Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the nation’s well being and human companies secretary, talks so much in regards to the issues he feels straight threaten the well being of Individuals — synthetic meals dyes, seed oils and fluoride are typically widespread speaking factors.
He additionally focuses on the nation’s “chronic disease epidemic,” with the purpose of placing an finish to it. However specialists say his hyper-focus on issues like meals dyes truly take away from big-picture well being issues that vastly impression morbidity and mortality.
“RFK Jr. will focus on that at the expense of other things that are very, very, very, very much contributing to the ‘chronic disease epidemic,’” stated Dr. Eric Burnett, an inner medication physician at an instructional medical heart in New York and a well being communicator on social media.
The persistent illness burden within the U.S. does exist and is excessive, however “the things that he’s focusing on … he can wave a magic wand and then make fluoride and food dyes disappear entirely — it would not grossly impact the burden of chronic disease in this country because there’s so many other things that are heavy contributors to this that he’s not even addressing at all,” stated Burnett.
If Kennedy actually needed to “make America healthy again,” he’d change his focus (and prioritize funding) to quite a lot of different areas, stated specialists who spoke to HuffPost. Under, docs and medical specialists share what the well being secretary ought to truly concentrate on.
He would unequivocally help vaccines.
“If he could just start with supporting vaccines, letting go of this autism nonsense that ‘oh, vaccines cause autism’ … [we have] hundreds of studies that have shown there’s absolutely no association,” stated Dr. Anita Patel, a pediatric vital care physician in Washington, D.C.
In gentle of the present measles outbreak in West Texas and past, Kennedy has made statements recommending vaccines, solely to backpedal and inform dad and mom to “do their own vaccine research.”
“If he cared about human health, he would not be undermining vaccine confidence,” added Jessica Malaty Rivera, an infectious illness epidemiologist.
“It’s just so unfortunate that, because we’re in this world where we have modern medicine and we have antibiotics, antivirals, amazing vaccines, people have simply forgotten that these viruses used to kill hundreds of thousands of people,” Patel added.
He’d tackle tobacco and alcohol’s function in persistent illness.
“They’re prioritizing these talking points that are very glamorous for the wellness industry, like food dyes and fluorides and vaccines, but things that are actually contributing to chronic disease in this country, like tobacco, alcohol, drug use, obesity, I don’t see them offering any practical solutions,” Burnett stated.
Alcohol and tobacco use are “two of the largest contributors to chronic disease,” he stated. “And yet, we’re not doing anything to address those things.”
Alcohol and tobacco use can result in coronary heart illness, lung illness and liver illness. “Alcohol is linked to several different types of cancer,” Burnett stated. And it’s well-known that smoking cigarettes additionally causes most cancers. “But we don’t talk about that, right?” Burnett stated.
He wouldn’t enable funding cuts for analysis on ladies’s well being, the BIPOC group and LGBTQ+ people.
In current months, the Trump administration has minimize funding to any federal analysis that pertains to “diversity, equity and inclusion,” which signifies that any analysis that features the phrases “women,” “trans,” “diversity” and extra can face funding cuts.
It is a far cry from the place analysis ended beneath the Biden administration.
“Jill Biden had spearheaded this [White House Initiative on women’s health research] … something like billions of dollars was going to be dedicated to women’s health. Not just gynecologic conditions, but also cardiovascular health, brain health, these sort of things,” stated Dr. Karen Tang, a board-certified gynecologist and the writer of “It’s Not Hysteria.”
“And we had all been very hopeful that that was going to lead to improvements in a lot of these areas where we have a complete lack of research,” she stated.
(Ladies had been largely not included in medical analysis research till 1993.)
“I’ve heard from other doctors … funding has been shut down for research projects that have to do with women’s health because of these concerns that it’s favoring women, like it’s not being equitable — all this crazy stuff,” Tang stated.
“The concern is, we’re already at a severe, severe disadvantage when it came to lack of research and data, and now we’re going to be even worse off because people are losing funding,” she added.
SDI Productions through Getty Pictures
The identical goes for analysis that focuses on racial disparities in well being care and LGBTQ+ well being care, which can even have devastating impacts.
“Even if you look at it from a purely cost effectiveness perspective, cutting all this funding is actually penny wise, pound foolish … you’re actually potentially leading to higher health care costs because we’re not figuring out ways to optimize health and to prevent all of these chronic conditions that, with a little bit more research or understanding, we could have,” Tang stated.
He would additionally think about the function poverty and social determinants of well being have on well-being.
“I think one of the primary drivers of chronic illness in this country is poverty, and I have never once heard RFK Jr. or anyone from HHS talk about poverty and how social determinants of health — like someone’s ability to afford food, someone’s ability to afford health care — impact chronic disease,” Burnett stated.
If you happen to can’t afford to go to the physician, your persistent illness is barely going to get extra extreme. If you happen to don’t have entry to nutritious meals, the chance of growing a persistent illness like diabetes solely will increase.
“If he cared about food and nutrition, he would focus on resolving the issue of food insecurity in food deserts, in communities that don’t have enough resources to provide nutritious food, instead of these red herrings of food dyes and preservatives,” stated Malaty Rivera.
“If he could talk about that and food dyes, I would say, ‘OK, he does care about the chronic disease epidemic, because he’s talking about some major things and sure, we can work on getting food dyes out, too, as sort of a supplementary thing,’” Burnett famous.
“A lot of my patients suffer from housing insecurity, food insecurity, and those certainly contribute to chronic health, so I really wish that he would focus on that,” stated Burnett, who burdened that it’s not a straightforward job.
“It’s not something that’s glamorous … food dyes have been vilified by the wellness community for decades, so it’s very easy to sort of pick that as a villain boogeyman du jour and say, ‘Yes, this is what we’re gonna focus on. We’re gonna defeat this,’” he stated.
“But talking about poverty is a lot more complicated and really makes people reflect on the sort of moral failings of our country and why there’s such an issue with poverty, income inequality, and unfortunately, talking about health care disparities as they relate to things like poverty is now considered DEI, and they’re defunding that, too,” he famous.
“That only exacerbates the issue if we can’t even investigate income inequality and health care disparities,” Burnett stated.
“I’m trying to let people know ‘make America healthy again’ is actually making America sick again.”
– Jessica Malaty Rivera, infectious illness epidemiologist
He wouldn’t minimize infectious illness analysis.
“If RFK Jr. cared about making America healthy again, he would understand that defunding infectious disease research actually harms chronic disease research,” stated Malaty Rivera.
“Infectious diseases are one of the leading causes of chronic diseases, and to say that they’re separate is showing a fundamental misunderstanding of how human health works,” she stated.
Kennedy made an enormous deal in regards to the sum of money and a focus infectious illness analysis will get, “but he doesn’t realize it is inextricably linked with chronic diseases,” Malaty Rivera famous.
HPV, which is an infectious illness, is an instance of this, she stated. “[HPV is] also a leading cause, if not the leading cause, of cervical cancer, anal cancer, oral cancer, vulvar, penile cancer … 90% of those cancers happen because of an HPV infection, which is actually vaccine-preventable,” Malaty Rivera stated.
“It’s just very disingenuous to say that those two things are separate,” she added.
He wouldn’t enable funding cuts for Narcan.
A draft HHS funds (which isn’t but authorised) known as for the elimination of $56 million in federal funding for Narcan, “which is the opioid overdose reversal agent,” Burnett stated.
“And it’s just stuff like that, you focus on Red Dye 40, which is not contributing to morbidity and mortality in this country, but 100,000 people a year die from opioid overdoses, and Narcan reduced the mortality from opioid overdose by 24% last year,” he famous. “That’s incredible.”
“And the fact that they want to remove the federal funding for Narcan kits is just another thing that shows me that they’re not interested in making America healthy again,” stated Burnett.
He’d cease stigmatizing folks with autism.
“One really big thing I wish that he would do is stop marginalizing children with any sort of underlying condition, and of course, autism is the one that is on all of our minds because his rhetoric around autism is essentially that it was caused by parents giving their child a vaccine,” Patel stated.
“And, he’s not saying that directly, [he’s] saying environmental exposures, but the way that he’s doing it and the way that he talks about these children is already leading to bullying and just a lack of concern for them,” she added.
“As a critical care doctor, I’m the one that takes care of all these children with underlying medical conditions, and they deserve health support and care, and they are removing all of that with their potential budget,” Patel stated, referring to the HHS draft funds.
He’d tackle the nation’s excessive maternal mortality charges.
There’s a critical ladies’s well being disaster taking place within the U.S. if you take a look at being pregnant and obstetric security, Tang stated.
“A third, 35% of U.S. counties have no access to obstetric care. There’s no OB-GYN, there’s no labor and delivery unit … at least 2 million women live in places where there’s no access to obstetric care,” Tang famous.
In response to the Commonwealth Fund, maternal mortality charges are larger in america than in some other high-income nation. As of 2022, america had 22 maternal deaths for each 100,000 births. By comparability, Norway had 0 maternal deaths out of 100,000, Switzerland had 1 out of 100,000 and the UK had 5 out of 100,000.
“Among other [high-income] countries, there’s nowhere close to the maternal mortality rate, and especially for Black women, who have [a] significantly higher risk of dying in pregnancy or childbirth compared with white women,” stated Tang.
Charges of maternal mortality and toddler mortality have elevated in states with strict abortion bans, she added. Plus, OB-GYNs are leaving practices in states with abortion restrictions over fears of prosecution, she added, which additional limits look after birthing folks and their infants.
Specializing in meals dyes, seed oils and vaccine analysis that’s been debunked again and again is definitely simply distracting from the true betterment of America’s well being and the security of people, their households and their neighbors.
Permitting funds cuts to essential well being analysis, the top of worldwide vaccine packages and the slashing of total federal well being packages units the U.S. again “in the research he wants so badly to champion, and that’s [the] irreparable harm,” stated Malaty Rivera.
“It tells me health is not the priority, and that’s been just abundantly clear,” she added. “So I’m trying to let people know ‘make America healthy again’ is actually making America sick again — and that’s really the TL;DR.”
