STAT+: How will Trump's election change the FDA? History yields some clues

What will a second Donald Trump presidency mean for the regulation of medicines in the U.S.? History isn’t likely to repeat itself, but it will rhyme.

The first Trump presidency was marked by repeated efforts to change or influence the Food and Drug Administration, from the moment Trump was elected through the pandemic. The biggest changes were generally averted because institutional forces inside the FDA and in Congress muted the administration’s most radical impulses. 

Over the past week or so, the Trump team has become far more open about the possibility that it might fundamentally reshape the Department of Health and Human Services and the FDA. Trump has signaled that Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who has long railed against the pharmaceutical industry and childhood vaccines, would play a role in his administration. (Kennedy’s past remarks about vaccines have been marked by falsehoods.)

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