It’s who replaces who season in Washington D.C. It happens whenever one party beats the other in presidential elections.
Food safety advocates are watching these changes with rapt attention. The added change this time is that the incoming administration has an apparent common agenda known as “Make America Healthy Again.” That agenda is about doing something about America’s Chronic Disease Epidemic, especially involving children.
The agenda is the work of Robert F. Kennedy Jr, who the president-elect nominated to be the next Secretary of Health and Human Services. If confirmed, he will replace California lawyer Xavier Becerra, HHS houses units that are important to food safety.
The president-elect has named John Hopkins surgeon Marty Makary as the next Food and Drug Administrator. Makary will take over for Dr. Robert Califf.
At the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, former Florida Congressman Dave Weldon will replace Mandy K. Cohen, MD, MPH. Weldon is an Army veteran and medical doctor who has been in the position for 40 years.
Weldon worked on fiscal and social issues while in Congress, serving on the Labor/HHS Appropriations Subcommittee, with focusing on accountability on HHS and CDC policy and budgeting, President Trump picked a former Governor of a large agricultural state for his first term. His pick, former Georgia Gov. Sonny Purdue, was seen by many as not much different from former Iowa Gov.
Tom Vilsack, whom Purdue replaced. But to replace Vilsack th.