Makary, an outspoken critic of COVID-19 mandates, is a Johns Hopkins University professor and surgeon.
President-elect Donald Trump has chosen Dr. Marty Makary to lead the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).
“FDA has lost the trust of Americans, and has lost sight of its primary goal as a regulator,” Trump wrote in an announcement on the nomination. He noted that Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., his selection to lead the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), would coordinate with Makary. The FDA sits within the HHS.
Makary, an outspoken critic of COVID-19 mandates, is a Johns Hopkins University professor and surgeon.
Born in England of Coptic Christian descent, Makary earned degrees from Bucknell University, Thomas Jefferson University, and the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.
He belongs to the National Academy of Medicine.
Makary is the chief of islet transplant surgery at Johns Hopkins. ResearchGate records more than 22,000 citations to his published research.
He gained early fame for his work on a clear, detailed protocol to help surgeons avoid overlooking small but crucial actions that can make a difference in outcomes for patients. A surgery checklist he developed factors into Dr. Atul Gawande’s influential book, “The Checklist Manifesto.”
Makary’s 2012 book, “Unaccountable,” chronicled serious problems in American medicine, advocating greater transparency. It later inspired a Fox drama series, “The Resident.”
“The Price We Pay,” a 2019 book by Makary, tackled high costs and inefficiency in the American health care system.
In 2020, the surgeon advocated universal masking, calling for it in a May 2020 opinion article in the New York Times.
He later emerged as a staunch critic of some facets of the response to the COVID-19 pandemic, including from the agency he may soon lead.
In a 2021 testimony before the House of Representatives, the Johns Hopkins professor objected to the FDA’s push for mandatory boosters as well as the United States’ approach to natural immunity.
“Ignoring natural immunity has resulted in the preventable deaths of tens of thousands of Americans,” Makary testified.
The surgeon commented more broadly on his concerns about the COVID-19 response during a Sept. 2024 episode of EpochTV’s “American Thought Leaders.”
“Civil discourse is under threat. And in the medical profession, too, we’re fighting censorship, control, and centralized authority. We got a little peak of it during COVID, but this is an ongoing battle,” Makary said.
“The whole purpose of science is to have a foundation of transparency where we can discuss ideas. And the medical profession has an incredible heritage of tailoring recommendations to an individual based on their needs and wishes and personal physiology and so we’ve got to retain this liberty to customize care to individuals.”
Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) lauded the pick.
“Dr. Makary = friend + genius + hero,” he wrote on X.
So did Dr. Tracy Høeg, a physician based in California.
“He has put in the research to know how US healthcare can be improved and is a humble, independent thinker with a great sense of humor and a long history of standing up for the interests of patients over pharma, even when it’s unpopular to do so,” she wrote on X.