedy said.
Kennedy, a longtime purveyor of anti-vaccine messaging who founded the anti-vaccine group Children’s Health Defense, has been speaking more insistently in recent months about children’s health and solving the problems of chronic childhood diseases.
Instead of focusing on childhood vaccinations, Kennedy has instead been pitching himself as an adviser to Trump on public health, including chronic disease. He was appointed to Trump’s transition team and is angling for a top administration role.
But while public health experts agree the U.S. is suffering from increased rates of chronic diseases, some have expressed concern that Kennedy’s anti-vaccine views would influence how he approaches the problem.
Redfield, who served as CDC director from 2018-21, said he agreed with Kennedy that government agencies — notably all three of the principal health agencies as well as the Department of Agriculture — are too cozy with special interest groups.
But as The New York Times noted in August, Trump’s policies while he was in office ran counter to almost all of the priorities in Kennedy’s health agenda. There was no crackdown on toxic chemicals during his presidency; in fact, Trump ended bans on toxic chemicals known to pose serious health threats.
