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

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.

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

Makary and Weldon, who have criticized the agencies they may soon run, were joined by Janette Nesheiwat, Trump’s pick to be surgeon general.

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.

Marty Makary, an outspoken critic of the nation’s food and drug regulator, stands to shake up the FDA’s standards in science and decision-making under President-elect Donald Trump.