President Donald Trump’s nominee to be the nation’s second-highest health official has spread misinformation about Covid-19.
If the Senate confirms Brian Christine as assistant secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, he would be a key adviser to Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a divisive figure whose opposition to vaccines and other mainstream scientific findings has alarmed public health officials.
Christine would help lead a new HHS office called the Administration for a Healthy America, or AHA, which was created last week by combining several agencies to focus on environmental health, primary care and maternal and children’s health. Under the Biden administration, the assistant secretary for health oversaw the Office of Climate Change and Health Equity. That initiative was shuttered during the first month of Trump’s presidency to comply with his executive order aimed at dismantling federal diversity and equity efforts.
It’s unclear how AHA will advance environmental health. It was created as part of a broader reorganization of HHS and includes the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry and the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, which previously were part of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration was also folded into AHA.
