Robert F. Kennedy Jr. argued Saturday that the incoming Trump administration should “act fast” to implement massive changes at the National Institutes of Health, including replacing as many as 600 people at the federal agency.
“We need to act fast, and we want to have those people in place on Jan. 20, so that on Jan. 21, 600 people are going to walk into offices at NIH and 600 people are going to leave,” Kennedy said during an appearance at the Genius Network Annual Event in Scottsdale, Ariz.
Howard Lutnick, however, dismissed the possibility of RFK Jr. becoming HHS secretary prior to the election. “That’s not what he wants to do,” Lutnick said last month. “He just wants data, and he wants to prove things [about vaccines] are wrong. And he says, ‘If I can’t prove they’re wrong, that’s fine. But if I can, I can save millions of Americans’ lives and make their lives better.’”