Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr.<\/p>\n
The Associated Press
\nTylenol maker Kenvue is reeling after unsupported claims that its popular drug causes autism. Kennedy is unlikely to stop there.<\/p>\n
Tylenol may be only the beginning.<\/strong><\/p>\n For years, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has railed against a number of medications and therapeutics claiming without scientific consensus or evidence that they cause some kind of harm \u2014 autism (Tylenol), suicidal thoughts (Ozempic). Now, as President Trump\u2019s head of Health and Human Services, he\u2019s begun turning his opinions into public policy. His Make American Healthy Again initiative has already made it harder for people to get vaccinated against COVID-19 and pushed unverified claims about Tylenol, and he\u2019s just getting started. So what might be next? Kennedy\u2019s already told us.<\/p>\n On Monday, Kennedy and FDA Commissioner Marty Makary wrote in a letter to 22 Republican attorneys general that the FDA was reviewing evidence about the safety of abortion drug, mifepristone, which is used in nearly two-thirds of medical abortions.<\/a> If access to the pill were restricted, it would significantly cut back on abortion access.<\/p>\n Another big target: antidepressants. During Kennedy\u2019s confirmation hearings, he falsely claimed that people have a harder time stopping the use of serotonin-based antidepressants \u201cthan people have getting off of heroin.\u201d He\u2019s also made the unfounded claim<\/a> that teenagers who use them are more likely to commit school shootings (they aren\u2019t<\/a>.)<\/p>\n One of the goals<\/a> of Kennedy\u2019s \u201cMake America Healthy Again\u201d movement is to \u201cassess the prevalence of and threat posed by the prescription of selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors.\u201d Any restrictions on them would be a grave concern to the approximately 11% of the population<\/a> that uses them to treat depression, anxiety and other issues.<\/p>\n Another frequent target of Kennedy\u2019s are statins, which more than 92 million Americans<\/a> take to prevent heart disease and lower cholesterol. Most studies<\/a> find that statins are both safe and help to prevent serious heart disease, which is the number one killer of Americans.<\/p>\n Yet Children\u2019s Health Defense, the organization Kennedy founded, has published articles questioning the relationship of cholesterol to heart disease, with one calling them<\/a> “overprescribed and unnecessary.\u201d And earlier this year, as HHS Secretary, Kennedy claimed on a podcast that pharmaceutical companies manipulated studies<\/a> to show they work.<\/p>\n One of the rationales<\/a> for the agency\u2019s recent crackdown on pharmaceutical ads is increased uptake of the drugs. Statins were the drugs of an older generation. Also in the crosshairs are newer innovations, like the increasingly popular GLP-1s used to treat diabetes (Ozempic, Mounjaro) and obesity (Wegovy, Zepbound). These drugs have recently been approved for additional health problems, such as sleep apnea, and are even being investigated for drug addiction.<\/p>\n That remarkable success hasn\u2019t stopped Kennedy from criticizing their cost (they are expensive) and making false claims about them. For example, he falsely said<\/a> that Novo Nordisk, which makes Ozempic, doesn\u2019t market it in Europe. (It does.) He\u2019s also said that ensuring Americans eat a good diet would solve the obesity problem\u2013but multiple clinical studies have shown that GLP-1s are vastly superior to diet alone to helping people not only lose weight but keep it off.<\/p>\n In a first jab at their use, Kennedy rejected a plan<\/a> to have Medicare cover the cost of GLP-1 drugs for obesity, which would have given 7 million Americans access to them, in April. (Medicare already covers these treatments for diabetes.) Could more restrictions on their use be seen down the road?<\/p>\n \u201cThey\u2019re counting on selling it to Americans because we\u2019re so stupid and so addicted to drugs,\u201d Kennedy told viewers of Fox News about Ozempic and its manufacturer Novo Nordisk.<\/p>\n It\u2019s not clear what, if anything, would change his mind.<\/p>\n MORE FROM FORBES<\/strong><\/p>\n ForbesTrump\u2019s Unproven Claims About Tylenol And Autism Are Reaching Millions On TikTokBy Emily Baker-White<\/a>ForbesRFK Jr.’s CDC Is Poised To Restrict Vaccines Even FurtherBy Alex Knapp<\/a>ForbesThis Startup Hit A $3.25 Billion Valuation Building Software To Fix Drug PricingBy Amy Feldman<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. The Associated Press Tylenol maker Kenvue is reeling…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":88126,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[274],"tags":[18,57844,135,57845,57843,19,17,54491,462,9457,2927,40995,9616,14162,54489],"class_list":{"0":"post-88125","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-medication","8":"tag-eire","9":"tag-false-medical-claims","10":"tag-health","11":"tag-healthcare-policy","12":"tag-hhs","13":"tag-ie","14":"tag-ireland","15":"tag-kenvue","16":"tag-medication","17":"tag-misinformation","18":"tag-ozempic","19":"tag-prozac","20":"tag-rfk-jr","21":"tag-robert-f-kennedy-jr","22":"tag-tylenol"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88125","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=88125"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88125\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/88126"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=88125"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=88125"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=88125"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}