From ‘brilliant’ to ‘aghast’: Reactions to RFK Jr.’s nomination for HHS secretary run the gamut

From “brilliant” to “aghast” – President-elect Donald J. Trump’s nomination on Thursday of Robert F. Kennedy Jr., founder of Children’s Health Defense (CHD), to run the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) triggered a range of reactions among media outlets, public health officials, and Kennedy’s long-time supporters and detractors.

In a statement posted on Truth Social and X, Trump said Kennedy would restore the public health agencies “to the traditions of Gold Standard Scientific Research, and beacons of Transparency, to end the Chronic Disease epidemic, and to Make America Great and Healthy Again!”

Kennedy, who promised to fight corruption and end the revolving door between industry and government, thanked Trump for the nomination on social media. He said he would “free the agencies from the smothering cloud of corporate capture so they can pursue their mission to make Americans once again the healthiest people on Earth.”

Kennedy is a longtime critic of how corporate interests have captured the public health agencies meant to regulate them, and of the outsized and corrupt role that Big Pharma plays in American life.

If confirmed, Kennedy would hold the most powerful governmental position in public health, overseeing 80,000 employees across a department that houses 13 agencies and more than 100 programs. Those agencies include the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the National Institutes of Health and the Center for Medicaid and Medicare Services.

CHD CEO Mary Holland told The Defender the organization “could not be more pleased” with the nomination, adding:

Kennedy has been devoted to ending the childhood chronic health epidemic for almost 20 years. He has been effective in communicating the failures of our existing public health establishment.

Based on his extensive litigation history, he is uniquely prepared to reform the regulatory institutions, the research institutions, and public education on health. I look forward to seeing dramatic, measurable improvements in Americans’ health during the Trump administration.

Democratic Colorado Gov. Jared Polis said on X that he was “excited by the news,” particularly about Kennedy’s commitment to fighting chemicals in foods, the power of Big Pharma, and to other health priorities.

“I hope he leans into personal choice on vaccines rather than bans (which I think are terrible, just like mandates) but what I’m most optimistic about is taking on big pharma and the corporate ag oligopoly to improve our health,” he added.

Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas) told Fox News, “I think Robert is another disruptor. We need a disruptor. I will be glad and I’m looking forward to working with him,” Politico reported.

Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) called Kennedy a “brilliant, courageous truth-teller” and said he could make the “most significant impact on health.”

Vaccine stocks take a dive on news of announcement

On the flip side, some lawmakers and public health leaders expressed alarm, decrying the nomination.

U.S. Rep. Robert Garcia (D-Calif.) called the choice “f— insane” on X, Fox News reported. “He’s a vaccine denier and a tin foil hat conspiracy theorist. He will destroy our public health infrastructure and our vaccine distribution systems. This is going to cost lives.”

Dr. Richard E. Besser, CEO of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and a former acting director of the CDC, said that having Kennedy head up HHS “would pose incredible risks to the health of the nation,” because Kennedy’s critique of the public health agencies was worsening the mistrust lingering after the coronavirus pandemic, The New York Times reported.

Besser told CNN that some of Kennedy’s ideas about chronic health issues regarding children were good ideas, but other ideas were deeply concerning – particularly Kennedy’s proposal that individuals should decide for themselves whether to take a vaccine.

“The idea that receiving childhood vaccines would be a parental choice scares me,” he said.

READ: Canada’s public health agency still working to adopt WHO pandemic treaty: report

Current CDC Director Mandy Cohen raised concerns that Kennedy would use the position to spread misinformation and foster distrust in public health institutions, particularly with respect to vaccines.

Kennedy has called for an end to immunity for vaccine manufacturers for the injuries caused by their products. He points out that no vaccine on the childhood immunization schedule has undergone proper safety and efficacy testing.

He has been a long-term advocate for the tens of thousands of families seeking compensation for their children’s vaccine-induced autism.

Kennedy also promised that, if confirmed, he would make the V-safe vaccine injury data collected but not made public by the CDC transparent, so scientists have access to the data necessary to analyze vaccine safety

Vaccine and Pharma stocks fell sharply this morning, following yesterday’s announcement about Kennedy, Reuters reported.

Bavarian Nordic, which makes the mpox vaccine, was down 16 percent. Its CEO told Reuters he was concerned that Kennedy could fuel vaccine skepticism.

However, he also said that the U.S. response to the COVID-19 pandemic under Trump’s first term made him confident that the incoming administration would continue to fund biodefense.

The Trump administration launched and oversaw Operation Warp Speed, the public-private partnership to rapidly develop a COVID-19 vaccine that gave vaccine makers hundreds of billions in profits along with total immunity for any harms caused by those investigational vaccines under the Public Readiness and Emergency Preparedness (PREP) Act.

Kennedy will be ‘single greatest threat to profits in America’

Republican advisers have cautioned that Kennedy could face a difficult path to confirmation, The Washington Post reported, citing his “past statements on drugs and vaccines, and his many personal entanglements.” FiercePharma said his confirmation process is likely “to be contentious.”

Physician, professor and Substacker Dr. Vinay Prasad wrote that Trump could use a recess appointment to secure Kennedy’s position, but that he will likely need to be confirmed by the Senate where “He has a several hundred billion dollar industry that will do everything possible to stop him.”

“Many of these companies have lobbied throughout Congress,” Prasad added. “They will use those connections. Unlike other controversial appointees, RFK Jr. will be the single greatest threat to profits in America.”

If his appointment goes through, Prasad said Kennedy will face a difficult road in getting his proposed policies enacted, given the entrenched power of Pharma and the power of the media that opposes him.

Law professor Wendy Parmet, director of Northeastern University’s Center for Health Policy and Law, pointed to the potential clash between Kennedy’s anti-industry position and the big-business leanings of the Republican Party.

“We have an administration that promises to deregulate, to be business-friendly, and then we have RFK Jr., who promises to go after fast food,” Parmet told The Washington Post.

READ: Idaho health district votes to stop offering COVID vaccines at its medical centers

Health and health freedom advocates optimistic Kennedy will bring change

Despite the challenges ahead, health advocates are optimistic that changes they have been seeking for decades will come to pass.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, critics of pandemic policies were condemned and marginalized. Kennedy was censored by the Biden administration and social media companies as part of the so-called “Disinformation Dozen” for airing many of those critiques.

Over the course of the election Kennedy – who ran for president as a Democrat, then announced he was running as an independent before suspending his campaign and endorsing Trump – has repeatedly been called a “conspiracy theorist.” Both Kennedy and CHD are routinely dismissed as “anti-vax” for openly discussing the scientific evidence on the link between vaccines and chronic diseases including autism, attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder or ADHD and other neuropsychiatric and autoimmune disorders, in some children.

Rather than investigating the science, mainstream media mostly insists these links have been “debunked,” without providing any evidence for their claim.

Kennedy has also called for the removal of fluoride from public drinking water, citing recent studies and a landmark federal court decision that show it interferes with children’s brain development – a concern that has even been flagged by some mainstream public health commentators.

His supporters hope these issues will now receive serious public attention that will lead to policy change.

Holland said on X that Kennedy’s nomination came 38 years to the day after the Vaccine Injury Act that gave vaccine manufacturers immunity from liability was signed into law.

“Let’s rewrite this one,” she said.

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Here’s what pundits and analysts get wrong about the Carney government’s first budget

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Carney budget continues misguided ‘Build Canada Homes’ approach

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Carney budget doubles down on Trudeau-era policies

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Here’s what pundits and analysts get wrong about the Carney government’s first budget

Published on November 6, 2025

Todayville

From the Fraser Institute

By Jason Clemens and Jake Fuss

Under the new budget plan, this wedge between what the government collects in revenues versus what is actually spent on programs will rise to 13.0 per cent by 2029/30. Put differently, slightly more than one in every eight dollars sent to Ottawa will be used to pay interest on debt for past spending.

The Carney government’s much-anticipated first budget landed on Nov. 4. There’s been much discussion by pundits and analysts on the increase in the deficit and borrowing, the emphasis on infrastructure spending (broadly defined), and the continued activist approach of Ottawa. There are, however, several critically important aspects of the budget that are consistently being misstated or misinterpreted, which makes it harder for average Canadians to fully appreciate the consequences and costs of the budget.

One issue in need of greater clarity is the cost of Canada’s indebtedness. Like regular Canadians and businesses, the government must pay interest on federal debt. According to the budget plan, total federal debt will reach an expected $2.9 trillion in 2029/30. For reference, total federal debt stood at $1.0 trillion when the Trudeau government took office in 2015. The interest costs on that debt will rise from $53.4 billion last year to an expected $76.1 billion by 2029/30. Several analyses have noted this means federal interest costs will rise from 1.7 per cent of GDP to 2.1 per cent.

These are all worrying statistics about the indebtedness of the federal government. However, they ignore a key statistic—interest costs as a share of revenues. When the Trudeau government took office, interest costs consumed 7.5 per cent of revenues. This means taxpayers were foregoing 7.5 per cent of the resources they sent to Ottawa (in terms of spending on actual programs) because these monies were used to pay interest on debt accumulated from previous spending.

Under the new budget plan, this wedge between what the government collects in revenues versus what is actually spent on programs will rise to 13.0 per cent by 2029/30. Put differently, slightly more than one in every eight dollars sent to Ottawa will be used to pay interest on debt for past spending. This is one way governments get into financial problems, even crises, by continually increasing the share of revenues consumed by interest payments.

A second and fairly consistently misrepresented aspect of the budget pertains to large spending initiatives such as Build Canada Homes and Build Communities Strong Fund. The former is meant to increase the number of new homes, particularly affordable homes, being built annually and the latter is intended to provide funding to provincial governments (and through them, municipalities) for infrastructure spending. But few analysts question whether or not these programs will produce actual new spending for homebuilding or simply replace or “crowd-out” existing spending by the private sector.

Let’s first explore the homebuilding initiative. At any point in time, there are a limited number of skilled workers, raw materials, land, etc. available for homebuilding. When the federal government, or any government, initiates its own homebuilding program, it directly competes with private companies for that skilled labour (carpenters, electricians, etc.), raw materials (timber, concrete, etc.) and the land needed for development. Put simply, government homebuilding crowds out private-sector activity.

Moreover, there’s a strong argument that the crowding out by government results in less homebuilding than would otherwise be the case, because the incentives for private-sector homebuilding are dramatically different than government incentives. For example, private firms risk their own wealth and wellbeing (and the wellbeing of their employees) so they have very strong incentives to deliver homes demanded by people on time and at a reasonable price. Government bureaucrats and politicians, on the other hand, face no such incentives. They pay no price, in terms of personal wealth or wellbeing if homes, are late, not what consumers demand, or even produce less than expected. Put simply, homebuilding by Ottawa could easily result in less homes being built than if government had stayed out of the way of entrepreneurs, businessowners and developers.

Similarly, it’s debatable that infrastructure spending by Ottawa—specifically, providing funds to the provinces and municipalities—results in an actual increase in total infrastructure spending. There are numerous historical examples, including reports by the auditor general, detailing how similar infrastructure spending initiatives by the federal government were plagued by mismanagement. And in many circumstances, the provinces simply reduced their own infrastructure spending to save money, such that the actual incremental increase in overall infrastructure spending was negligible.

In reality, some of the major and large spending initiatives announced or expanded in the Carney government’s first budget, which will accelerate the deterioration of federal finances, may not deliver anything close to what the government suggests. Canadians should understand the real risks and challenges in these federal spending initiatives, along with the debt being accumulated, and the limited potential benefits.

Jason Clemens

Executive Vice President, Fraser Institute

Jake Fuss

Director, Fiscal Studies, Fraser Institute

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Carney budget continues misguided ‘Build Canada Homes’ approach

Published on November 6, 2025

Todayville

From the Fraser Institute

By Jake Fuss and Austin Thompson

The Carney government’s first budget tabled on Tuesday promises to “supercharge” homebuilding across the country. But Ottawa’s flagship housing initiative—a new federal agency, Build Canada Homes (BCH)—risks “supercharging” federal debt instead while doing little to boost construction.

The budget accurately diagnoses the root cause of Canada’s housing shortage—costly red tape on housing projects, sky-high taxes on homebuilders, and weak productivity growth in the construction sector. But the proposed cure, BCH, does nothing to fix these problems despite receiving a five-year budget of $13 billion.

BCH’s core mandate is to build and finance affordable housing projects. But this mission is muddled by competing political priorities to preference Canadian building materials and prioritize “sustainable” construction materials. Any product that needs a government preference to be used is clearly not the most cost-effective option. The result—BCH’s “affordable” homes will cost more than they needed to, meaning more tax dollars wasted.

Ottawa claims BCH will improve construction productivity by “generating demand” (read: splashing out tax dollars) for factory-built housing. This logic is faulty—where factory-built housing is a cost-effective and desirable option, private developers are already building it. “Prioritizing” factory-built homes amounts to Ottawa trying to pick winners and losers—a strategy that reliably wastes taxpayer dollars. The civil servants running BCH lack the market knowledge and cost-cutting incentives of private homebuilders, who are far better positioned to identify which technologies will deliver the affordable homes Canadians need.

The government also insists BCH projects will attract more private investment for housing. The opposite is more likely—BCH projects will compete with private developers for limited investment dollars and construction labour. Ottawa’s intrusion into housing development could ultimately mean fewer private-sector housing projects—those driven by the real needs of homebuyers and renters, not the Carney government’s political priorities.

Despite its huge budget and broad mandate, BCH still lacks clear goals. Its only commitment so far is to “build affordable housing at scale,” with no concrete targets for how many new homes or how affordable they’ll be. Without measurable outcomes, neither Ottawa nor taxpayers will know whether BCH delivers value for money.

You can’t solve Canada’s housing crisis with yet another federal program. Ottawa should resist the temptation to act as a housing developer and instead create fiscal and economic conditions that allow the private sector to build more homes.