Good evening. I'm Laura Burone Lopez. John Yang is away. President-elect Donald Trump has named

three doctors to keep public health roles that oversee the U.S. vaccine supply, disease response, and food safety.

He's nominating Dr. Jeanette Neshawatt, a family medicine doctor and Fox News contributor, to be the

next surgeon general. Trump is also tapping John's Hopkins surgeon

Marty McCarrie to lead the Food and Drug Administration, and Dr. Dave Weldon, a former congressman

from Florida, to be the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. For more on what

the picks say about the administration's approach to public health and science, we turned to Politico reporter

Alice Miranda Olstein. Alice, thanks so much for joining us. The surgeon general is often called

the nation's doctor, and they have one of the biggest public health pulpits. I want to read for you

a post by Jerome Adams, who served as Donald Trump's first surgeon general during that first

administration. And he posted today that whooping cough cases are up five times this year.

Measal deaths have gone up globally. And that the new administration had better have a strong

infectious disease response plan and had better ensure public health

and vaccine confidence stays high or they'll be distracted with outbreaks for four years.

Where does Jeanette Neshawatt stand when it comes to her history with infectious diseases

and the other duties this role carries?

Yeah, so I think that we are seeing the healthcare world express some

cautious optimism about her nomination compared with some of the other health officials that

have been nominated recently by Donald Trump. She has expressed support for vaccines, unlike some of these other folks, but she has been critical

of some vaccine mandates, and so that could have endeared her to the Trump and Robert F. Kennedy

Jr. wing right here. Also, in that quote from Jerome Adams, you really see this tension because both Trump and Kennedy have expressed interest in moving away from focusing on infectious diseases and focusing more on chronic diseases.

Of course, there's a lot of overlap. Infectious diseases can cause chronic diseases.

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