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IT is not It is difficult to build a scenario in which Donald Trump plans to “make America healthy again” (or MahaDo the opposite. The proposed Minister of Health, Robert F. Kennedy JuniorIt is one of the skeptics of the most prominent vaccines in the country. The man who will be responsible for medical care centers and medical services, which provides health coverage for two in every five Americans, is Muhammad Oz, a television Doctor, who talked about the medical benefits to communicate with the dead and called a Ricky processor to help him during surgery. Dave Wildon, a former member of Congress and the doctor, who made suspicion of vaccine safety, will lead the centers of control and prevention control (CDC), Which oversees the country vaccine schedules. Unless Nixon theory of China applies to public health, this is not the people who America wants responsibility in a pandemic-or even just a regular epidemic.
At the same time, a central part of Maha The agenda is something that most experts agree: America’s main health problem is chronic diseases, and very few are done to prevent them. Mr. Kennedy has some Reasonable ideas On how to treat it. Therefore, it is worth exploring the positive changes that his mandate can make.
About 60 % of American adults suffer from chronic disease, such as diabetes, heart disease, or cancer; 40 % have more than one. In 2016, these conditions cost America 3.7trn (or 20 % of gross domestic product) In medical spending and loss of productivity. However, the healthcare system focuses on treating these conditions instead of preventing these conditions. Mr. Kennedy wants that Unhealthy foods From the American diet. He believes CDC You should do more about chronic diseases. And he wants to focus a greater share of the government -funded research on it.
To achieve this ambitious agenda, Mr. Kennedy, who has no great experience in managing anything, will need to be smart in moving in the federal bureaucracy. He talked about the launch of hundreds of employees, such as the entire nutrition department in the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) And about the suspension of research on infectious diseases in the National Institutes of Health (National Institutes of Health) To focus on chronic diseases. In fact, though, many government employees have functional protection for civil service. And the presence of many departments is costly under the law. Congress also has an opinion on the distribution of money within each other.
George Benjamin of the American General Health Assembly says: Things that prevent chronic diseases are not secret. Cancer (see graph). Among them, the American diet reforming is the closest to the heart of Mr. Kennedy. He wants to cleanse the American diet Manufactured foods Packed with additions such as synthetic colors and other chemicals. But federal food programs with a larger fingerprint are subject to the Ministry of Agriculture. It includes school meals (which benefits 29 million children) and the additional nutrition assistance program (previously known as stamps), which covers 42 million people. National food guidelines, which will come for review in 2025, are joint production by health and agriculture departments. Brock Rollins, a candidate for the Minister of Agriculture, may bow to many Republicans in Congress who are from the farm countries that will lose if potatoes or inexpensive foods are inserted with corn syrup.
Mr. Kennedy will have more control over Improving food safety and food marks On the foods you organize FDA-Especially if he adheres to his promise to protect health from the impact of companies. The most stringent organization of chemicals used in processed foods would force food companies to use fewer than them. But hiring many people FDA It is likely that this does not need an interest in managing a small government (to say anything about the impact of the great food in Congress). Nutrient information criteria usually lead to food packages designed with the participation of industry, as in America, to confusing information and confusing consumers.
However, as Mr. Kennedy admitted, changing what the Americans deal with more complicated than informing them of bad foods or that restricts food dollars on healthy foods. Fresh fruits and vegetables are rarely stored by the corner stores where many poor Americans buy their food; Shelves there are loaded with tobacco, alcohol and cheap processed foods. Programs found to enhance healthy foods in these fresh deserts usually include a form of support for store owners. This type of intervention can pay off in the long run, but it will be difficult to sell politically.
Nevertheless, this type of intervention is Jae Bhahatraia, an economist of health at Stanford University chosen by Mr. Trump to lead National Institutes of HealthIt can give priority to finding the best ways to make people eat more healthier. This would match the plans of Mr. Kennedy to transform National Institutes of Health Search for chronic diseases and nutrition. Of the 11,000 research projects funded by National Institutes of Health In 2012-2017, only 8.5 % focused on studying the prevention of risk factors that represent 70 % of deaths in America. Malnutrition is the main risk factor for poor health, but feeding research explains only 4 % of National Institutes of Health Spending.
This is important. When the Experts Committee holds responsibility for updating the American food guidelines in 2024 to discuss what to do with high -treated foods (highly treated (UPFHe concluded that the search for its effects was so high that it could not recommend anything specific. The most stringent clinical experience in the world on how UPFHealth has been affected in National Institutes of Health In 2019, the resources of such experiments were cut into the bones in 2022.
If the Senate is confirmed, Mr. Kennedy will quickly realize that he had a meaningful effect on chronic diseases, as he needs cooperation from public health services, which fall under CDCAnd government health departments (the agency allocates 70 % of its budget). They carry out campaigns to encourage people to eat healthy meals, stop smoking and drink less. It also runs free clinics where people who do not suffer from healthy cancer, diabetes and high blood pressure are examined.
Mr. Kennedy cleared Al -Qahim of the vaccines, even denies that he opposes it – there is no doubt about improving the chances of the Senate confirmation. But as soon as he achieves the job, he can focus on much of his capacity on the anti -action strategies. This will not make America healthy at all. Jerome Adams, who was the general surgeon in Mr. Trump’s first administration, also wrote. x“Chronic diseases are important – but you cannot death from cancer when you are 50 years old if you die from polio when you are 5.”■
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