Food and Drug Administration commissioner Robert Califf said he was “disappointed” with the presidential election result and is uncertain about the agency’s future under Donald Trump. “I’m biased, but I feel like the FDA is at peak performance right now and we’ll just see what happens as the new team comes in,” he said at a conference hosted by the nonprofit Friends of Cancer Research on Tuesday. Trump’s ally, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., has taken a hard line against the FDA as part of his “Make America Healthy Again” platform. With Trump allowing Kennedy to “go wild on health,” Kennedy promised to end “corporate corruption” at the agency, he told MSNBC on Nov. 6. “The gist of this administration, from everything that’s been said, is that they want to change a lot of things, and how it gets changed depends on who gets appointed into key positions,” Califf said. He did not address Kennedy’s skepticism towards vaccines, but he did agree with Kennedy’s position of stricter regulations for ultra-processed foods.
