“Epidemic of chronic disease” spotlighted in Kennedy confirmation hearing

America’s “epidemic of chronic disease” was spotlighted Wednesday in a contentious senate confirmation hearing for Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

Kenney, nominated by President Donald Trump to serve as Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS), was grilled on multiple issues in the Senate Committee on Finance, but Kennedy and supporting senators repeatedly focused their comments on the range of diseases plaguing the US population, particularly children.

“President Trump has asked me to end the chronic disease epidemic and make America healthy again,” Kennedy said in a tense exchange with one senator who asked him if he was going to be a “rubber stamp” for Trump’s policies. “That is what I’m doing. If we don’t solve that problem, senator, all the other disputes we have…. All of those are moving deck chairs around on the Titanic. Our ship is sinking.”

Kennedy said rising levels of chronic disease pose an “existential threat”.

“No other nation in the world has what we have here. We have the highest chronic disease burden of any country in the world,” he said.

Kennedy said a key culprit “poisoning the American people” is the “highly chemical intensive processed foods” regularly consumed in the US.

Scientific research is needed to more deeply understand the connections, he said.

“We don’t have good science on all these things and that is deliberate…  not to study the things that are truly making us sick.”

Roughly 129 million people in the US have at least one major chronic disease, including obesity, diabetes, heart disease and others, and five of the top ten leading causes of death in the US “are, or are strongly associated with, preventable and treatable chronic diseases,” according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Chronic disease prevalence has been increasing and will continue to grow, the CDC says.   

More than 40% of US school-aged children and adolescents have at least one chronic health condition, such as asthma, obesity, behavior/learning problems or other conditions, according to the CDC. More than 20% of children ages 6-11 years old are obese, for instance, according to CDC data.

From 2002 to 2018, the number of young people newly diagnosed with type 2 diabetes doubled from 9 per 100,000 to 18 per 100,000 per year, the CDC data shows.

Kennedy supporters, many who cheered Kennedy on at the hearing, insist that he has the experience and commitment to break through the influence powerful corporate interests have in Washington, and they are fans of his “Make America Healthy Again” agenda and the organization he founded called Children’s Health Defense, which has the stated mission of “ending childhood health epidemics by eliminating toxic exposure” and holding “responsible parties accountable.”

But Kennedy, a former Democrat from California who ran against Biden and Trump for president as an independent, has been among Trump’s most controversial nominations, drawing opposition from both parties.

In the hearing, many senators accused Kennedy of lacking the credentials to lead HHS, which has sweeping authority over many key health and science agencies, and railed against concerns he has raised about vaccine safety. Kennedy was also questioned about his positions on abortion, drug prices, Medicaid spending, and a range of other issues.

But Kennedy circled back to chronic disease concerns.

“Our country is not going to be destroyed because we get the marginal tax rate wrong, or because we get one of these culture war issues that we’ve been talking about today wrong,” Kennedy said. “It’s going to be destroyed if we continued down this trajectory of chronic disease. We need to fix our food supply and that’s the number one.”

Kennedy is scheduled to appear for questioning by the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee on Thursday.