Trump Nominates Marty Makary To Lead FDA, Brooke Rollins for USDA
President-elect Donald Trump over the weekend announced more conventional nominees for several positions that impact food, including the proposed heads for the FDA and USDA. His choices for Dept. of Labor, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and surgeon general also were announced late Friday and on Saturday.
Dr. Marty Makary, a Johns Hopkins School of Medicine professor, was tabbed for FDA commissioner. He’s also a member of the National Academy of Medicine and a medical news commentator on Fox News.
While he appears to be tilted toward the medical side of agency, Trump said Makary 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." Kennedy earlier was nominated to head the Dept. of Health and Human Services, the FDA’s parent organization.
On Saturday, Trump filled the last of 19 cabinet positions by naming Brooke Rollins to be the Secretary of Agriculture. Rollins, who was a member of Trump's Economic Advisory Council during his first term, is currently CEO of America First Policy Institute think-tank. Her choice was something of a surprise, according to UPI, after former Sen. Kelly Loeffler of Georgia was considered to be the front-runner for the USDA job.
Tangential to those two, at least food-wise, were other Trump nominees:
- Dave Weldon, a medical doctor and former Congressman from Florida, as director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
- Lori Chavez-DeRemer, outgoing Republican representative from Oregon, to be his labor secretary.
- Dr. Janette Nesheiwat as U.S. Surgeon General.
