What to Know About Marty Makary, Trump’s Potential FDA Pick

Multiple reports suggest that president-elect Donald Trump is considering Marty Makary, MD, MPH, to run the FDA. Here’s what to know.

Makary served as the editor-in-chief of MedPage Today from January 2020 through the end of 2021.

The Johns Hopkins surgeon and health policy researcher has written three books on medicine and healthcare: Blind Spots, The Price We Pay, and Unaccountable, the last of which was turned into a TV series called “The Resident.” A theme of all three books is challenging the status quo in medicine, questioning the evidence base for certain treatments and established clinical practices. Among his top issues, Makary has taken on the high costs of healthcare and medicine’s penchant for overtreatment. He also authored Mama Maggie, a book about a woman who aids the poor people of Egypt’s slums.

Early in the COVID-19 pandemic, Makary espoused some views that were in opposition to mainstream medicine, including championing the power of natural immunity, challenging vaccine mandates, and questioning the need for COVID vaccines in children. Makary famously predicted in February 2021 that the U.S. would have “herd immunity by April” 2021.

In 2023, Makary testified before Congress that a lab leak origin of SARS-CoV-2 from the Wuhan Institute of Virology in China was a “no-brainer.”

More recently, he has reverted to speaking out against the core business-of-healthcare issues that initially sparked his rise to fame, including how hospitals that make profits should pay taxes, and exposing how certain Medicare policies enable hospital and health system monopolies.

Makary completed his surgical residency at Georgetown University Hospital in Washington, D.C., after attending medical school at Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia. He received his Master of Public Health degree from Harvard University. In 2018 he was elected to the National Academy of Medicine.

At FDA, Makary would be in charge of the agency’s annual budget of $7 billion, and he would report to Trump’s pick for HHS secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., if confirmed by the Senate.

Late last month, Kennedy lashed out at the FDA in a post on X: “FDA’s war on public health is about to end. This includes its aggressive suppression of psychedelics, peptides, stem cells, raw milk, hyperbaric therapies, chelating compounds, ivermectin, hydroxychloroquine, vitamins, clean foods, sunshine, exercise, nutraceuticals, and anything else that advances human health and can’t be patented by Pharma. If you work for the FDA and are part of this corrupt system, I have two messages for you: 1. Preserve your records, and 2. Pack your bags.”

Outgoing FDA Commissioner Robert Califf, MD, has fought against medical misinformation, and pushed for improvements in food safety and inspections. He recently said that under a Trump administration, FDA’s ability to hire and retain skilled employees could be in jeopardy, given Kennedy’s hostility to civil servants.