Ralph Abraham, a supporter of the Trump administration’s “Make America Healthy Again” agenda and a fierce critic of COVID-19 vaccines, has reportedly been appointed to a highly influential position at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
The appointment of Louisiana’s top health official as principal deputy director of the federal agency will be seen as a big win for Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., another noted vaccine skeptic and conspiracy theorist.
The New York Times and The Washington Post reported Abraham’s new position — effectively the second-in-command at the agency — on Tuesday. HuffPost has contacted the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) for comment.
Working under Jim O’Neill, the CDC’s acting director, Abraham will have the platform to address a range of public health issues.
The 71-year-old was a physician and a veterinarian before a three-term stint as a Louisiana congressman.
He retired from Congress in 2020 after a failed bid for governor in 2019 and was appointed Louisiana’s surgeon general in 2024.
While overseeing the state’s health policies, Abraham publicly criticized COVID-19 vaccines.
“The COVID vaccines are dangerous,” he said in an X post in September. “I see the fallout in my clinic every day.”
In February, shortly after Kennedy was confirmed as HHS chief, Abraham announced in a memo to staff that the state’s health department “will no longer promote mass vaccination.”
In a press release, he spoke of “rebuilding from the COVID missteps.”
Abraham also shares Kennedy’s misgivings over avoiding Tylenol in pregnancy except “when absolutely necessary.”
He praised Trump and Kennedy’s “leadership” and “common sense approach” to Tylenol, claiming “autism rates represent an existential threat to our nation.”
Experts have condemned the Trump administration for linking Tylenol use during pregnancy to autism as “irresponsible.”
During the COVID-19 pandemic, Abraham backed making ivermectin, an anti-parasitic drug, widely available.
Trials have shown it to be ineffective at shortening symptom duration or reducing the rate of hospitalizations or deaths from COVID-19.
In the latest sign that Kennedy’s worldview is dramatically reshaping public health policy, the health secretary last week revealed he had personally intervened to change language on the CDC’s website to suggest there’s a link between vaccines and autism. No evidence supports that claim.