Health
Fact-Checking RFK Jr.’s Health Claims on Obesity, Medicaid and Fluoride
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During the hearing to consider his nomination to lead the Department of Health and Human Services, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. spoke at length about issues in health and medicine, including the cause of chronic illnesses, Covid-19 and ultraprocessed foods.
Here is a running list of key health claims, fact-checked by our reporters.
Chronic Disease
Mr. Kennedy’s opening statement focused on rising chronic health conditions, saying there was a crisis in children’s health in the United States. Many experts agree — though they disagree about the causes.
Forty percent of children have a chronic health condition, and the figure is higher for adolescents when obesity is included.
Roughly one in 36 children is diagnosed with an autism spectrum disorder, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. One in four has an allergy or eczema, and rates of Type 2 diabetes have been rising in those 19 and under every year.
And while Type 2 diabetes rates are rising, they are still low: According to the American Diabetes Association, it occurs in 0.35 percent of Americans under the age of 20.
Who Covid-19 Affects
Senator Michael Bennet of Colorado pressed Mr. Kennedy on a statement Mr. Kennedy made in 2023 in which he suggested that the coronavirus targeted and spared certain ethnic groups.
“Covid-19 is targeted to attack Caucasians and Black people,” he said in a video from The New York Post. “The people who are most immune are Ashkenazi Jews and Chinese.”
In response to Mr. Bennet, Mr. Kennedy referred to a federally funded study from the Cleveland Clinic published early in the pandemic that tried to decipher who was most susceptible to the virus.
Scientists have said that Mr. Kennedy’s interpretation of the study widely distorted the findings in the paper. While it found genetic differences that might make one individual more susceptible to Covid than another, the differences were too rare to make any generalizations about large groups of people.
Children’s Risk From Covid
During the hearing, Mr. Kennedy also asserted that 6-year-old children “basically” have “zero” risk from Covid.
The C.D.C. has noted that children with underlying medical conditions are at higher risk from severe outcomes from Covid, as well as infants younger than six months of age.
Ultraprocessed Foods and Obesity
Early in the hearing, Mr. Kennedy singled out processed food as a driver of the obesity epidemic.
“We shouldn’t be giving 60 percent of the kids in school processed food that is making them sick,” he said.
Many public health and nutrition experts say that ultraprocessed foods — which make up an estimated 73 percent of the U.S. food supply — are probably a factor in the obesity crisis in the United States, and it would be beneficial to cut back on them.
But other researchers say that the obesity epidemic is likely a result of many entangled factors, both environmental and genetic, and that the phenomenon may have started long before there were ultraprocessed foods.
The category is also wide-ranging, and it’s not clear if all ultraprocessed foods are harmful, experts say. There may be downsides to avoiding some ultraprocessed foods, like flavored yogurts and whole wheat breads and cereals, they add, because they can provide valuable nutrients.
Lindsey Smith Taillie, an associate professor of nutrition at the U.N.C. Gillings School of Global Public Health, said that it would be “transformative” to remove ultraprocessed foods from school lunches. But, she added, schools would need more resources to prepare meals from scratch.
Medicare and Medicaid
Throughout the hearing, Mr. Kennedy struggled with the nuances of Medicaid and Medicare.
He suggested “more people would rather be on Medicare Advantage” but can’t afford it because it’s more expensive. In fact, Medicare Advantage is generally less expensive on a monthly basis for beneficiaries.
He also described Medicaid as being fully federally funded. Spending is actually split between the states and the federal government. He went on to describe the premiums and deductibles as being too high when, except in very rare cases, Medicaid enrollees do not pay either of those types of fees.
Fluoride in Water
Mr. Kennedy referenced a recent study that found an association between fluoride and I.Q. — research that he felt vindicated his earlier concerns about the dangers of fluoridated drinking water.
While the description of the study’s findings was accurate, there are notable caveats.
The study, by scientists from the federally funded National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, was an analysis of dozens of fluoride studies, which found higher fluoride exposures were linked to lower I.Q. scores.
However, researchers cautioned that none of the studies included in the analysis were conducted in the United States, where recommended fluoridation levels in drinking water are very low. At those amounts of fluoride, evidence was too limited to draw definitive conclusions.
The C.D.C. has noted that its experts “have not found convincing scientific evidence” linking community water fluoridation with adverse health effects.
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Health
Accessibility Is Taking a Hit Across the Sciences
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Tyler Nelson, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Florida, studies the neurobiology of pain, a choice partly motivated by his own frustrations with a neuromuscular disability. Last October, he applied for a grant at the National Institutes of Health that, if awarded, would support his dream of someday running his own lab.
But, earlier in February, he learned that his application, which took six months to pull together, was about to be thrown out.
The reason: Dr. Nelson had applied for a version of the award that supports researchers who are historically underrepresented in science, including people with disabilities. That funding avenue now violates President Trump’s executive order banning federal agencies from activities related to diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility, or D.E.I.A.
Dr. Nelson was tipped off by an N.I.H. affiliate, but he has received no official notice about the situation. “I’ve tried to call probably 150 times,” he said. Unofficially, he learned that the agency was planning to pull his submission altogether rather than move it to the general award pool for consideration. This has happened with at least one other type of award offered by the agency, which did not respond to a request for comment.
Thanks to the tip, Dr. Nelson was able to withdraw his application and resubmit it to the general award pool before its deadline — but he is unsure if others were so lucky.
“What this does is discriminate against people who are underrepresented,” said an N.I.H. reviewer who asked to remain anonymous for fear of retaliation. The reviewer added that the evaluation criteria for the general and diversity award pools were the same, with no priority given to either pool. “I can’t stress enough,” the reviewer said, that an undeserving grant “is not going to get funded, whether it’s ‘diversity’ or not.”
According to Eve Hill, a civil rights lawyer in Washington, D.C., this may violate certain legal protections for people with disabilities, although there is no precedent in court.
“They’ve provided this category to overcome past discrimination,” she said. “By not then considering them in the general award, they are exacerbating that discrimination.”
The predicament is one of many ways that accessibility across the sciences is taking a hit from the D.E.I.A. shutdown. Federal agencies, once proponents for increasing opportunities for scientists with disabilities, are now ceasing programs geared toward that goal. Left uncertain is how funding for disability research — from designing accessible health services to building better prosthetics — will be affected by the order.
People with disabilities make up more than a quarter of the nation’s population and are considered to be the world’s largest minority. But experts say that, until recently, disability has largely been neglected in discussions about marginalized groups.
“Accessibility was always seen as an afterthought,” said Kim Knackstedt, a disability policy consultant in Washington, D.C. “Whether intentional or not, disability has been excluded from a lot of D.E.I. efforts.”
That extends to the sciences. The National Science Foundation reported that, in 2021, people with disabilities made up only 3 percent of the STEM work force. Only in 2023 did the N.I.H. designate people with disabilities as a community that experienced health disparities.
As the first director of disability policy in the Biden administration, Dr. Knackstedt led a push for accessibility to be at the forefront of diversity, equity and inclusion policy. One outcome of this effort was an executive order issued by President Biden that explicitly named accessibility as an area to strengthen in the federal work force.
“That was a win for many of us,” said Bonnielin Swenor, an epidemiologist who founded the Disability Health Research Center at Johns Hopkins University. Dr. Swenor, who experienced barriers pursuing a research career because of a visual impairment, added that it was disheartening “to have that progress not just stopped, but rolled back.”
Federal science agencies scrambled to comply with the reversal, leaving scientists and disability advocates apprehensive about the future of accessibility research. Earlier this month, the National Science Foundation began flagging grants that contained buzzwords commonly associated with D.E.I.A., including “disability” and “barrier.”
An N.S.F. program director, who asked not to be named out of fear of retaliation, said that there were “quite a few awards flagged for the word ‘disability,’” including projects to make driving and computing more accessible. The program director added that staff members were unsure if these research activities were banned by the executive order.
A spokesman for the N.S.F. did not answer questions sent by The New York Times regarding the eligibility of such awards.
Robert Gregg, an engineer at the University of Michigan who designs wearable robots for people with mobility impairments, said he had received notification from the N.S.F. to halt D.E.I.A. activities. But he interpreted that to mean supplemental programs aimed at increasing participation of underrepresented groups in science.
“Fundamental research in technology, like robotics and A.I. — my understanding is that that is still perfectly valid and can continue,” he said. But Dr. Gregg also runs clinical trials funded by the N.I.H., and he recently learned that the renewal process for this funding had effectively been frozen again.
Scientists with disabilities are also worried about what the clampdown on accessibility will mean for both their own careers and those of the next generation.
“Disabled people were barely being included,” said Alyssa Paparella, a graduate student at the Baylor College of Medicine who founded an online movement called #DisabledInSTEM. “Now there’s a huge fear of what’s going to be the future of all of us.”
A notice on the N.I.H. website encouraging participation of people with disabilities in the research enterprise has been removed, as has an N.S.F. webpage that listed funding opportunities for scientists with disabilities. Last month, the N.S.F. also indefinitely postponed an engineering workshop to better include people with autism and other neurocognitive differences in the work force.
In the geosciences, many degree programs require students to complete weekslong outdoor field camps that can be difficult to navigate with certain disabilities. This led Anita Marshall, a lecturer at the University of Florida, to found GeoSPACE, an N.S.F.-funded camp that incorporates modern technology and can be completed virtually.
She did not know if GeoSPACE would be able to continue. “This has really knocked me off my feet,” said Dr. Marshall, who described the project as her pride and joy. “I’m not sure what’s next.”
Doubts have sprung up for Dr. Nelson, too. Although he managed to salvage his application for N.I.H. funding, the change has pushed back any clarity about his future in research by at least five months.
“It’s a really dismal time in science for trainees,” he said. “I look at the last 15 years, like, ‘Why did I work this underpaid, high-stress job?’ Do I want to do this forever?”
Health
Children with autism may see speech improvements with off-label prescription drug
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An off-label prescription drug has been shown to help some non-verbal children with autism discover the ability to speak.
The drug, leucovorin, is a prescription vitamin that functions similarly to folic acid, helping to restore folate levels in patients who may have difficulty absorbing or using it, according to Katy Dubinsky, a New York pharmacist and the CEO and co-founder of Vitalize, a private supplement company.
“Leucovorin is FDA-approved to reduce the toxic effects of high-dose methotrexate in cancer treatment and to prevent or treat certain types of anemia caused by folate deficiency,” Dubinsky told Fox News Digital.
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While leucovorin isn’t prescribed for the treatment of autism, some families have found that its off-label use has led to significant improvements in autistic children’s communication skills, experts say.
Richard E. Frye, M.D., PhD, a behavioral child neurologist in Arizona, has studied the drug in his research of experimental treatments for children with autism spectrum disorder.
An off-label prescription drug has been shown to help some non-verbal children with autism discover the ability to speak. (iStock)
“Leucovorin is a special form of vitamin B9 that is water-soluble and does not build up in your body,” he told Fox News Digital.
“Folates have been found to be safe long-term for many years and that is why we supplement our food with folate.”
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The main benefit of leucovorin for children with autism is improvement in language, Frye said, but other advantages may include enhanced social function, reduced repetitive behaviors and stronger attention skills.
“Our goal is to get leucovorin approved by the FDA for autism so it can be widely prescribed to children as one of the first treatments once they are diagnosed.”
“We do find that leucovorin helps a substantial number of children with autism,” he said. “Language is one of the most obvious things, so that is what we measured in our clinical trial.”
Dr. Marc Siegel, clinical professor of medicine at NYU Langone Health and Fox News’ senior medical analyst, also spoke to Fox News Digital about why the drug may have this positive impact.
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While leucovorin isn’t prescribed for autism treatment, some families have found that its off-label use has led to significant improvements in the communication skills of children with autism. (iStock)
“Central folate deficiency is a lack of folate in the brain, which can interfere with neurological function,” he said. “A high percentage of children with autism spectrum disorder have been found to have antibodies against folic receptor alpha in the brain.”
Leucovorin is converted to folate in the brain by a different pathway, Siegel said.
“Small studies are showing that it improves neurological function and communication skills in kids with ASD, but larger studies need to be done.”
Experts urge caution
The fact that leucovorin has already been used long-term helps to reduce the associated risk, according to doctors.
“One of the advantages of using leucovorin is that it has been used for decades to protect the body from the effects of chemotherapy, so we know what dose to use and any side effects it may produce,” Frye told Fox News Digital.
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However, some children do become “extremely hyperactive,” do not respond to leucovorin and end up needing alternative treatments, the doctor noted.
It’s important for families to work with a medical professional when exploring the use of leucovorin for autism, he advised.
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The drug leucovorin is a prescription vitamin that functions similarly to folic acid, helping to restore folate levels in patients who may have difficulty absorbing or using it, according to a pharmacist. (iStock)
“Leucovorin is given at much higher doses than regular vitamins, so it’s very important to work with a doctor knowledgeable in how to prescribe it,” Frye said.
“It is important to test the patient for abnormalities in the folate pathway, such as the folate receptor autoantibody, so we know that they are a candidate for this medication.”
While leucovorin is available in the pharmacy, Frye noted that some children need a compounded form because they are sensitive to some of the additives in commercial products.
“Our goal is to get leucovorin approved by the FDA for autism so it can be widely prescribed to children as one of the first treatments once they are diagnosed,” he said.
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Frye pointed out that there is “no magic bullet” for autism, with many children benefiting from a combination of multiple treatments. (iStock)
Dubinsky agreed that physicians may prescribe the “widely used and well-tolerated drug” for autism treatment based on their “clinical judgment and emerging evidence,” but she also stressed the importance of clinical trials.
“While doctors can prescribe leucovorin now, FDA approval would provide stronger medical backing, making it a recognized treatment rather than just an off-label option,” she told Fox News Digital.
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“This could lead to insurance coverage, standardized dosing guidelines and broader acceptance in the medical community.”
Siegel added that leucovorin is a “safe drug” and should be considered for large-scale use based on the findings of recent research.
‘No magic bullet’
Frye pointed out that there is “no magic bullet” for autism, with many children benefiting from a combination of multiple treatments.
“It is unlikely that leucovorin will be used alone — it must be used with behavioral and speech therapy,” he said. “We believe that leucovorin can improve outcomes for these therapies.”
“There is little evidence to suggest that the benefits observed in this individual case can be generalized to the broader autistic community.”
Andy Shih, PhD, chief science officer of Autism Speaks in New York, noted that every child’s experience with autism is unique.
“There is little evidence to suggest that the benefits observed in this individual case can be generalized to the broader autistic community,” he told Fox News Digital.
For more Health articles, visit www.foxnews.com/health
“While some small studies have explored leucovorin as a potential treatment for people with autism, larger controlled clinical trials are needed to determine its efficacy and safety. We urge families to consult with their doctors before considering off-label treatments.”
Dubinsky added that if larger studies confirm leucovorin’s effectiveness, it could become a more accessible treatment for children with autism who may benefit from it.
Health
Firings at FDA Decimated Teams Reviewing AI and Food Safety
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In recent years, the Food and Drug Administration hired experts in surgical robots and pioneers in artificial intelligence. It scooped up food chemists, lab-safety monitors and diabetes specialists who helped make needle pricks and test strips relics of the past.
Trying to keep up with breakneck advances in medical technology and the demands of a public troubled by additives like food dyes, the agency enticed scores of midcareer specialists with remote roles and the chance to make a difference in their fields.
In one weekend of mass firings across the F.D.A., much of that effort was gone. Most baffling to many were the firings of hundreds whose jobs were not funded by taxpayers. Their positions were financed through congressionally approved agreements that routed fees from the drug, medical device and tobacco industries to the agency.
Known as user fees, the money provides adequate staffing for reviews of myriad products. While criticized by some, including the nation’s new health secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., as a corrupting force on the agency, the industry funds are also widely viewed as indispensable: They now account for nearly half of the agency’s $7.2 billion budget.
Though the F.D.A. is believed to have lost about 700 of its 18,000 employees, some cuts hit small teams so deeply that staff members believe the safety of some medical devices could be compromised.
Among the layoffs were scientists supported by the fees who monitor whether tests pick up ever-evolving pathogens, including those that cause bird flu and Covid. They hobbled teams that evaluate the safety of medical devices like surgical staplers, new systems for diabetes control and A.I. software programs that scan millions of M.R.I.s and other images to detect cancer beyond the human eye. The cuts also eliminated positions for employees who have played a role in assessing the brain-implant technology in Elon Musk’s Neuralink devices.
The layoffs affected so many key experts that a major medical device trade group has requested that the Trump administration reconsider the job cuts.
The dismissals also included lawyers who warned retailers about underage tobacco sales and scientists who studied the safety of e-cigarettes and new heat-not-burn devices. The tobacco division — which is fully funded by an excise tax on cigarettes — lost about 85 staff members.
Dr. Robert Califf, the F.D.A. commissioner under President Biden, said the personnel cutbacks seemed scattershot. Taking a not-so-subtle aim at Mr. Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency, which is reducing the federal work force, Dr. Califf said the layoffs were, in effect, “anti-efficiency.”
“These are not hires that are done arbitrarily,” he said. “They’re done to meet a need.”
A lawsuit challenging the firings filed by unions, including one that represents some F.D.A. employees, failed to stop the layoffs in a ruling issued Thursday. Other cutbacks reduced the 2,000-member staff of the F.D.A.’s food division, which is supported by tax dollars.
Jim Jones, the former director of the division who resigned on Monday over the cuts, said that he had briefed the Trump transition team on his efforts to create a new office that would review a premier target of Mr. Kennedy and his agenda to Make America Healthy Again: food additives that are already on the market.
Nine people from that food-chemical-safety staff of 30 are gone, including specialized toxicologists and chemists, Mr. Jones said in an interview.
“They’ve created a real pickle for themselves,” by cutting staff members working on a key priority, Mr. Jones said. “You just can’t do an assessment for free and you can’t ban chemicals by fiat.”
In interviews with 15 current and former agency staff members, they said those who were laid off had been probationary employees, a group that included agency veterans who took on new roles, were recently promoted or were hired in the last two years.
Those who remained said that they had been scrambling to pick up pressing medical device reviews and move forward with studies to bulletproof methods for detecting deadly bacteria during inspections at food production sites.
Divisions that review novel medications, vaccines and gene therapies were largely spared. Officials with the F.D.A.’s parent agency, the Department of Health and Human Services, did not respond to requests for comment.
The F.D.A. employees fired last weekend were notified in uniformly worded emails that their skills were not needed and that their performance was “not adequate to justify further employment by the agency.” Yet many of them said that their performance reviews had said they exceeded expectations.
Tony Maiorana, 37, a chemist, worked on product approval and safety in the fast-changing field of diabetes devices. In the last decade, the field has moved from painful needle pricks and test strips to systems that measure glucose levels just below the skin and automatically infuse the needed insulin.
The work of reviewing new products is painstaking: Novel algorithms measure and dispense insulin; materials implanted in the body must evade rejection by the immune system; and millions of patients from toddlers to the elderly are at risk if devices malfunction.
Still, about half of Dr. Maiorana’s product-review team was eliminated, he said.
“If you’re a patient and you complain, we are the ones that field your complaints,” he said. “We are the ones that monitor the death reports. We’re the ones that are telling companies: ‘Hey, there’s a big pattern of error happening here. People are dying or ending up in the hospital because of your device’ and ‘What has changed? What happened?’”
Dr. Maiorana said that he had expected his government job would be “chill,” but it turned out to be intense. His team had to assess whether studies of new devices that had never been used in humans were safe for adults and children. They also had to watch online marketplaces for diabetes technology that had not been approved by the agency.
“This is the reason the F.D.A. was founded — to protect the public,” Dr. Maiorana said.
Albert Yee, 59, an expert in biomechanics and robotics, was fired on Saturday. In his unit, four of 11 staff members, who review the safety of surgical robots, were let go.
Robotic surgery is increasingly employed in operating rooms across the country, used in cardiothoracic, gynecological and bariatric surgeries. Dr. Yee had worked in the industry and in academia before joining the F.D.A.
He said his team was highly specialized, including an expert with a doctorate in medical robotics and a physician who had conducted robotic operations.
He said that robotic devices had become so complex that the team’s diverse expertise was critical to evaluate not just the safety of such tools but also concerns about cybersecurity.
“All of these devices now — if they’re attached to the hospital network, they become an avenue to get into the hospital network or get into the device itself,” Dr. Yee said.
He said the team also fielded a flood of applications for surgical apparatus developed abroad that were similar to those made by companies based in the United States. He said the applications required close attention to catch problems that could endanger patients.
“The institutional knowledge we’re losing is just horrific,” he said. “I am concerned about public safety with this type of purge.”
Nathan Weidenhamer was a lead reviewer of cardiovascular devices and other high-risk implants.
He said he was shocked and disappointed to be laid off because he and other reviewers in the device division were partly funded by industry-generated fees.
“I naïvely thought we were important, critical public servants and I’d be spared,” he said.
The layoffs clearly did not skip over employee slots created and funded by the agreements negotiated with the industries, congressional lawmakers and F.D.A. officials. The industries provide billions of dollars in return for staff equipped to meet strict deadlines for decisions on product approvals — though not all go in companies’ favor. The money is also used to make the F.D.A. a competitive employer in specialized fields that require advanced degrees.
Some of the deadlines are viewed by F.D.A. staff members as demanding, particularly the 30-day clock requiring them to authorize or add comments to studies of devices that are being implanted in humans for the first time. If the agency does not respond within that time-frame, the study is given a green light under the law.
The depth of cuts to medical device staff prompted AdvaMed, a trade association for the industry, to push back in a letter to a top Health and Human Services official.
The letter detailed about 180 medical device staff cuts, which included 25 experts in artificial intelligence, a 20 percent reduction in biostatisticians who evaluated studies of novel devices and the loss of molecular biologists with expertise in diagnostic tests that pinpoint a cancer subtype. The firings also applied to a top official who was recently recruited to oversee about 10,000 product applications and meeting requests per year.
The group said it appreciated the Trump administration’s efforts to improve efficiency. But “they may have missed the mark on how they rolled it out,” Scott Whitaker, the president of AdvaMed, said in an interview.
Medical device companies benefit when the F.D.A. is well staffed with people who have the expertise to guide the safe development of new technology, he added.
“One that is slow and overregulates is not good,” he said. “One that is under-resourced and doesn’t regulate at all — that’s not good either.”
Alice Callahan contributed reporting.
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