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.
“The reason we expect Americans to sell it is because we’re so stupid and addicted to drugs,” Kennedy said in an Instagram appearance with Fox News’ Greg Gutfeld last month. , concluded that Ozempic, a very popular drug, was effective. A drug approved to treat type 2 diabetes but used off-label for weight loss will not “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, Ozempic is used in Denmark, where the Danish Medicines Agency announced in May that it would restrict its use until people try cheaper drugs to treat diabetes. 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 Ozempic’s sister drug Wigovy, which has been approved for weight loss, but is similarly plagued by costs and questions whether its effectiveness is justified. This debate is also taking place in the United States, where drug prices are much higher.
President Kennedy said in the same appearance that the European Union was “currently investigating Ozempic in relation to suicidal ideation,” but European regulators said in April that the available evidence does not suggest that Ozempic or other GLP-1 drugs are effective against suicidal thoughts. They concluded that there was no indication that it would cause ideation or suicidal behavior.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration, which President Kennedy will oversee as secretary of the Department of Health, has reached a similar conclusion but continues to monitor potential risks.
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. —Kennedy denies this relationship. “Let’s think again. Let’s withdraw this nomination and let him join the Environmental Protection Agency.”
Many in the public health community say Kennedy’s focus on overhauling pesticide regulations and agricultural subsidies is a potentially positive move and a safer place for him to work than the department overseeing vaccine regulation. I’m watching.
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 U.S. a fraction of what it would cost to treat every overweight person in the country with Ozempic — the GLP-1 drug would treat every overweight person in the country. No one has proposed it, because it has not been approved by the United States: “If we gave every man, woman, and child in our country three good meals a day, we would end the obesity and diabetes epidemic overnight.” It can be solved.”
Dr. Angela Fitch, co-founder and chief medical officer of Obesity specialist Knowwell, said President Kennedy’s suggestion that obesity could be solved “overnight” with diet and exercise alone is more relevant. It said it would set back hard-won efforts to address the issue. situation.
Injectable Ozempic will be released in Houston on Saturday, July 1, 2023. (AP Photo/David J. Phillip, File)
“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.
In a social media post in September, President Kennedy acknowledged that “weight shaming is cruel and obesity is not a lack of character,” but instead that “our disgusting food system” is partially to blame. He suggested that there was.
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. Billionaire Elon Musk, who was appointed by the Trump administration to cut government spending, said in a post Friday that making GLP-1 drugs “available at low cost to all Americans who want to use them will significantly improve health outcomes.” “This will lead to improved health outcomes and lower medical costs.” It costs money. ”
Musk said he was using Wegovy in October 2022.
Kennedy told NPR that he hopes Trump will show “a measurable impact in reducing chronic disease within two years.” He proposed prohibiting Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program beneficiaries from using their benefits to buy carbonated beverages and processed foods, and reconsidering “standards for the use of pesticides and other chemicals.” It is proposed that this goal be achieved by taking the following measures.
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.'”
