Through the listening to to contemplate his nomination to guide the Division of Well being and Human Providers, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. spoke at size about points in well being and medication, together with the reason for power sicknesses, Covid-19 and ultraprocessed meals.
Here’s a working record of key well being claims, fact-checked by our reporters.
Persistent Illness
Mr. Kennedy’s opening assertion centered on rising power well being situations, saying there was a disaster in youngsters’s well being in the US. Many specialists agree — although they disagree concerning the causes.
Forty % of youngsters have a power well being situation, and the determine is larger for adolescents when weight problems is included.
Roughly one in 36 youngsters is identified with an autism spectrum dysfunction, in response to knowledge from the Facilities for Illness Management and Prevention. One in 4 has an allergy or eczema, and charges of Sort 2 diabetes have been rising in these 19 and underneath yearly.
And whereas Sort 2 diabetes charges are rising, they’re nonetheless low: In response to the American Diabetes Affiliation, it happens in 0.35 % of People underneath the age of 20.
Who Covid-19 Impacts
Senator Michael Bennet of Colorado pressed Mr. Kennedy on an announcement Mr. Kennedy made in 2023 wherein he recommended that the coronavirus focused and spared sure ethnic teams.
“Covid-19 is focused to assault Caucasians and Black individuals,” he mentioned in a video from The New York Submit. “The people who find themselves most immune are Ashkenazi Jews and Chinese language.”
In response to Mr. Bennet, Mr. Kennedy referred to a federally funded research from the Cleveland Clinic printed early within the pandemic that attempted to decipher who was most inclined to the virus.
Scientists have mentioned that Mr. Kennedy’s interpretation of the research extensively distorted the findings within the paper. Whereas it discovered genetic variations that may make one particular person extra inclined to Covid than one other, the variations had been too uncommon to make any generalizations about massive teams of individuals.
Youngsters’s Danger From Covid
Through the listening to, Mr. Kennedy additionally asserted that 6-year-old youngsters “principally” have “zero” threat from Covid.
The C.D.C. has famous that youngsters with underlying medical situations are at larger threat from extreme outcomes from Covid, in addition to infants youthful than six months of age.
Ultraprocessed Meals and Weight problems
Early within the listening to, Mr. Kennedy singled out processed meals as a driver of the weight problems epidemic.
“We shouldn’t be giving 60 % of the youngsters in class processed meals that’s making them sick,” he mentioned.
Many public well being and diet specialists say that ultraprocessed meals — which make up an estimated 73 % of the U.S. meals provide — are in all probability an element within the weight problems disaster in the US, and it might be helpful to chop again on them.
However different researchers say that the weight problems epidemic is probably going a results of many entangled components, each environmental and genetic, and that the phenomenon might have began lengthy earlier than there have been ultraprocessed meals.
The class can be wide-ranging, and it’s not clear if all ultraprocessed meals are dangerous, specialists say. There could also be downsides to avoiding some ultraprocessed meals, like flavored yogurts and entire wheat breads and cereals, they add, as a result of they’ll present invaluable vitamins.
Lindsey Smith Taillie, an affiliate professor of diet on the U.N.C. Gillings Faculty of World Public Well being, mentioned that it might be “transformative” to take away ultraprocessed meals from faculty lunches. However, she added, faculties would want extra assets to organize meals from scratch.
Medicare and Medicaid
All through the listening to, Mr. Kennedy struggled with the nuances of Medicaid and Medicare.
He recommended “extra individuals would relatively be on Medicare Benefit” however can’t afford it as a result of it’s dearer. In reality, Medicare Benefit is typically cheaper on a month-to-month foundation for beneficiaries.
He additionally described Medicaid as being absolutely federally funded. Spending is definitely cut up between the states and the federal authorities. He went on to explain the premiums and deductibles as being too excessive when, besides in very uncommon instances, Medicaid enrollees don’t pay both of these sorts of charges.
Fluoride in Water
Mr. Kennedy referenced a latest research that discovered an affiliation between fluoride and I.Q. — analysis that he felt vindicated his earlier considerations concerning the risks of fluoridated ingesting water.
Whereas the outline of the research’s findings was correct, there are notable caveats.
The research, by scientists from the federally funded Nationwide Institute of Environmental Well being Sciences, was an evaluation of dozens of fluoride research, which discovered larger fluoride exposures had been linked to decrease I.Q. scores.
Nonetheless, researchers cautioned that not one of the research included within the evaluation had been carried out in the US, the place really useful fluoridation ranges in ingesting water are very low. At these quantities of fluoride, proof was too restricted to attract definitive conclusions.
The C.D.C. has famous that its specialists “haven’t discovered convincing scientific proof” linking neighborhood water fluoridation with opposed well being results.