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With Robert F. Kennedy Jr. slated to take the top spot at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) under President-elect Donald Trump, some in the biopharma industry are concerned about his tenure’s possible impacts on companies’ direct-to-consumer outreach. RFK Jr. has previously expressed a desire to put a stop to DTC pharma ads in the U.S.—which is one of only two countries in the world, along with New Zealand, where prescription drugs can be directly advertised to consumers. (Park, 11/25)

Virginia's senior senator says he plans to “fight like hell” to ensure that the pharmaceutical innovation cluster in Petersburg is protected from an incoming administration whose designated health cabinet secretary has been critical of the industry in the past. ... Petersburg’s pharmaceutical cluster – AMPAC Fine Chemicals, Phlow Corporation and the nonprofit CivicaRx – was recognized by the U.S. Economic Development Administration in 2023 as a federal “tech hub” that advances “the growth, innovation, and sustainability of the U.S.-based APM industry to re-shore safe and affordable medicines via innovative hybrid and continuous flow manufacturing technologies.”

Vivek Ramaswamy, an outspoken ex-biotech executive turned fierce critic of the industry’s main regulator, is now in a position to reshape the agency he derides as the “Failed Drug Administration” in ways that could benefit him personally. ... “It’s an obvious conflict of interest,” said Diana Zuckerman, president of the nonpartisan think tank National Center for Health Research, who said that the FDA has already lowered its standards considerably to speed novel drugs to market. “Some people might think, ‘He’s a knowledgeable person.’ He’s a knowledgeable person with a vested financial interest in what he’s saying.” (Gilbert, 11/25)

President-elect Donald Trump is considering nominating Jim O’Neill, an associate of billionaire investor and early Trump backer Peter Thiel, as HHS deputy secretary, three people familiar with the deliberation granted anonymity to discuss transition planning told POLITICO. O’Neill held several roles at HHS during the George W. Bush administration including principal associate deputy secretary — but he does not have formal medical training. (Lim, Cancryn and Gardner, 11/25)

Allegations of sexual misconduct helped sink Matt Gaetz’s bid for attorney general. Now they threaten to complicate the confirmation of other nominees, including Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to be America’s top health official. Senators from both parties said they expect Kennedy will face questions about incidents from years ago that recently have drawn attention. Kennedy, President-elect Donald Trump’s pick for Health and Human Services secretary, has been accused of sexual assault in the late 1990s by a woman who is willing to testify before the Senate. Kennedy has said he is “not a church boy.” (Whyte and Peterson, 11/26)

Ashish Jha, the dean of the Brown University School of Public Health and former White House coronavirus coordinator under President Biden, said President-elect Trump’s picks to lead the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), National Institutes of Health (NIH) and Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) are “pretty reasonable.”  ... “While RFK Jr is an absolutely terrible choice for HHS Secretary, I think Marty Makary at FDA, Dr. Oz at CMS and Jay Bhattacharya at NIH are all pretty reasonable,” Jha posted Sunday morning on social platform X. “I have plenty of policy disagreements with them. They are smart and experienced. We will need them to do well.” Stanford University-trained physician and economist Jay Bhattacharya is rumored to be the top pick for the NIH. (Haner, 11/25)

�������ýҕ�l Health News: Make America Healthy Again: An Unconventional Movement That May Have Found Its Moment

Within days of Donald Trump’s election victory, health care entrepreneur Calley Means turned to social media to crowdsource advice. “First 100 days,” said Means, a former consultant to Big Pharma who uses the social platform X to focus attention on chronic disease. “What should be done to reform the FDA?” The question was more than rhetorical. Means is among a cadre of health business leaders and nonmainstream doctors who are influencing President Donald Trump’s focus on health policy. (Armour, 11/26)

On certain subjects, it hardly sounds like John Kilian and Allison Cecil are part of the same political movement. Kilian, a retired IT professional and nurse in Middletown, Conn., spent part of 2021 analyzing Covid immunization data for the U.S. Army, and he could clearly see the benefits. He’s worried about the vaccine hesitancy that led to the measles outbreak in 2019, and as he put it, it’s “a highly contagious disease and the risk-reward ratio favors vaccination.” He’s planning to get a flu shot. “The last time I got the flu was the last time I did not get a flu shot,” he said. Cecil, a middle school teacher in Owensboro, Ky., is skeptical about the ingredients in vaccines. If she were to have another kid today, her answer to a number of recommended early-childhood shots would be “heck no.” (Boodman and Cueto, 11/26)

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is on the precipice of leading our nation’s health-care system as secretary of Health and Human Services. The Johns Hopkins professor Marty Makary has been tapped to lead the Food and Drug Administration. And the Stanford professor Jay Bhattacharya is expected to be picked to run the National Institutes of Health. These men have each advocated for changes to the systems and structures of public health. But what unites them all—and what legitimizes them in the eyes of this next administration—is a lasting rage over COVID. (Mazer, 11/25)

The outgoing head of the nation’s top public health agency urged the next administration to maintain its focus and funding to keep Americans safe from emerging health threats. “We need to continue to do our global work at CDC to make sure we are stopping outbreaks at their source,” Dr. Mandy Cohen, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said in an interview Monday with The Associated Press. “We need to keep that funding up. We need to keep the expertise up. We need to keep the diplomacy up.” Cohen, 46, will be leaving office in January after about 18 months in the job. (Stobbe, 11/25)