Is Martin Makary Trump's pick for FDA Commissioner?
US President-Elect Donald Trump is reported to be considering the nomination of Johns Hopkins surgeon and writer Martin Makary to lead the FDA after he takes office in January.
The rumour was originally reported by Reuters citing two sources familiar with the matter and, if confirmed, is another nomination in the health area that could be controversial.
While a respected professor of surgery and health policy at Johns Hopkins, Makary is another Trump pick that has courted the media limelight and attracted headlines during COVID-19 for his position on masks and vaccination programmes.
To be clear, his comments did not stray too far from the consensus position in the US during the pandemic and came from a scientifically defensible position, unlike some of the more offbeat views held by Trump's selection of Robert F Kennedy Jr as Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary and Dr Mehmet Oz as head of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS).
During the pandemic, Makary argued against the use of masks for children and opposed widespread vaccination against COVID-19, saying shots should be targeted at healthcare workers only. He also called for restricted use in children, in light of rare but potentially serious side effects like myocarditis that seemed to be more common in young boys.
He was an advocate for allowing herd immunity to be established and, in an opinion piece published in the Wall Street Journal in 2022, said public health officials ruined lives by insisting that workers with natural immunity to COVID-19 be fired from their employment if they weren't fully vaccinated, calling for them to be reinstated with an apology.
More recently – and an interesting point to consider for those concerned about health policy being driven by opinion, rather than evidence, under Trump – Makary has criticised what he describes as "groupthink" by the medical establishment in his latest book Blind Spots.
Ill-conceived policies, "when modern medicine is interpreted through the harsh lens of opinion and edict," have had devastating consequences on public health, he contends, pointing to the use of opioids, hormone replacement therapy, and antibiotics, as well as poor advice on dietary choices.
If confirmed to the role – which would follow a vetting process in the Senate – Makary would succeed President Joe Biden's pick Dr Robert Califf, who has been at the helm of the FDA since 2022 and also led the agency under the Obama administration in 2016.
Earlier this month, Califf warned that he was disappointed by Trump's victory in the election and was concerned that the new administration could cause disruption and uncertainty at the regulator.
The new Commissioner will need to have the ability to function as an executive, to listen to people with disparate viewpoints, and arrive at evidence-based judgments, as well as "a confidence that there is such a thing as expertise."
