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.

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.

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.

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 on Friday nominated Dr. Marty Makary, a pancreatic surgeon at Johns Hopkins University, as commissioner of the FDA.

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.

A prolific medical research and author, Martin Makary criticized the FDA and CDC for their decision-making during the pandemic, although he describes himself as pro-vaccine.