Pfizer stock and shares of other vaccine makers slumped Friday after President-elect Donald Trump tapped Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a widely known vaccine skeptic, to lead the Department of Health and Human Services.
Trump has previously said he would allow Kennedy to "go wild on health care." If confirmed, Kennedy would head up the agency responsible for overseeing the Food and Drug Administration, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the National Institutes of Health.
In a post on X, Trump called out the "industrial food complex and drug companies" for engaging in "deception, misinformation and disinformation." Kennedy will work to ensure all Americans are "protected from harmful chemicals, pollutants, pesticides, pharmaceutical products and food additives that have contributed to the overwhelming Health Crisis in this Country," he said.
"Mr. Kennedy will restore these Agencies to the traditions of Gold Standard Scientific Research, and beacons of Transparency, to end the Chronic Disease epidemic, and to Make America Great and Healthy Again!" he said.
Pfizer stock tumbled 4.7%, closing at 24.80, while shares of Moderna skidded 7.3%, ending the regular session at 36.85. Novavax reversed early losses and closed with a 1.4% gain, while BioNTech stocks dropped 3.7%.
Pfizer Stock Faces Off With Kennedy
In an interview with NBC News following Trump's win, Kennedy rejected the idea that he's "anti-vaccine." Kennedy has repeatedly claimed, however, that vaccines can cause autism — a theory the NIH has debunked as a "myth." He's also worked with Children's Health Defense, an anti-vaccine group.
Still, Kennedy says he's not going to "take away anybody's vaccines."
Kennedy has also critiqued the speed at which Pfizer and Moderna developed their Covid vaccines. He said that, at the time, he was saying the shots wouldn't block transmission and the companies should have been "honest" with the public.
"There was no effort to do that at that time," he said.
While Pfizer stock and shares of its vaccine-making brethren took a beating, shares of companies tied to psychedelics saw a lift. Kennedy says he's open to the use of psychedelic drugs in health care. Kennedy has said he's open to making psychedelics open to therapeutic use "and maybe even more generally."
"My mind is open to the idea that there may be things that I don't know about and that people ought to have the freedom and liberty to experiment with these things," he said in an interview in September with Genius Network. "We know the capacity of the pharmaceutical industry to come and capture this if they see there's money in it and turn it into something very bad and to promote it in ways it shouldn't be promoted."
Dollar stocks Atai Life Sciences and Compass Pathways rose a respective 1.2% and 3.1%, pulling back from steeper gains in earlier trades.
Follow Allison Gatlin on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, at @IBD_AGatlin.
