Trump's pro-life pick to run CDC is bad news for status quo, Big Pharma — good news for vax oversight



President-elect Donald Trump selected former Florida congressman Dr. Dave Weldon (R) on Friday as his nominee for director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention — a pick celebrated by his proposed Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

As with most of Trump's other nominations, Dr. Weldon, 71, has all the makings of a disruptor, prompting establishmentarians to take notice and clutch pearls. After all, Dr. Weldon has long criticized the agency he is poised to run, has raised concerns about vaccine safety, and has been consistently pro-life even when politically inexpedient.

"In addition to being a Medical Doctor for 40 years, and an Army Veteran, Dave has been a respected conservative leader on fiscal and social issues, and served on the Labor/HHS Appropriations Subcommittee, working for Accountability on HHS and CDC Policy and Budgeting," Trump noted in his announcement. "Dave also served in a leading role in Government Oversight and Reform Committee Hearings, addressing issues within HHS and CDC. Dave has successfully worked with the CDC to enact a ban on patents for human embryos."

Dr. Weldon sponsored the Fetus Farming Prohibition Act of 2006, which effectively prohibits the solicitation or acquisition of tissue from human babies gestated for research purposes.

Trump stressed that Americans have "lost trust" in the federal health establishment, including the CDC, and indicated that Dr. Weldon will help restore that faith and "ensure Americans have the tools and resources they need to understand the underlying causes of disease, and the solutions to cure these diseases."

A survey examining Americans' trust in public health agencies published last year in the journal Health Affairs revealed that 16% of respondents said they don't have "very much" trust in the CDC's recommendations and 10% indicated they do not trust the agency "at all." Of those surveyed, 37% said they had a "great deal" of trust in the CDC's recommendations, and another 37% said they "somewhat" trust the agency.

Another survey published earlier this year in the peer-reviewed journal JAMA Health Forum indicated that 24% of respondents had little or no trust in the CDC.

'Dave will proudly restore the CDC to its true purpose.'

The CDC, home to over 12,000 employees and operating with a discretionary budget of over $9 billion this year, did a great deal during the pandemic to undermine its credibility.

For instance, former Biden CDC director Rochelle Walensky pushed novel vaccines on the American public, including resilient children, some of which were later found to be unsafe; discounted warnings from an agency advisory panel about booster shots of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID vaccine and recommended them anyway; claimed in 2021 that "vaccinated people do not carry the virus, don't get sick"; repeatedly extended the moratorium on rental evictions, citing the need to stop the spread of COVID-19; and colluded with the American Federation of Teachers and its boss Randi Weingarten at the expense of American children.

The agency also initially cast doubt on whether the experimental COVID-19 vaccines were causing myocarditis in young Americans; recommended that everyone in K-12 schools wear masks indoors regardless of vaccination status, which studies have indicated did far more harm than good; and coordinated with social media companies to censor vaccine criticism online.

The CDC's role in the Biden administration's censorship efforts has not only hurt its reputation but made it a target for numerous lawsuits.

Several vaccine-injured Americans recently filed a lawsuit against the CDC and other elements of the Biden administration for allegedly working to "coerce, induce, and collude with social media platforms to censor, suppress, and label as 'misinformation' speech expressed by those who have suffered vaccine-related injuries."

"As a father of two and a husband of 45 years, Dave understands American Family Values, and views Health as one of utmost importance," continued Trump. "Dave will prioritize Transparency, Competence, and High Standards at CDC. Dave will proudly restore the CDC to its true purpose, and will work to end the Chronic Disease Epidemic, and Make America Healthy Again!"

'We must eliminate all real and perceived conflicts of interest.'

Kennedy, who previously highlighted Dr. Weldon's work exposing the CDC's problems, congratulated him over the weekend, stating, "Dave's leadership at CDC will bring the truth and transparency needed to restore the public's confidence in this institution."

Weldon, like Kennedy, has refused to blindly trust in federal health agencies, particularly when it comes to their vaccine oversight.

In 2007, Dr. Weldon introduced legislation aimed at moving vaccine safety oversight from the CDC — an agency whose dual objectives of high immunization rates and vaccine safety may oftentimes conflict — to an independent agency that would report directly to the HHS secretary.

He noted in a statement at the time, "Federal agencies charged with overseeing vaccine safety research have failed. They have failed to provide sufficient resources for vaccine safety research. They have failed to adequately fund extramural research. And, they have failed to free themselves from conflicts of interest that serve to undermine public confidence in the safety of vaccines."

"If government-funded vaccine safety research is to be broadly accepted, we must eliminate all real and perceived conflicts of interest," continued Dr. Weldon. "Otherwise, we will fail to achieve the level of acceptance that is necessary to restore, build, and secure public confidence over the long-run. A vaccine safety program housed anywhere within the CDC fails to achieve this independence."

'He is a dangerous pick to lead CDC.'

Trump's nominee has not only ruffled feathers by expecting both quality and quantity when it comes to immunizations but by expressing concern about the link between mercury — thimerosal — in vaccines and neurodevelopmental disorders.

While various Republicans have celebrated the pick, Democratic lawmakers and elements of the American health establishment have concern-mongered about the possibility of Dr. Weldon as CDC director.

Democratic Sen. Patty Murray, who has received millions of dollars from Big Pharma and the health industry, said in a statement, "Dr. Dave Weldon is an extremist with zero public health experience who has spent years promoting anti-vaccine conspiracy thinking and junk health plans."

"He is a dangerous pick to lead CDC," added Murray.

Murray suggested further that Dr. Weldon's pro-life views were especially distressing, stating that "there is no reason to entrust the work of tackling our nation's maternal mortality crisis and collecting data essential to understanding the deadly outcome of abortion bans to the man responsible for the Weldon Amendment that allows health care providers to deny women essential abortion care."

Dorit Reiss, a vaccine policy researcher at the University of California Law-San Francisco, told NBC News, "Anti-vaccine people are celebrating this because they firmly see Weldon as an ally."

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Big Pharma Still Won’t Come Clean About The Covid Shot’s Deadly Side Effects

The code of medical ethics demands a transparent and balanced accounting of the vaccine's impact on the American people.

Fauci’s empire exposed: How Trump can cure America’s health bureaucracy



Earlier this week, I wrote a column exposing the cancer metastasizing within America’s body politic — a malignancy created and nurtured by the progressive project over the last century. I focused on how this cancer had infected the “eyes and ears” of our nation: the media. From Big Tech suppressing dissent to mass media corrupting public discourse, the disease has eaten away at our ability to pursue the common good through civil disagreement and the free flow of information.

But this cancer has deeper roots, spreading into the very organs meant to protect and nourish our republic: our immune system.

The 2024 election isn’t just a mandate. It’s a diagnosis.

The Department of Health and Human Services, specifically the National Institutes of Health, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the Food and Drug Administration, once acted as the body’s natural defenses. Today, the agencies resemble a compromised immune system — infested with power-hungry elites and corrupted by self-interest.

This failure was laid bare during the COVID-19 pandemic, which shredded the last vestiges of trust Americans had in their government. At the center of this catastrophe stood Dr. Anthony Fauci, the epitome of progressive rot — a man who turned his government post into an untouchable kingdom.

The Fauci empire

Fauci’s career should serve as a cautionary tale. As the head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, he wielded unparalleled influence, setting pandemic policies that devastated lives and businesses. Behind the scenes, his agency funded gain-of-function research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology — the likely source of the COVID-19 outbreak.

Even when confronted with this inconvenient truth, Fauci sidestepped accountability. In 2021, Senator Rand Paul (R-Ky.) exposed his agency’s involvement in funding this dangerous research. Months later, an NIH official confirmed it. Yet Fauci remains unscathed, unaccountable, and celebrated by the elites.

When retiring in 2022, Fauci boasted the highest salary of any federal employee — over $400,000 annually. His golden parachute includes a taxpayer-funded security detail at a cost of $15 million and, as revealed by watchdog group Open the Books, hidden royalties from pharmaceutical companies. These revelations paint a damning picture of a man — and a system — that enriches itself at the expense of the American people.

The deification of bureaucracy

When Fauci infamously claimed, “If you’re attacking me, you’re attacking science,” he wasn’t just defending his actions; he was embodying the progressive vision of government: a pantheon of unelected “experts” ruling unchallenged over the masses. Agencies like the NIH, CDC, and FDA, once meant to serve the public, now tower over us like Greek temples, demanding faith while suppressing dissent.

This progressive model — centralized control under the guise of expertise — is the cancer undermining our republic. It prioritizes bureaucratic power over individual freedom and accountability. Trump’s election represents a rejection of this model. But a rebellion is meaningless without action.

Trump’s window of opportunity

The 2024 election isn’t just a mandate. It’s a diagnosis. Americans are demanding bold action to excise the rot. The federal health bureaucracy must be among Trump’s top priorities. His administration must:

  1. Audit the agencies: Investigate the NIH, CDC, and FDA for abuses of power and conflicts of interest.
  2. Pursue accountability: Hold figures like Fauci accountable for misleading Congress and the American people.
  3. Decentralize power: Transfer authority from federal agencies back to state and local governments.
  4. End corporate cronyism: Shine a light on the relationship between Big Pharma and federal agencies.

This is the next step in America’s surgery — a treatment that targets not just the tumor but the system enabling its growth.

We can no longer allow unelected officials to wield unchecked power. Agencies like the NIH, CDC, and FDA must return to their rightful role: serving the people, not ruling over them. Trump’s presidency offers a rare opportunity to reclaim government of the people, by the people, and for the people.

The cancer is deep, but it’s not untreatable. It will take bold leadership in the Trump administration and the courage to challenge the progressive elites who have corrupted our system.

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Americans Want To Stop Being Fat And Unhappy But Don’t Know How

A new book released on Tuesday explains how Americans became so Fat and Unhappy and what to do about it.

Smoking out, vaping in: A new CDC report offers cause for optimism



The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released the 2023 Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System survey results, an annual assessment of various health-related behaviors among U.S. adults. Tobacco control advocates have reason to celebrate: The adult smoking rate has reached record lows, and in some states, young adult smoking rates are nearly nonexistent.

According to the BRFSS, only 12.1% of adults across all 50 states and Washington, D.C., smoked in 2023, down from 14% in 2022. This drop represents a decrease from 36.4 million smokers in 2022 to 31.7 million in 2023, a reduction of approximately 4.7 million. The decline among young adults aged 18 to 24 is even more notable: Only 5.6% smoked in 2023, marking a 23.5% decrease from 2022 and a dramatic 76.5% decline over the past decade.

Inaction and sporadic enforcement by federal agencies have contributed to widespread misperceptions about products that are less harmful than traditional cigarettes.

While tobacco control advocates credit these historic lows to policies like taxes and smoking bans, the rise in e-cigarette use also appears correlated with the reduction in smoking rates. From 2016 to 2023, vaping among young adults rose by 90%, while their smoking rates fell by 63.8%. Interestingly, young adult vaping rates have also started to decline, dropping 23.5% from 20.9% in 2022 to 18.9% in 2023.

In some states, such as Utah and New York, young adult smoking rates are exceptionally low, at 2.6% and 3.4%, respectively. Even Oklahoma, which has the highest young adult smoking rate at 9.1%, is still significantly lower than the national adult average of 12.1%.

These trends extend to youth smoking and vaping statistics. According to the CDC’s National Youth Tobacco Survey, only 1.6% of U.S. middle and high school students reported current cigarette use in 2023. Youth vaping has also declined significantly, with only 5.9% of U.S. youth vaping this year — a 70.5% drop from 2019, when 20% were vaping. In just five years, America went from one in five youth using e-cigarettes to one in 20.

Despite these positive trends, many tobacco control advocates continue to push for strict policies and high taxes, while the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has been slow to process authorizations for newer tobacco harm-reduction products. This has contributed to public misunderstandings about the relative risks of these products compared to traditional cigarettes.

Numerous organizations, including the American Lung Association, Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, and the Truth Initiative, recognize the significant declines in youth vaping but remain concerned about the frequency of use among current users, particularly criticizing flavored tobacco and vapor products.

The ALA describes vaping as “a serious public health concern,” while CTFK emphasizes that youth e-cigarette use “remains a serious public health problem” and calls for an end to this “crisis” by urging federal agencies like the FDA and the U.S. Department of Justice to intensify their efforts to eliminate all illegal e-cigarettes from the market. Similarly, the Truth Initiative asserts that “youth nicotine addiction remains a serious public health concern.”

All these groups criticize flavored products, despite adults using these flavors in innovative tobacco harm-reduction products to remain smoke-free. These groups also focus their efforts on newer oral nicotine pouches, even though less than 2% of youth report using such products.

These groups are not alone. The inaction and sporadic enforcement by federal agencies have contributed to widespread misperceptions about products that are less harmful than traditional cigarettes.

Since 2015, the FDA has issued only 56 marketing orders for newer tobacco products introduced in the United States after February 2007. Despite authorizing more than 16,000 other tobacco products since 2012, the FDA has approved marketing for only 34 e-cigarette products. In contrast, in 2023, the agency issued more than 660 orders for combustible cigarettes, despite declining smoking rates among American adults. This disparity likely contributes to public confusion about the relative health benefits of e-cigarettes.

Policymakers and tobacco control groups should recognize and celebrate the historic reductions in cigarette use among both adults and youth. This is a significant public health achievement that may be driven by the availability of tobacco harm-reduction products, such as e-cigarettes and oral nicotine pouches.

Instead of resisting these market trends and products that have been associated with significant declines in smoking rates, these groups should advocate enhanced access to these alternatives to help end the use of combustible cigarettes once and for all.

Biden-Harris HHS is blathering about transvestism this week. Here's what RFK Jr. said he'll prioritize.



President-elect Donald Trump nominated Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on Thursday to serve as Health and Human Services secretary, reiterating his pledge to "Make America Healthy Again."

Within hours of the announcement, the Biden-Harris HHS under the current leadership of Xavier Becerra provided the incoming administration with a reminder of the herculean task of reform now set before Kennedy: a propaganda piece on social media signaling support both for medicalized transvestism and the notion that some men and women are "nonbinary."

In addition to reminding the public that radical gender ideology informs the current HHS' pseudoscientific stances and activist policies — something Trump intends to remedy — the post set Kennedy's apparent health priorities in greater relief.

Rather than waste time, money, and energy indulging the delusions of those suffering from body dysmorphia, Kennedy has signaled he will actually try to improve their health and the health of the nation at large.

"We have a generational opportunity to bring together the greatest minds in science, medicine, industry, and government to put an end to the chronic disease epidemic," Kennedy said in his response to Trump's announcement. "I look forward to working with the more than 80,000 employees at HHS to free the agencies from the smothering cloud of corporate capture so they can pursue their mission to make Americans once again the healthiest people on Earth."

'I don't think children can genuinely consent to repurposed castration drugs.'

Kennedy has offered some hints and specifics in recent months about what he would do if put in a position to take meaningful federal action.

Protecting youth from the sex-change regime

In May, Kennedy tweeted, "The more I learn, the more troubled I have become about giving puberty blockers to youth. Minors cannot drive, vote, join the army, get a tattoo, smoke, or drink, because we know that children do not fully understand the consequences of decisions with life-long ramifications."

The future Trump nominee stressed that the brain's prefrontal cortex, "responsible for skills like planning, prioritizing, and making good decisions, doesn't fully mature until the early to mid-20s."

"I don't think children can genuinely consent to repurposed castration drugs (puberty blockers) and surgical mutilation, which have permanent, irreversible effects," said Kennedy.

A Kennedy-led HHS would help Trump make good on his vows to revoke the Biden-Harris administration's "cruel policies on so-called 'gender-affirming care'"; cease all programs promoting the concept of gender transition; and cut "any hospital or healthcare provider participating in the chemical or physical mutilation of minor youth" off of Medicaid and Medicare.

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services is one of the HHS agencies Kennedy would oversee.

When threatening federal funding, Kennedy might want to look at the medical advocacy group Do No Harm's new database of hospitals and medical facilities that are apparently subjecting children to sex-change mutilations and sterilizing chemical treatments.

Curbing retardation by fluoride

The accomplished environmental lawyer, who once gave agro-tech giant Monsanto a figurative black eye in court, signaled that the Trump administration will "advise all U.S. water systems to remove fluoride from the public water" — a proposal that even the Washington Post's health columnist Leana Wen, a professor of health policy at George Washington University Milken Institute School of Public Health, has admitted is reasonable.

According to the National Institutes of Health's Office of Dietary Supplements, fluoridated municipal drinking water accounts for approximately 60% of fluoride intakes in the United States. As of 2020, 62.9% of the population had access to a fluoridated water system.

Scientists have long understood that exposure to fluoride at elevated levels has been linked to various adverse health effects in humans, such as osteosclerosis, calcification of tendons, endocrine dysfunction, and bone deformities. The government finally got around to admitting this past summer that fluoride is also retarding the population.

The National Toxicology Program, part of the HHS, released a report in August revealing that fluoridated water can significantly lower IQ in kids.

"Higher estimated fluoride exposures (e.g., as in approximations of exposure such as drinking water fluoride concentrations that exceed the World Health Organization Guidelines for Drinking-water Quality of 1.5 mg/L of fluoride) are consistently associated with lower IQ in children," said the NTP report.

'FDA's war on public health is about to end.'

When still a presidential candidate, Kennedy made the same pledge to remove fluoride from the water, stating he would lean on the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, another HHS agency to "take every step necessary to remove neurotoxic fluoride from American drinking water."

Cleaning house at the FDA

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration is another HHS agency, meaning it would be within Kennedy's purview.

Ahead of Election Day, Kennedy noted on X, "FDA's war on public health is about to end. This includes its aggressive suppression of psychedelics, peptides, stem cells, raw milk, hyperbaric therapies, chelating compounds, ivermectin, hydroxychloroquine, vitamins, clean foods, sunshine, exercise, nutraceuticals and anything else that advances human health and can't be patented by Pharma."

"If you work for the FDA and are part of this corrupt system, I have two messages for you: 1. Preserve your records, and 2. Pack your bags," added Kennedy.

Kennedy told MSNBC following Trump's landslide victory, "In some categories, there are entire departments, like the nutrition department at the FDA that are — that have to go, that are not doing their job, they're not protecting our kids."

Kennedy underscored he would not seek to eliminate entire agencies "as long as it requires congressional approval." Instead, he would "get the corruption out of the agencies."

Trump said in his announcement Thursday that the HHS would also "ensure that everybody will be protected from harmful chemicals, pollutants, pesticides, pharmaceutical products, and food additives that have contributed to the overwhelming Health Crisis in this Country."

With oversight of the FDA, Kennedy might be able to spare Americans from exposure or at the very least relatively high exposure to problematic chemicals such as chlormequat and Bisphenol A.

The Journal of Exposure Science and Environmental Epidemiology published a study from the Environmental Working Group earlier this year revealing that the vast majority of Americans have been exposed to the pesticide chlormequat, which is detectable in dozens of popular oat-based products and has been linked in animal studies to disrupted fetal growth, damage to the reproductive system, delayed puberty, and reduced fertility.

'The science on vaccine safety particularly has huge deficits.'

Blaze News previously reported that BPA, which studies have linked to infertility, obesity, cancer, poor fetal development, early onset puberty, type 2 diabetes, heart disease, and other ailments, is used in numerous rigid plastic consumer products. While the current FDA claims the chemical is safe at "current levels occurring in foods," a European health agency recently sounded the alarm, revealing that exposure is too high and that contrary to the suggestion of the FDA, BPA does pose a danger.

Kennedy has expressed an interest in banning various chemicals, including the food dye tartrazine, stressing the need to "stop the mass poisoning of American children."

Proper vaccine research

Kennedy told NPR in a recent interview that he would act swiftly on support for vaccine research.

"I will work immediately on that. That will be one of my priorities," said Kennedy.

Kennedy and Dr. Brian Hooker released a book last year, titled "Vax-Unvax: Let the Science Speak," which examined the scientific literature highlighting health differences between vaccinated and unvaccinated populations. In the book, Kennedy reportedly states, "There is virtually no science assessing the overall health effects of the vaccination schedule or its component vaccines."

"This means it can’t know whether these vaccines actually cause harm and certainly can’t honestly say that they don’t," the book adds.

"We're not going to take vaccines away from anybody. We are going to make sure that Americans have good information right now. The science on vaccine safety particularly has huge deficits, and we're going to make sure those scientific studies are done and that people can make informed choices about their vaccinations and their children's vaccinations."

The Washington Post suggested with apparent unease that Kennedy could influence the vaccine approval and recommendation process by directing less passive and deferential individuals onto advisory committees at the FDA and CDC.

Unsurprisingly, shares of major vaccine makers, such as Pfizer and Moderna, took a nosedive following news of Kennedy's appointment.

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RFK Jr. already has big plans for FDA, CDC under Trump



In a post-election interview on Wednesday, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. revealed some of his plans for a major overhaul of the country’s key health agencies.

An MSNBC reporter asked RFK Jr. whether he will terminate “the top level federal service workers that are currently at" the Food and Drug Administration and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

“In some categories,” Kennedy responded. “There are entire departments, like the nutrition departments at FDA, that have to go.”

He said workers in certain departments, including nutrition, are “not doing their job” or “protecting our kids.”

“Why do we have Froot Loops in this country that have 18 or 19 ingredients, and you go to Canada, and it’s got two or three?” Kennedy questioned.

When asked whether he plans to eradicate any of the agencies, Kennedy replied, “To eliminate the agencies, as long as it requires congressional approval, I wouldn’t be doing that.”

Kennedy explained that he is confident he could “get the corruption out of the agencies.”

“It’s what I’ve been doing for 40 years. I’ve sued all those agencies. I have a PhD in corporate corruption, and that’s what I do. And once they’re not corrupt, once Americans are getting good science and are allowed to make their own choices, they’re going to get a lot healthier,” he added.

Less than a week before Election Day, Kennedy told NewsNation Trump’s plans for him in his future cabinet.

“President Trump has asked me to reorganize the federal health agencies. The agencies that have a portfolio that affects human health, which is CDC, [National Institutes of Health], FDA, as well as some of the agencies within the United States Department of Agriculture,” Kennedy said.

Kennedy said he was asked by Trump to end corruption and conflicts of interest as well as “measurably reduce chronic disease in our children within two years.”

On Sunday, he remarked, “I want to be in the White House. And [Trump has] assured me that I’m going to have that.”

Kennedy stated that he had not yet decided whether he wants to head the United States Department of Health and Human Services.

“I want to be in the position where I’m most effective to end the chronic disease epidemic,” Kennedy continued. “And I’m confident that if I wanted to do HHS secretary, the president would fight like hell to make that happen.”

Last week, Vice President Kamala Harris slammed Kennedy as “someone who has routinely promoted junk science and crazy conspiracy theories.”

She called him the “exact last person in America who should be setting health care policy for America’s families and children.”

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Why Crunchy Moms And Independent Doctors Are Now Aligning With The Political Right

Voters from both sides of the aisle have found common ground in resisting everything from mandated childhood vaccines to food additives.

Redfield commends Trump and RFK Jr's 'noble effort to heal our children'



Dr. Robert Redfield, former director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, has in recent years demonstrated his relative immunity to group-think, particularly the strain that infected the medical establishment during the pandemic.

For rejecting the zoonotic origins narrative curated by Anthony Fauci and accepted by prominent personalities in the American medical community, the conservative Christian virologist and HIV researcher received death threats. These, however, did not secure his silence, and Redfield's theories about the virus, its lab origin, and the outbreak timeline have since been recognized widely as the best explanations.

The esteemed virologist appears to have found another narrative to quash, arguing that contrary to claims made by so-called health experts, President Donald Trump stands a good chance of making America healthy again with the help of Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

"President Trump has pledged, if elected, to establish a panel of top experts working with Kennedy to investigate what is causing the decades-long increase in chronic health problems and childhood diseases," Redfield noted in a Tuesday op-ed. "He specifically mentioned autoimmune disorders, autism, obesity, and infertility. In 2019, when we took steps to take on the chronic disease epidemic, we also focused on creating earlier interventions in diabetes, heart disease, high blood pressure, kidney disease, and more."

Over 40% of school-aged children and adolescents have at least one chronic health condition.

Highlighting Kennedy's commitment to begin lifting the chronic disease burden dramatically inside two years, Redfield wrote, "I believe him. And I think President Trump will empower him. I support their noble effort to heal our children."

Redfield stressed that America has "become a sick nation," noting that:

  • chronic disease accounts for over 75% of the country's $4.5 trillion in annual heath care expenditure;
  • over 40% of school-aged children and adolescents have at least one chronic health condition; and
  • childhood obesity has skyrocketed from the mid-1960s from around 4% to 20% this year.

Redfield indicated that highly processed foods are largely to blame for childhood obesity, which 15 million youths aged 2-19 years suffer from.

A massive peer-reviewed study published in the BMJ, the British Medical Association's esteemed journal, found evidence earlier this year indicating "direct associations between greater exposure to ultra-processed foods and higher risks of all-cause mortality, cardiovascular disease related mortality, common mental disorder outcomes, overweight and obesity, and type 2 diabetes."

Ultra-processed foods exposure was consistently associated with 32 adverse health outcomes, including all-cause mortality; cancer-related deaths; cardiovascular disease-related deaths; heart disease-related deaths; breast cancer; central nervous system tumors; chronic lymphocytic leukemia; colorectal cancer; pancreatic cancer; prostate cancer; adverse sleep-related outcomes; anxiety; common mental disorder outcomes; depression; asthma; wheezing; Crohn's disease; ulcerative colitis; obesity; hypertension; and type 2 diabetes.

'Private industry uses its political influence to control decision-making at regulatory agencies.'

Redfield noted that highly processed foods are part of a much bigger problem that also includes pesticides, which he indicated are "proven risk factors for neurodevelopmental outcomes in kids, causing maladies like ADHD."

The Journal of Exposure Science and Environmental Epidemiology published a study from the Environmental Working Group earlier this year revealing that among the pesticides the vast majority of Americans have been exposed to is chlormequat, a toxic agricultural chemical linked in animal studies to disrupted fetal growth, damage to the reproductive system, delayed puberty, and reduced fertility.

The EWG researchers said food samples purchased from 2022 and 2023 "show detectable levels of chlormequat in all but two of 25 conventional oat-based products." Quaker Oats and Cheerios were allegedly among the affected cereals.

Redfield underscored that a major problem that Kennedy would have to tackle in concert with a future Trump administration is the "increased special interest and corporate influences on our federal agencies."

"Across a century-plus of cozy courtship, the federal regulators have nearly married the regulated, especially in health care. Today, private industry uses its political influence to control decision-making at regulatory agencies, law enforcement entities, and legislatures," said the virologist.

Redfield said Kennedy was right in accusing the Food and Drug Administration, the National Institutes of Health, and the CDC of agency capture:

All three of the principal health agencies suffer from agency capture. A large portion of the FDA's budget is provided by pharmaceutical companies. NIH is cozy with biomedical and pharmaceutical companies and its scientists are allowed to collect royalties on drugs NIH licenses to pharma. And as the former director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), I know the agency can be influenced by special interest groups.

While these three agencies are apparently among the worst offenders, Redfield suggested that the U.S. Department of Agriculture is similarly a "captive of industry."

"To cure our children, we must reevaluate our food choices and the underlying practices of the agricultural sector. We must prioritize wholesome and nutritious food," wrote Redfield.

This is made all the more difficult by deceptive marketing claims. Blaze News recently highlighted the findings of researchers at Australia's George Institute for Global Health, which analyzed 651 foods marketed for babies and toddlers at 10 supermarket chains in the United States.

According to the study, which was published in the peer-reviewed journal Nutrients, 60% of the foods failed to meet international nutritional standards. More than 99% of the baby food analyzed had misleading marketing claims on the labels, in some cases lying about an absence of artificial colors or flavors, and in others lying about an absence of BPA — a lucrative, ubiquitous, and potentially dangerous endocrine disruptor that the FDA still claims is safe.

Redfield concluded his piece, writing, "The exorbitant cost of the failing health of our kids, the needless suffering and death, can be ended by a Kennedy Commission on Childhood Chronic Disease — and the vast burden of chronic disease that now demoralizes and bankrupts our nation can disappear. The key is to see the possible, and lead our nation to act."

'We're in a lot of trouble if he has any role.'

Kennedy revealed on Aug. 23 that a key factor behind his decision to endorse President Donald Trump was the opportunity to help "Make America Healthy Again" in a future Trump administration.

"Don't you want healthy children?" said Kennedy. "And don't you want the chemicals out of our food? And don't you want the regulatory agencies to be free from corporate corruption? And that's what President Trump told me that he wanted."

Kennedy and Trump's joint promise of a healthy America did not appeal to everyone in the medical establishment, which makes most of its money treating chronic ailments.

Robert Murphy, a professor of infectious disease at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, told The Hill, "From a health perspective this would be nothing short of chaos."

"He's proven himself to be a dangerous fanatic who doesn't have a science background and who doesn't believe in science," continued Murphy. "We're in a lot of trouble if he has any role, any leadership position related to many things, but health in particular."

W. Ian Lipkin, the director of the Center for Infection and Immunity at Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health, told The Hill, "The notion that RFK Jr. would have any say in who's selected [to be part of Trump’s administration] is very worrisome to me and many of my colleagues in public health."

"Many of us are old enough to remember what happened before there was a polio vaccine or a measles vaccine ... there were millions of children that were adversely impacted due to the lack of protection from these types of diseases," added Lipkin.

In fairness to Redfield, Lipkin may have a chip on his shoulder.

After all, unlike Redfield, who appears to likely have been right about the Wuhan lab leak, Lipkin was a prominent zoonotic origins theorist. In fact, he was an author on the "scientifically unsound" "Proximal Origin of SARS-CoV-2" paper that Fauci used on multiple occasions to suggest to the American public that COVID-19 was not a lab leak but rather an animal virus that jumped to a human.

Lipkin joined Kristian Andersen, Edward Holmes, and Robert Garry in concluding, "We do not believe that any type of laboratory-based scenario is plausible."

Prominent scientists have since demanded that Nature Medicine retract the paper "due to multiple ethical violations."

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