Trump To Nominate Marty Makary To Lead Fda

President-elect Donald Trump has selected Marty Makary, a Johns Hopkins surgeon who criticized the Biden administration’s Covid response, to lead the FDA.

“FDA has lost the trust of Americans, and has lost sight of its primary goal as a regulator,” Trump said in a statement late Friday, adding Makary would “course-correct” the agency if confirmed.

“He will work under the leadership of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to, among other things, properly evaluate harmful chemicals poisoning our Nation’s food supply and drugs and biologics being given to our Nation’s youth, so that we can finally address the Childhood Chronic Disease Epidemic,” Trump said.

Makary emerged during the Covid pandemic as a critic of the FDA — first on how long it took the agency to review data leading up to its approval of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, and then for not considering changes to recommendations for children in light of the risk of a rare heart condition in young males that’s been linked to the shot.

His suggestion that the agency slow-walked the first Covid vaccines to undermine then-President Trump prompted fierce pushback from agency leaders. Four years later, Makary, a Johns Hopkins gastrointestinal surgeon who advised the first Trump White House, stands to be recognized for his vociferous support of the president-elect’s pandemic response.

While Makary’s record may not endear him with all Senate Democrats, his selection could also quell fears of an anti-vaccine cloud hanging over the agency charged with evaluating those products for the American market. He advocated for federal authorities to develop nuanced recommendations for the Covid vaccines — like focusing on older individuals and those with high-risk health issues — and to consider changing the mRNA vaccine regimens for healthy children to one dose.

“I’m pro-vaccine. But the issue of the appropriate clinical indication of the [Covid] vaccine is not an all-or-nothing phenomenon, as we frequently see in American culture and politics,” he wrote in an August 2021 op-ed for U.S. News & World Report.

Still, his propensity to lambaste federal health officials like Dr. Anthony Fauci, the former head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, likely earned Makary points with Trump’s team.

One senior Republican on the Senate HELP Committee — the panel tasked with holding a confirmation hearing for the top FDA job — praised Makary on Thursday before he was formally announced.

“Great guy, impeccable credentials, academia, patient medicine and also a real believer in patient freedom,” said Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), who has also been vocal with his criticism of Fauci.

Dr. Jerome Adams, Trump’s surgeon general during his first term, said he doesn’t know Makary personally.

“But he seems like a reasonable choice, and is the least surprising of all the health picks so far,” he said.

Chris Meekins, an HHS official during Trump’s first term who’s now a health policy research analyst at Raymond James, said Makary’s views “may create more upheaval” on the FDA’s food programs rather than its drug offices.

“Dr. Makary will likely be a more welcome pick for industry and investors compared to some of the other names being floated, but he will not be as well received as” Dr. Scott Gottlieb, Trump’s first FDA commissioner, he said.

Makary’s latest book, published in September, may have helped ingratiate him with Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s camp.

It examines instances where modern medicine has ultimately gotten the science wrong — like doctors insisting opioids aren’t addictive or urging consumers to avoid foods naturally high in fat.

Makary defended Kennedy, Trump’s pick to lead the Department of Health and Human Services, on “Fox News Sunday” on Nov. 17, saying the founder of the anti-vaccine group Children’s Health Defense is now saying “very clearly he’s not anti-vax.”

“What is scary and dangerous to health is not RFK Jr. — it’s what people just witnessed,” Makary said, pointing to the early years of the opioid epidemic and what he described as the medical establishment ignoring the effects of “natural immunity” during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Makary donated $1,000 to Barack Obama’s presidential campaign in 2008, according to Federal Election Commission records. He also gave $3,000 to the campaign of then-Rep. Frank Wolf (R-Va.) between 2004 and 2006.