Editor’s note: clock “Dr. Sanjay Gupta reports: Is Ozempic right for you?” airs Sunday, Nov. 17 at 8 p.m. on CNN.
CNN
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Robert F. Kennedy Jr., President-elect Donald Trump’s pick to lead the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, has pledged to tackle high rates of chronic diseases such as diabetes and obesity. These are goals that many in the public health community feel they agree with, even as they worry about what notorious anti-vaccine activists will do in the post.
Just don’t suggest that he use drugs like Ozempic to address those goals.
“We’re so stupid and addicted to drugs that they expect us to sell it to the American people,” Kennedy said in an appearance with Fox News’ Greg Gutfeld. Instagram Last month, it concluded that Ozempic, a wildly popular drug approved to treat type 2 diabetes but used off-label for weight loss, is not going to “make America healthy again.”
Kennedy claimed that Novo Nordisk, which makes Ozempic, does not sell the drug in its home country of Denmark. They recommend dietary and behavioral changes. ”
In fact, Denmark uses Ozempic, and the Danish Medicines Agency said In May, it announced it would limit its use until people try cheaper diabetes drugs. Rather than a shift toward forgoing medication in favor of lifestyle changes, as Kennedy suggested, more than 100,000 people were given the drug or similar drugs known as GLP-1 receptor agonists. This was a cost-cutting move.
Denmark also uses Wigovy, a sister drug to Ozempic approved for weight loss, as well grappled The costs raise questions about whether the benefits are justified. This debate is also taking place in the United States, where drug prices are much higher.
In a similar vein, President Kennedy said the European Union was “currently investigating Ozempic for suicidal ideation,” but European regulators concluded In April, it announced that available evidence does not suggest that Ozempic or other GLP-1 drugs cause suicidal thoughts or behavior.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration, which Kennedy would oversee as secretary of the Department of Health, also reached Although we continue to monitor potential risks, no conclusions have been reached.
Dr. Michael Osterholm, director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota, said such confident but false or misleading claims are characteristic of President Kennedy. And it can be especially dangerous when applied to public health infrastructure like vaccines, he said.
“He doesn’t know what he’s talking about, but he acts like he does, convincing people that he has data to back up what he’s saying,” Osterholm told CNN. “I say things with the definition that makes them so.” “Following him and trying to understand what he’s saying is like trying to nail Jell-O to a wall.”
Kennedy’s anti-vaccine stance predates President Trump’s announcement Thursday that he has chosen him to lead the agency that oversees the FDA, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Institutes of Health, and Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. It was making public health experts nervous. services etc.
President Kennedy claims he is not anti-vaccine, but says vaccines cause autism, can cause more deaths than they prevent, and may have caused the world’s deadliest pandemic. falsely states that there is a sex.
If President Kennedy takes over HHS, “children across America will be hurt,” Hawaii Governor Dr. Josh Green said. He is a doctor who helped with vaccination efforts in Samoa after a deadly measles outbreak there in 2019 linked to misinformation spread by President Kennedy. — connection That Kennedy I deny it. “Let’s think again. Let’s withdraw this nomination and let him join the Environmental Protection Agency.”
Many in the public health community see President Kennedy’s focus on overhauling pesticide regulations and agricultural subsidies as a potentially positive move and a safer workplace for him. than the department that oversees vaccine regulations.
Doctors in the field agree that it is important to address the rise in diabetes and obesity, but argue that President Kennedy’s plan misses the point.
“It’s a mistake to think that people with higher body weight or BMI just sit around and eat a low-quality diet,” says Dr. Jodi Duchey, assistant professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School and attending physician in endocrinology at Beth Israel Deaconess. ” he says. medical center. “Taking drugs to treat obesity should not be demonized.”
Kennedy claimed on the same Fox show that it would cost the United States a fraction of what it would cost to treat every overweight person in America with Ozempic, but that is not the case with GLP-1 drugs, so no one This is not what I proposed. approved For everyone who is overweight: “If we gave every man, woman, and child in our country three good meals a day, we would solve the obesity and diabetes epidemic overnight.”
Dr. Angela Fitch, Co-Founder and Chief Medical Officer known wellKennedy, a health care provider who specializes in treating obese patients, said his suggestion that obesity can be solved “overnight” with diet and exercise alone is an important step in the struggle to better manage obesity. He said it would set back the efforts that had been won.
“We’ve been trying to erase that stigma for years,” Fitch told CNN. “What we often heard in his rhetoric was, ‘We want people to eat less and exercise more.’ And what we know is that that doesn’t work.”
Dr. Daniel Drucker, who pioneered research into GLP-1, a hormone that mimics Ozempic and similar drugs, agreed.
Drucker told CNN, “No one in the business or field of health care would dispute that lifestyle modification, diet and exercise, and healthy foods are the basis for improving people’s health and weight management. There won’t be any,” he said. “The challenge we face is that there have been multiple trials trying to see if diet and exercise can significantly improve people’s health and achieve significant weight loss. And the answer is No. People lose weight little by little.”
The GLP-1 class has revolutionized the way physicians approach weight loss treatment. Because the GLP-1 class offers an effective treatment after decades of poor options, often with significant safety issues. Clinical trials have shown an average weight loss of 15-20%. Doctors are not claiming that drugs alone are the answer to rising obesity rates, but they also don’t think they should be abandoned, and that in addition to lifestyle changes such as healthy eating and exercise, Recommends medicine.
Not all obese patients need this drug, and for some it can cause strong side effects, such as nausea. Furthermore, many people do not have insurance that covers them, nor do they have access to obesity care in general. Fitch argues that addressing this problem would further advance the U.S. fight against obesity.
on social media post In September, Kennedy acknowledged that “weight shaming is cruel and obesity is not a character flaw,” instead suggesting that “our disgusting food system” was partially to blame.
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Physicians who treat obese patients suggest that adjusting the diet system and using weight-loss drugs when necessary should not be contradictory.
Kennedy’s views on Ozempic appear not to be universally shared across Trump’s presidential orbit. in post On Friday, billionaire Elon Musk, who was appointed by the Trump administration to cut government spending, said that making GLP-1 drugs “available at low cost to Americans who want to use them will significantly improve their health outcomes.” “This will reduce medical costs,” he said.
musk said As of October 2022, he was using Wegovy.
Kennedy told NPR that he hopes Trump will show “a measurable impact in reducing chronic disease within two years.” He also banned Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program beneficiaries from using their benefits to buy soda and processed foods;Standards for the use of pesticides and other chemicals”
Osterholm expressed skepticism about this goal.
“We all agree that this is a very important issue,” Osterholm said. “But a lot of his thinking is, ‘A plus B plus C plus a miracle, and you’ll get the answer.'”
