By Michael Erman and Patrick Wingrove
(Reuters) – As President-elect Donald Trump’s transition team vets candidates for key health care positions, pharmaceutical industry sources said the following people are possible appointees:
SECRETARY OF THE DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES
Ben Carson – Carson, 73, served as secretary of the Department of Housing and Urban Development during Trump’s first term after losing to Trump as the Republican presidential nominee in 2016. Before politics, Carson was a neurosurgeon at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore. Carson is chairman of The American Cornerstone Institute, a conservative think tank he founded in 2021.
Eric Hargan – Former deputy secretary and acting secretary of HHS under Trump, Hargan, 56, is an associate professor at the University of Minnesota. He also sits on the boards of directors of various healthcare companies. Hargan previously worked as an attorney at firms such as Greenberg Traurig and McDermott Will & Emery, and held various positions in health care under President George W. Bush.
Bobby Jindal – Governor of Louisiana from 2008 to 2016, Jindal, 53, is chairman of the Center for a Healthy America at the conservative think tank The America First Policy Institute. Jindal ran for Republican presidential nomination in 2016 and served as a member of the House of Representatives from 2005 to 2008. In 1994 he studied health policy at Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar. In 2017 he switched to investment company Ares Management.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. – Kennedy, 70, is an environmental lawyer and anti-vaccine activist who ran an independent presidential campaign in 2024 before dropping out and endorsing Trump. Kennedy, a member of the famous political family, has pledged to end the FDA’s “war on public health.” He says the agency has suppressed, among other things, psychedelics, peptides, stem cells, raw milk, clean food, sunshine, exercise and “anything else that promotes human health and cannot be patented by Pharma.” Reuters has reported that he is reviewing the resumes of health agency candidates.
Seema Verma – Verma, 54, led the federal government’s Medicare and Medicaid programs during Trump’s first administration. She is a senior executive in Oracle’s Health and Life Sciences unit in clinical and clinical trial applications. Verma was a health care consultant who until 2017 worked with former Vice President Mike Pence — then governor of Indiana — on the state’s Medicaid program.
DIRECTOR OF THE FOOD AND DRUG ADMINISTRATION
Marty Makary – Makary is a physician at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore who raised concerns about a number of public health issues during the COVID-19 pandemic. He praised the protection he received through natural immunity and opposed COVID vaccine mandates. Makary is also a consultant at the conservative health care think tank Paragon Health Institute in Washington.
Casey Means – Means, 37, is a physician and advisor to Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who is pushing for an overhaul of America’s health and food systems. Means is co-founder of the health technology company Levels, which links an app to continuous glucose meters.
CENTERS FOR MEDICARE AND ADMINISTRATOR OF MEDICAID SERVICES
Michael Burgess – Burgess, 73, is a former obstetrician-gynecologist whose two decades as a Republican congressman in Texas end this year. He chaired the Health Care Task Force on the House Budget Committee and served on the Health, Energy and Oversight and Investigations subcommittees of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce. Burgess said if Trump wanted him to take on the role, he would.
Joe Grogan – Grogan, 52, served as assistant and director of the Domestic Policy Council during Trump’s first administration and served on the White House COVID-19 task force. He is chairman of the board of the Paragon Health institute.
Brad Smith – Smith served as deputy administrator of CMS and director of the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation during the first Trump administration. He has since founded the healthcare investment firm Russell Street Ventures in Nashville and served as CEO.
Karoline Leavitt, spokesperson for the Trump-Vance transition team, said decisions on who will serve in Trump’s second administration will be announced as they are made.
The other potential candidates did not respond to requests for comment.
(Reporting by Michael Erman and Patrick Wingrove in New York and Stephanie Kelly in Washington; Editing by Caroline Humer and Bill Berkrot)
