Under Trump, the CDC is in big trouble, but the FDA might be OK

If there is a message in President-elect Trump’s Friday night reveal of who he intends to nominate for key health care positions in his administration, it is this:

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are in big trouble. The Food and Drug Administration might be OK.

Of course, none of the picks, from the presumptive Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on down, have articulated what they intend to do. 

But while the FDA pick of Marty Makary seems perhaps the least likely to try to upend the status quo,  the presumptive CDC director, Dave Weldon, has been a persistent skeptic about the safety of some vaccinations. That is worrisome for an agency whose most historic victories have come through the use of vaccines.

At the CDC, it seems RFK Jr. got what he wanted. At the FDA, the choice seems more the result of a negotiation between RFK Jr.’s push for radical change and a pragmatic desire among others in Trump’ s circle not to tank the market in biotech and pharmaceutical stocks.