Tag Archives: Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

Providing Practical Information

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I have heard mixed opinions about Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., but I have to say he is focused on making Americans healthier. I may disagree with a lot of his politics, but I love the information he is putting out on nutrition, food additives, etc.

On Friday, American Greatness posted an article about RFK Jr.’s latest venture.

The article reports:

Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. debuted a new cooking series Thursday aimed at showing American families that nutritious meals can cost less than a fast food run, part of the Trump administration’s Make America Healthy Again push.

“The Real Food Show” premiered July 30 on YouTube and the HHS website, offering recipes built around whole, minimally processed ingredients such as protein, full-fat dairy, fruits, vegetables and whole grains, the standards set out in the 2026 Dietary Guidelines for Americans. The show promises meals priced under $5 per serving whenever possible, along with simple techniques meant to save families time and money.

Kennedy told USA Today he wanted to counter criticism that followed the January release of the updated dietary guidelines, which some argued would put healthy eating out of reach for ordinary Americans.

“When we published the dietary guidelines, there was immediately sort of a good reaction, but also a little trepidation from the public and from critics saying that this food is a lot more expensive than the ultra-processed food that we’ve been eating,” Kennedy said. “And that’s not true.”

Kennedy argued the real cost comparison favors home cooking over drive-thru convenience. “Fast food is not less expensive,” he said. “That meal costs $12 to $14. People can eat a lot cheaper at home and a lot better food. But many Americans have forgotten how to cook. It’s becoming a lost art.”

Many Americans are totally unschooled in nutritional information. I have learned more than I want to know about nutrition because of the amount of Celiac disease and gluten intolerance in my family. Anyone raising children needs to be aware of the chemicals and other additives in the food they are feeding their family. It is interesting to read the ingredients label on a box of American children’s cereal and then read the ingredients on the same product sold overseas. For example, it was a shock to me to find out that there was gluten in soy sauce and in some powdered drink mixes.I fully support what RFK Jr. is doing.

ObamaCare Fraud

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On Saturday, PJ Media posted an article about fraud in ObamaCare.

The article reports:

Obamacare is expensive, unconstitutional, socialist, and bloated. It is also — surprise, surprise — riddled with fraud.

Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) Administrator Mehmet Oz revealed the stunning number of Obamacare users who never provided a Social Security number, raising serious questions about the scope of fraud in the government healthcare insurance program.

…In a Saturday video, Kennedy and Oz updated the American people on efforts to uncover and root out fraud. The HHS secretary began, “The Obamacare marketplace is plagued by fraud, in large part because the Biden administration dismantled basic program integrity guardrails. [And] partisan lawfare blocked common sense efforts to protect taxpayers. Today, Dr. Oz and I are exposing one of the latest examples of fraud that we’ve uncovered — more than a million people enrolled in Obamacare without Social Security numbers on file. That is a glaring warning side of fraud. If even a single person was on Obamacare with no Social Security number, we should have found out. Why are we paying people we don’t know if they actually exist?” Why indeed. Probably because Democrats love to redistribute money no matter how many criminals benefit.

The article notes:

But the current administration has a zero tolerance attitude toward fraud, Oz emphasized. “So here’s what we’re doing about it,” he said. “In May, we took swift action to block this fraudulent behavior directly on healthcare.gov and to our marketplace Call Center. If an agent wants to be paid, [he] must follow the rules. No ifs, ands or buts. They are gonna have to provide government-verified information for their clients to be enrolled.”

This effort is bearing fruit, Kennedy stated. “Thanks to this aggressive enforcement strategy, we’ve already eliminated thousands of fraudulent policies, and we’re just getting started. We’re also working with insurers to cancel every policy that should never have been issued and recover every taxpayer dollar that was fraudulently paid out,” he assured Americans.

Eliminating fraud may be one of the least painful way to cut government spending and get deficits under control.

Saving Taxpayer Money By Educating Doctors

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On June 15th, The Federalist posted an article about Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s push to prioritize nutrition education in medical training. You really are what you eat, and the American diet is anything but healthy.

The article reports:

Under the leadership of Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., nutrition education will now be prioritized in U.S. medical organizations through a new initiative to equip doctors to tackle America’s burgeoning health crisis. This joint effort of both the Department of Health and Human Services and the Department of Education aims to raise the standards of nutritional education for a variety of the nation’s foremost medical organizations, including medical schools and hospitals. In addition to the 54 medical schools that have previously vowed to implement a minimum of 40 hours of nutrition education, 19 more schools voluntarily agreed to do so, signing the Nutrition Education Pledge, HHS announced Monday. This growing initiative will affect more than 52,000 medical students in 36 states.

Kennedy has spearheaded the initiative as a way to help combat America’s chronic disease crisis. America has a comparatively high rate of chronic illness, with conditions such as obesity, diabetes, and heart disease ranking among some of the nation’s leading causes of death. Many of these diseases are caused by a combination of factors, such as lifestyle choices and poor exercise. However, one of the major factors leading to chronic illness is poor nutrition.

“Poor diets are the primary driver of America’s chronic disease epidemic,” Kennedy stated Monday. “Today’s announcement reflects the shifting landscape toward placing nutrition and prevention at the core of patient health.”

The article notes:

Battling chronic disease won’t just save HHS money; it will also save on the entire nation’s medical costs, giving much needed relief to taxpayers. America spends about $5.3 trillion on health care per year. From the budget, more than $4.5 trillion goes to chronic diseases and mental health care. Cardiovascular diseases directly cost America’s healthcare system $223.2 billion annually, with that number slated to hit $2 trillion within the next 25 years.

It is going to be interesting to watch this play out. Secretary Kennedy is right, but Americans are addicted to fast food and unhealthy diets. It will be interesting to see if that addiction can be broken.

A Law That Needs To Be Changed

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Although Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr. is working to wind down animal testing, as of now the testing still continues. That needs to change. Meanwhile, a puppy mill in Wisconsin that raises Beagles for animal testing has come under fire recently.

Yahoo News posted an April 22, 2026, article from the Wisconsin Examiner about the Ridglan Farms Biomedical Research Facility.

The article reports:

Fallout from a weekend attempt by animal rights activists to breach the Ridglan Farms Biomedical Research Facility and rescue beagles bred inside continues. On Tuesday, four of the activists were charged in Dane County with felony burglary. Meanwhile, Ridglan Farms has been cited for filling a trench around its facility with manure — an environmental hazard for which it lacked a permit — in an effort to prevent the activists from entering over the weekend.  Calls for an investigation into the farm and  police use of force  against them continue. 

Wayne Hsiung, Aditya Aswani, Michelle Lunsky, and Dean Wyrzykowski were all charged with felony burglary. Hsiung was noted as among the first people arrested within minutes after arriving at the farm. Although the activists had publicly advertised the rescue — which included hundreds of participants — as  planned for Sunday, the activists hit the farm a day early. Images captured on Saturday showed the air thick with tear gas, and witnesses  reported that rubber bullets and pepper balls had been used. Injuries were also reported, including one man who reportedly lost multiple teeth after being beaten by officers. 

…Thousands of dogs are kept and bred at Ridglan Farms. The facility has been accused of subjecting beagles to cruel and inhumane conditions by enclosing them in gated cages, not allowing them outside or play time, and removing parts of their bodies or subjecting them to experiments without anesthesia. Ridglan has denied some of the allegations.

The article concludes:

Two elected members of the Dane County Board of Supervisors have also said they’re initiating the steps needed to begin an independent investigation into the force used by the Dane County Sheriff on activists and protesters Saturday. Sheriff Kalvin Barrett has said that the actions of his deputies was proportionate and appropriate to the situation they faced Saturday.

Obviously, I would like to see scientific experiments on animals ended, but beyond that, it is cruel to keep dogs in cages with no outside running time. Ridglan Farms seems to be a puppy mill with a horrific ending for the puppies involved.

The Media Mocks A Really Good Idea

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In the age of smart phones and people addicted to them, we have lost the art of inter-generational communication. How many people under the age of 30 can communicate with anyone over the age of 50? One of the reasons we have lost this art is that we have given up eating dinner as a family. In the age of dinosaurs when I was raising my children, we made every effort to have dinner together every night. As the children got older, that was more of a challenge–high school sports, part-time jobs, etc., but we still made the effort. Our children’s friends were sometimes invited also. There were discussions about school, work, events in the neighborhood, etc. The topics didn’t really matter–what mattered was that everyone was included and everyone was heard.

Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., has suggested that bringing back eating dinner together as a family would help strengthen our families and communities. I agree.

On March 9th, Townhall posted an article about this idea.

The article reports:

It’s honestly amazing what some outlets will say just to get a headline.

Secretary Kennedy recently gave a speech about families eating meals together and strengthening their communities — and The Daily Beast somehow turned that into “RFK Jr. Gives Bonkers ‘Anti-Demons’ Health Advice.”

Wish I was kidding. Apparently, encouraging people to spend time with their families is now controversial.

Secretary Kennedy’s message about the strength of community and the importance of sharing meals together should surprise absolutely no one. Like much of his and President Trump’s platform, it’s rooted in something (seemingly) fairly radical these days: common sense.

But common sense doesn’t generate clicks like outrage does. Because let’s be honest for a moment here…

It’s not bonkers to say we’re in a cultural — even spiritual — battle right now.

It’s not bonkers to say that spending more time with your community is good for your health.

It’s not bonkers to want kids spending less time glued to their phones and more time interacting with actual humans.

And it’s certainly not bonkers to suggest that families sitting down to eat together might actually matter. In fact, the research backs it up.

He also mentions that a lot of us need to learn how to cook. That might be true also.

Please follow the link to read the entire article. RFK, Jr., has some good ideas.

Junk Food Is Becoming Healthier Under Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.!

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On Friday, The Epoch Times posted an article about PepsiCo’s reaction to President Trump’s statement that Coca-Cola will be switching to cane sugar instead of high fructose corn syrup. I am not saying that soda is healthy, but sugar is healthier than high fructose corn syrup. You take your victories where you can!

The article reports:

PepsiCo’s top executive indicated on July 17 that the company may switch Pepsi’s sweetener from high-fructose corn syrup to sugar, one day after President Donald Trump said Coca-Cola would soon be making the change.

“Same journey that we have in foods, we’re following in beverages. This is a consumer-centric strategy. We’re following the consumer,” Ramon Laguarta, PepsiCo’s CEO, told investors on a call after being asked about Trump’s announcement.

“If the consumer is telling us that they prefer products that have sugar and they prefer products that have natural ingredients, we will give the consumer products that have sugar and have natural ingredients. So, this is a journey of following the consumer, trying to be a little bit maybe one step ahead of the consumer, but not too many steps. And it applies to both beverages and food.”

The article notes:

Laguarta’s announcement came during a call in which executives said that PepsiCo will relaunch its Lay’s and Tostitos brands later this year to highlight that they contain no artificial colors or flavors.

“We’re trying to elevate the real food perception of Lay’s. If you think about the simplest and most natural snack, it is a potato chip; it’s a potato, it’s oil, and it’s a little bit of salt—the most simple, no artificial ingredients,” Laguarta said.

The company also said it was expanding the use of avocado and olive oil across its brands, rather than the canola or soybean oil it uses. Some health influencers, including Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., have promoted removing seed oils from food.

America may soon become the land of healthy junk food!

Making Hot Fudge Sundaes Healthier

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I love hot fudge sundaes–preferably with whipped cream, nuts, and a cherry. It looks like some upcoming changes in ice cream manufacturing will make my hot fudge sundae more healthy (at least a little more). There have already been changes in how the cherry on top of the sundae is colored–many manufacturers of cherries use red dye No. 3, which they must discontinue using by Jan. 15, 2027

On Monday, Investing.com reported:

U.S. ice cream makers are reportedly looking to eliminate several artificial colors from their products by 2028, a push following Health & Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s stance to remove artificial additives from food.

This is part of Kennedy Jr’s “Make America Healthy Again” (MAHA) initiative to eliminate six petroleum-based food dyes by 2026, aiming to replace them with natural alternatives.

According to a Bloomberg report, citing the International Dairy Foods Association, a group of 40 producers, collectively responsible for more than 90% of the ice cream sold in the U.S. by volume, have pledged to remove synthetic colors voluntarily.

Several publicly traded U.S. companies produce ice cream, such as Unilever (LON:ULVR) (UL), which owns household names like Ben & Jerry’s, Breyers, and Talenti; General Mills (NYSE:GIS) which operates Häagen-Dazs in the U.S.; and Nestlé, through its Froneri joint venture, manages brands like Dreyer’s and Edy’s.

Obviously, ice cream is not going to become a health food, but this is definitely a move in the right direction. It is encouraging to me to see America taking steps to remove questionable substances from our food supply. I may not agree with Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., on everything, but I think he has the right idea about cleaning up America’s food supply.

A Common-Sense Move

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On Thursday, Just the News posted an article about a change Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., is making in taxpayer-funded benefits.

The article reports:

The Department of Health and Human Services on Thursday banned illegal immigrants from accessing the agency’s taxpayer-funded benefits.

Since 1998, HHS has interpreted the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996 to let illegal immigrants use certain federal public benefits, according to the department. On Thursday, HHS announced that it has formally rescinded the interpretation that began under the Clinton administration.

“For too long, the government has diverted hardworking Americans’ tax dollars to incentivize illegal immigration,” HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., said in a statement on Thursday. “Today’s action changes that—it restores integrity to federal social programs, enforces the rule of law, and protects vital resources for the American people.”

The article lists the benefits that are impacted by this decision. The list does not include SNAP payments and housing assistance, but it is a start. We need to remember that no one can be denied emergency medical care regardless of immigration status or ability to pay, so this change will not prevent anyone from seeking medical care in an emergency.

When you observe the number of illegal immigrants who crossed our borders during the Biden administration and the fact that they were able to collect welfare benefits at taxpayer expense, you wonder why. One possible answer is the implementation of the Cloward-Piven strategy. A strategy designed to overwhelm the safety net and pave the way for a socialist revolution. According to Cloward-Piven, a federal program of income redistribution is necessary to lift the poor en masse from poverty once chaos is established. This creates permanent dependency upon government and will prevent the election of any person who wants to cut government spending.

The End Of Big Pharma Ads On Television?

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On Thursday, Zero Hedge posted an article about a plan to adopt a bill in the Senate to ban pharmaceutical companies from promoting prescription drugs directly to consumers.

The article reports:

Senators Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Angus King of Maine, both independents, on Thursday will introduce legislation that would ban pharmaceutical companies from promoting prescription drugs directly to consumers – including through television, radio, print, digital platforms, and social media, the WSJ reports.

The proposal would mark a sweeping shift in the U.S. advertising landscape, where pharmaceutical companies are among the largest spenders. Prescription drug brands accounted for roughly 13 percent of all ad spending on linear television in 2025, totaling approximately $2.18 billion so far this year, according to iSpot data. In 2024, the industry spent $3.4 billion on traditional TV ads between January and August alone, according to ad-tracking data.

“The American people don’t want to see misleading and deceptive prescription drug ads on television,” Sanders said in a statement. “They want us to take on the greed of the pharmaceutical industry and ban these bogus ads.”

The interesting part of this is that the current Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has repeatedly called for this ban. Both of the Senators introducing the bill voted against his confirmation as Secretary. So if they are in agreement with some of his most basic policies, why did they vote against his nomination? Is this simply another example of the Groucho Marx song:

I don’t know what they have to say
It makes no difference anyway
Whatever it is, I’m against it
No matter what it is or who commenced it
I’m against it

That sort of thinking does not move the country forward.

A Welcome Change In Policy

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On Wednesday, Legal Insurrection reported that the HHS has discontinued the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommendations that children, teenagers, and pregnant women receive routine COVID-19 vaccinations. On Friday, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved the Novavax Covid-19 vaccine with the unprecedented demand that Novavax conduct a new clinical trial of its shot after approval,

The article reports:

Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., may be pulling ahead in the race to be the most active agency head during President Donald J. Trump’s second term.

Last week, Kennedy appeared before both the House Appropriations Committee and the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee and gave a masterclass in how to answer inane Democratic narrative-based questioning. He also ordered a review of abortion pill safety data, worried that the real statistics indicated more adverse effects than originally advertised.

Now, the HHS has discontinued the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommendations that children, teenagers, and pregnant women receive routine COVID-19 vaccinations.

The article notes:

This marks a significant shift in federal health policy, moving away from the universal vaccination guidance that has been in place since September 2023. The new rules also promote a new framework for the testing of annual vaccines.

According to a report published Tuesday morning by The Associated Press, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) would recommend annual booster shots for adults over the age of 65 in addition to younger adults and children whose pre-existing conditions or health concerns put them at greater risk of hospitalization or death from contracting COVID-19.

An article published on Tuesday by the New England Journal of Medicine provides a framework for developing and testing annual vaccines that might eventually be offered to generally healthy people who don’t fall into the currently recommended age and risk categories.

“For all healthy persons — those with no risk factors for severe Covid-19 — between the ages of 6 months and 64 years, the FDA anticipates the need for randomized, controlled trial data evaluating clinical outcomes before Biologics License Applications can be granted,” the article read. “Insofar as possible, when approving a Covid-19 vaccine for high-risk groups, the FDA will encourage manufacturers to conduct randomized, controlled trials in the population of healthy adults as part of their postmarketing commitment.”

These are welcome changes. Let’s go back to the day when parents decided what shots they or their children would receive.

Protecting Women’s Health

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This is not an article to debate abortion. I believe abortion is wrong for a number of reasons, but that is not what this article is about. The link between Planned Parenthood and Margaret Sanger is troubling at best. The fact that the majority of abortion clinics are located in low-income neighborhoods is also troubling, but more troubling is the fact that the dangers of the abortion pill are being overlooked.

On Thursday, The Federalist reported:

More than 100 pro-life, pro-women, and pro-family organizations sent a letter to President Donald Trump’s top drug and health agencies asking them to “put the safety of women first” by reinstating the abortion pill safeguards stripped away by the Obama and Biden administrations.

“The danger this drug poses to women and girls is clear,” the letter states.

In the request to U.S. Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Martin Makary and U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., the coalition of concerned advocates warned that data shows “chemical abortion is neither safe nor effective.”

“In short, the FDA’s purpose is to safeguard the health and safety of Americans. In the case of mifepristone, these bedrock principles—necessary not only for the trust of Americans, but also for the safety of women—have been undermined by political whims that obscured the growing evidence of mifepristone’s harm,” the letter continues.

The letter highlighted a new landmark study, which determined that mifepristone, a key part of the drug regimen used to complete more than half of the nation’s abortions, has a rate of life-threatening or serious complications that is at least 22 times higher than what the FDA and the pill’s manufacturer suggest.

Corporate media tried to blackout and undermine the study with smears that it is “bogus,” relies on “bad data,“ and amounts to “junk science” because it was not peer reviewed. The Washington Post even claimed that the discovery of mifepristone’s high injury rate is no big deal because it has a warning label.

Researchers Ryan Anderson and Jamie Bryan Hall told The Federalist they were careful to exclude certain data, including 72 percent of emergency room visit diagnoses, to avoid overstating the risks of the drug. Even with that added caution, they found “11 percent of women who have a chemical abortion suffer a serious adverse event.”

Obviously, pregnancy is a natural reaction to a certain activity. It is a natural function of a woman’s body–it is not a disease that needs to be cured, and it is not simply a lump of cells to be destroyed. When you use a drug to interfere with the body’s natural function, there are going to be consequences. When that drug kills something that is attached to the body, there may be complications.

It’s time that the Food and Drug Administration actually worked for the benefit of Americans rather than for the benefit of drug companies. We have seen the scandals with tobacco, Oxycontin, the Covid-19 vaccine, and now the abortion pill. The agency needs either to go away or to change its paradigm.

Good News For America

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On Saturday, Just the News posted an article about a recent announcement from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

The article reports:

Butterfly pea flower extract, Galdieria extract blue, and calcium phosphate have now received approval or expanded approval for use in a variety of snacks and beverages, the latest step forward in Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy’s plan to substitute synthetic dyes.

“For too long, our food system has relied on synthetic, petroleum-based dyes that offer no nutritional value and pose unnecessary health risks,” Kennedy said in a statement. “We’re removing these dyes and approving safe, natural alternatives – to protect families and support healthier choices.”

In April, the FDA and HHS announced a phaseout timeline for petroleum-based food additives – which are correlated with several health problems in children – and promised to accelerate the approval process of natural alternatives to assist the transition.

The American food industry has until the end of 2025 to remove Green No. 3, Red No. 40, Yellow No. 5, Yellow No. 6, Blue No. 1 and Blue No. 2 from their products, as The Center Square reported.

A website called foodbabe.com has a few pictures showing labels of American foods and the labels of those same foods in other countries. There are a lot of ingredients in American foods that are banned in other countries.

Here are two examples:

I consider ketchup one of the basic food groups. It is available locally with sugar instead of high fructose corn syrup. However, generally speaking, the stuff you get in restaurants is the high fructose corn syrup variety.

The article at Just the News concludes:

Calcium phosphate, a natural compound found in bones and teeth, is now approved for use of white colorant in ready-to-eat chicken products, white candy melts, doughnut sugar, and sugar for coated candies.

“On April 22, I said the FDA would soon approve several new color additives and would accelerate our review of others,” FDA Commissioner Martin Makary said Friday. “FDA staff have been moving quickly to expedite the publication of these decisions, underscoring our serious intent to transition away from petroleum-based dyes in the food supply and provide new colors from natural sources.”

I am looking forward to having to read fewer labels when I shop!