President-elect Donald Trump has nominated a critic of COVID-19 health measures to lead the Food and Drug Administration.

Maryland scholars on Monday alternately described President-elect Donald Trump’s pick to lead the U.S. Food and Drug Administration — Dr. Marty Makary, a Johns Hopkins researcher, surgeon and author — as a “courageous leader” and a “reasonable choice,” who nevertheless espouses some “worrisome” views.

Makary is a pancreatic surgeon at Johns Hopkins who became known for battling medical mistakes and in recent years has been an outspoken critic of COVID-19 policies.

President-elect Trump has picked Marty Makary, a Johns Hopkins’s surgeon who has espoused contrarian views about the COVID-19 pandemic, to lead the Federal Drug Administration. Makary is a surgical oncologist at Johns Hopkins University and an author.

U.S. President-elect Donald Trump will likely choose Johns Hopkins surgeon and writer Martin Makary to lead the Food and Drug Administration, two sources familiar with the matter told Reuters on Wednesday.

The nominee, a surgeon at Johns Hopkins, has criticized the use of pesticides on food and the industry turning against “natural fat.”

President-elect Donald Trump has selected Marty Makary, a Johns Hopkins surgeon who criticized the Biden administration’s Covid response, to lead the FDA. “FDA has lost the trust of Americans, and has lost sight of its primary goal as a regulator,” Trump said in a statement late Friday, adding Makary would “course-correct” the agency if confirmed.

U.S. president-elect Donald Trump has nominated surgeon and writer Martin Makary to lead the Food and Drug Administration, the world's most influential drug regulator with a more than $7 billion budget.