A War on Chronic Disease: HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Trump’s Health Revolution

In this special news package, we dig into the bold new health agenda at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) under Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., endorsed by President Donald Trump.⁠
From the launch of the “Make America Healthy Again” (MAHA) initiative to the plan to tackle America’s mounting chronic‑disease epidemic, this story covers the strategy, the stakes and the controversies.⁠

#WarOnChronicDisease #RFKJr #HHS #MakeAmericaHealthyAgain #TrumpHealthRevolution #ChronicDiseaseEpidemic #PublicHealth #HealthPolicy #AmericaHealthCrisis #HealthyAmerica

Transcript

00:00To a sense, and it's an honor to have you in the White House, and go to it, Bobby.

00:06Thank you, Mr. President. I want to start by thanking you, Mr. President, for declaring war

00:13on chronic disease in this country. This is something no American president has ever done.

00:19If we want to solve the chronic disease crisis, we have to tackle obesity. Obesity is the number

00:28one driver of chronic disease. 50% of our adult population are obese or overweight. It drives

00:38about 50% of health care costs in this country. Diabetes, cardiac diseases, we are going to

00:45see a decline because of this historic agreement. We're going to see a decline in costs, but

00:51also, more importantly, in the afflictions themselves. There are – this is a – President

01:02Trump is the friend of the forgotten American. Obesity is a disease of poverty, overwhelmingly.

01:11And this drug, these drugs, have only been available for people who have wealth. At one point, the

01:19majority of prescriptions – the highest concentration of prescriptions in this country – was the

01:25Upper West Side of Manhattan. And what about the people who live in rural areas, who live

01:30in food deserts? What about the people in urban areas who live in food deserts and are suffering

01:37from obesity and are locked into that system where they can only get ultra-processed foods,

01:43which are aggravating the problem? This will be a lifesaver to them. It's not a panacea. It's not a

01:50silver bullet. President Trump has also instructed us to address and end the root causes of chronic

01:58disease. And we're doing that. We're about to release dietary guidelines that are going to change the food

02:05culture in this country. They're going to change the kind of food the military gets. They're going to change the

02:10kind of food that our children get. We're releasing those in December. The Presidential Council for Physical

02:16Fitness is going to get more Americans into, particularly our children, into physical activity

02:24so that we can attack the root causes of this. But in the meantime, there's nothing more important

02:29than we can do than lower this price. As I said, it is the number one cost of all drugs. This is the biggest

02:37drug in our country. That's why this is the most important of all the MFN announcements we've made.

02:43This is going to have the biggest impact on the American people. All Americans, even those who are

02:50not on Medicaid and Medicare, are going to be able to get the same price for their drugs, for their GLP

02:56drugs. This happened because of the vision of David Ricks, of Mike Deustar, and the other people,

03:06and the people on our team who figured out a way to align the interests of the shareholders of their

03:13company with the health of the American public. And it is a momentous accomplishment. It took months

03:21and months of negotiations. And I had a wonderful conversation with Mike Deustar

03:27about his experience. And he thanked me with a caliber of people who are on our side of the

03:38negotiating team. Chris Klomp, who walked away from a billion dollar business in order to join this

03:44administration. Inman Hernandez, David Brooks, and of course, Dr. Oz and Marty McCary, who made this happen.

03:53They saw that this could be a win-win situation, that this was not a zero-sum game. The Biden

04:00administration tried to solve this problem unsuccessfully, I might add, by throwing $40

04:06billion at it. And they were able to achieve an agreement that will actually create savings for

04:14the American public. So we're making all this available at a savings. And that's because

04:20the price of diabetes prescriptions is also going to drop. And the savings that we get from that

04:27are now going to make it available to people who do not have diabetes. People who have a BMI of 27 and

04:34above, or pre-diabetic, or of heart disease risk, they will be able to get it. But everybody will be able

04:41to get this drug. And it is going to, it's going to change. We will lose, the American public, because

04:47of this agreement, we'll lose 125 million pounds by this time next year. It is going to have dramatic

04:55effects on human health in this country. And I want to thank President Trump for his leadership. He said

05:02that I've gotten a lot done as HHS Secretary, but almost none of that is due to my ability. It's

05:10because I'm surrounded by people who are smarter than me, who are more able than me. And those people

05:17came into the administration because they were inspired by President Trump. People like Chris

05:22Klump are here because they see this. Do you think they are smarter than you and more able?

05:27No. Believe me, they're less smarter than I am. Why didn't you take that job?

05:36He doesn't really mean that he's being modest. It is true, unfortunately.

05:44But I want to thank you, Mr. President, because you've been able, you've made me a success here by

05:49allowing me to attract these extraordinary people. And I want to again thank David Ricks, who we've been

05:56talking. We've been in this office again and again. And you keep saying he's the smartest guy in

06:01industry that he could talk it off a meat truck. But he came to the table and Mike

06:10starts to hold me. He said... Well, I did convince people for 20 years that it was okay for Europe to pay

06:16$10 and for America to pay $140. That's why they make $45, $50 million a year.

06:23Finally, I said I'm at it, right?

06:25You did.

06:26He did.

06:27But anybody can do that, they're entitled. But now it's down to what it should be.

06:34And Mike Dussard told me what a pleasure it was to negotiate with people who were smart,

06:40who had common sense, who were able to put themselves in his position and hammer out this

06:47deal that is good for everybody. And it's great for the American public. I want to close again

06:53by just saying that this is a tool, the toolkit. It is not a silver bullet. It is an arrow in our

07:01quiver. It will allow a lot of people who are locked into high risk obesity to finally lose weight,

07:08to reset, and then start doing the kind of things that will address the root causes of obesity.

07:15So I want to thank these extraordinary CEOs for sticking with us on this, for allowing us to make

07:24this happen. Mike Dussard said to me, he said, we've known we've had to do this for many years.

07:31We just haven't been able to get over the edge. And that this, President Trump's order, his executive

07:37order was a catalyst to do something that we always knew needed to be done. So again,

07:43thank you for your vision, for your commitment, and thank you to all the CEOs and all of my team

07:49are making this historic agreement happen. Bobby, you haven't changed your view on Tylenol for women

07:54to pregnant health. There's some false reports out about Tylenol that Bobby changes you. I don't

08:03think he's changed. I'm not going to change until the science changes, and the science does not look

08:08like it's changing. It's getting stronger and stronger. Every day what we recommend is that

08:13mothers, pregnant mothers, talk to their physicians, that the mothers of small kids talk to their

08:20physicians, and we've advised the physicians to reduce the thresholds and to reduce the amount

08:27of Tylenol that they give to children as much as possible and only use it when it's absolutely critical.

08:37So we're going to go through some of the deal points, but it does make itself clear that the

08:50choice is to get into the process of vaping and worshiping the phytox and creating the

08:55phytox. There's a lot of people that have been told in the process of doing the phytox.

08:58And they're saying, oh, wow, that's not okay.

08:59You don't know if they can spin them out.

08:59I think that's the same thing.

09:01I'm not gonna say, but anyway, I don't care about it.

09:03I'm not going to say, but I'm not going to say that.

09:05I'm not going to tell you what it might have happened.

09:08You're not going to say that.

09:10So we're going to say that.

09:12You're not going to say that.

09:13You're going to ask me, it's going to say, yes.

09:17Well, I'm going to say, because I'm going to say, yes.

A War on Chronic Disease: HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Trump’s Health Revolution | APT

Category

Transcript

Be the first to comment

Recommended

A War on Chronic Disease: HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Trump’s Health Revolution | APT

Category

Transcript

Be the first to comment

Recommended

A War on Chronic Disease: HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Trump’s Health Revolution | APT