If confirmed, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. will have broad influence over federal agencies and health care policy — a prospect that worries many in public health given his history of conspiracy theories.
SCOTT DETROW, HOST:
We’re going to now talk more about one of those picks, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who President-elect Trump has tapped to lead the Department of Health and Human Services. If confirmed, Kennedy will have broad influence over federal agencies and health care policy, and that is a prospect that worries many in public health, given his history of making false claims about vaccines and promoting conspiracy theories.
In the final stretch of the election, Kennedy focused heavily on tackling chronic diseases and corruption under the slogan Make America Healthy Again, and Trump has said that will be a big priority. NPR health correspondent Will Stone joins us now to talk more about this, Hey, Will.
WILL STONE, BYLINE: Hey, Scott.
DETROW: Let’s start here. How would you sum up the Make America Healthy Again agenda?
STONE: OK, so Kennedy and Trump have said that their central mandate is to reverse the chronic disease epidemic in the U.S., and we’re talking about diabetes, heart disease. These are the leading causes of death. They’re tied to diet, physical activity and other lifestyle factors. And to achieve this ambitious goal, supporters of this MAHA movement have set their sights on Big Food and Big Pharma. You know, these are industries that they say use their influence over government to push policies that undermine the country’s health.
A key figure in Kennedy’s orbit and an advisor of his is Calley Means. He’s a former consultant for these industries. Means works in the health and wellness industry. Here’s what he told me when we spoke a few days before Trump announced Kennedy as his pick to lead HHS.
CALLEY MEANS: What Bobby Kennedy has helped President Trump realize is that there’s no greater example of this swamp, there’s no greater example of this corruption President Trump has talked about throughout his political career, than what’s happening with our food industry that’s profiting from cheap, addictive food and our health care industry that profits from kids getting sick from chronic disease tied to food.
DETROW: I have heard Kennedy talk about so many different areas, though. What exactly is the initial focus here?
STONE: Yeah, good question. I mean, he has spoke about concerns related to ultraprocessed foods, poor nutrition, food additives, pesticides, toxic chemicals, the harms of industrial agriculture and, more broadly, the health care system’s focus on treatments instead of prevention. Tackling any of these alone would be a significant undertaking, and many people have tried. You can bet, Scott, he will face major headwinds, both from Congress and lobbyist. I spoke to a longtime friend of Kennedy’s, Dr. Mark Hyman. He’s a bestselling author and an advisor to the Cleveland Clinic.
MARK HYMAN: I think there’s a unique opportunity, partly because Trump is kind of a burn-down-the-house kind of guy. Bobby’s, you know, not looking for incremental change.
STONE: Kennedy has shared many of his goals. He wants to overhaul dietary guidelines and federal programs that pay for ultraprocessed foods, take on crop subsidies, maybe ban certain pesticides that European countries have already banned.
DETROW: What’s the response been to all of this?
STONE: It’s certainly a strange, almost dizzying moment for the public health field. Kennedy is well known for questioning the scientific consensus, pushing inaccurate information about vaccines. He’s founded an antivaccine advocacy group and is generally antagonistic toward mainstream medicine. As NPR has covered, he’s promoted unproven treatments for COVID and made other basless claims related to health.
At the same time, there’s no denying that on chronic disease prevention, there is some real overlap between what he talks about as his priorities and what you hear from scientists who work in this field. One of them is Barry Popkin, a professor at UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health. He says, he would welcome meaningful action on nutrition and the food supply.
BARRY POPKIN: If it comes, I’ll support it, and I’ll be super surprised, and academia will be behind them and so on. But I do not see that. I fear the worst.
STONE: Popkin tells me he’s worried about the other realms of public health under Kennedy’s leadership – our preparation for the next pandemic, outbreaks of measles and backsliding on proven public health tools like vaccines.
DETROW: How would Kennedy get most of this agenda through when it comes to the – what he’s talking about with chronic disease prevention?
STONE: Yeah, that is the question, Scott, because, clearly, Trump and other Republicans are already talking about cutting government and regulations. This is what Dr. Randall Stafford at Stanford is trying to square.
RANDALL STAFFORD: I am very pleased to see the issues of obesity and poor diet being articulated, but I’m not sure that those goals are consistent with other goals to deregulate the economy.
STONE: And in Trump’s first term, his administration installed industry insiders and took actions on nutrition and pesticides that run counter to this new agenda. I asked Calley Means about this, and he said that fundamentally, their priority is more about stamping out industry influence, whether that’s with people who are funded to do research or who advise the government.
MEANS: Our health and food apparatus – it’s rigged. And aggressively and clearly derigging that system is not overregulation.
STONE: He argues once you get that done, the research and recommendations will follow, and Congress will have to act.
DETROW: That’s NPR’s Will Stone. Thanks so much.
STONE: Thank you.
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