Kennedy hints at vast health agency overhaul if Trump elected – Daily News

Lia DeGroot | (TNS) CQ-Roll Name

Former President Donald Trump mentioned this weekend that he would let Robert F. Kennedy Jr. “go wild on well being.”

However precisely what he means by that isn’t clear.

“I’m going to let him go wild on well being,” Trump said at his Madison Sq. Backyard rally Sunday. “I’m going to let him go wild on the meals. I’m going to let him go wild on the medicines.”

Kennedy instructed his supporters throughout an event Monday that Trump has promised him “management” over the Division of Well being and Human Companies and the Division of Agriculture if Trump is elected. Have been Kennedy to be nominated as secretary of both division, that nomination would require Senate affirmation — a prospect that isn’t essentially assured.

Kennedy, a former presidential candidate who dropped out of the race and endorsed Trump this previous summer season, has branded himself as a well being care champion through his Make America Wholesome Once more PAC.

Over the previous two months, he has made appearances all through the nation to share his story on the state of Individuals’ well being, one which he says is characterised by corrupt regulatory companies, kids sickened by “extremely processed” meals and Individuals burdened by power illness.

His recreation plan to deal with these challenges seems to begin with HHS and its companies.

In an Oct. 25 tweet, Kennedy declared that the Meals and Drug Administration’s “warfare” on public well being was “about to finish” and hinted at plans to intestine the company of workers who don’t agree along with his imaginative and prescient.

He accused the company of “aggressive suppression of psychedelics, peptides, stem cells, uncooked milk, hyperbaric therapies, chelating compounds, ivermectin, hydroxychloroquine, nutritional vitamins, clear meals, sunshine, train, nutraceuticals and the rest that advances human well being and may’t be patented by Pharma. When you work for the FDA and are a part of this corrupt system, I’ve two messages for you: 1. Protect your data, and a couple of. Pack your baggage.”

Talking at a roundtable final month hosted alongside Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., Kennedy criticized the FDA, Facilities for Illness Management and Prevention and the Nationwide Institutes of Well being, saying that trade has remodeled the companies into “sock puppets” for its pursuits.

“If America fails, the chief cause will probably be as a result of we let our nation get sicker, extra depressed, fatter, extra infertile at an rising fee, whereas crippling our nationwide safety, bankrupting our nationwide price range with well being care prices,” Kennedy mentioned on the occasion.

Kennedy additionally asserted that former President Barack Obama’s signature well being care legislation incentivized insurers to extend premiums by capping the sum of money they may take from premiums at 15%.

A take a look at Trump’s earlier dealing with of his well being companies might supply a glimpse into what a Kennedy-influenced well being care portfolio might appear like.

Trump’s FDA additionally took fewer enforcement actions towards firms in comparison with the Obama administration’s, in response to a 2019 analysis by Science. The Trump administration’s FDA handed out 1,033 warning letters between his inauguration and Might 2019, in comparison with the Obama administration’s 1,532 throughout the identical time interval.

Medical consultants have expressed concern {that a} Kennedy-influenced HHS might result in an increase in anti-vaccine rhetoric.

Kennedy founded Kids’s Well being Protection in 2018, a bunch that has been vocally skeptical about childhood vaccination and shared info that consultants have flagged as medical misinformation.

Kennedy has additionally made anti-vaccine feedback through the pandemic, calling youngster vaccination “felony medical malpractice” at a 2021 event in Southern California, although he has since denied that he’s anti-vaccine.