Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on Health Care

Separate focus of NIH away from pharma industry

KENNEDY: No, I wouldn't dismantle them. I would change the focus and I would end the corruption. Right now, 75% of FDA's budget is coming from pharmaceutical companies. That is a perverse incentive.

Scientists and officials in NIH who work on drug development, who incubate drugs for the pharmaceutical company, get to collect lifetime royalties from those products. These are regulators. They're supposed to be looking for problems in those products. We have these agencies that have become sock puppets for the industries they're supposed to regulate. They're not really interested in public health.

Chronic disease affects 60% of Americans; was 6% under JFK

KENNEDY: This epidemic of chronic disease that is now disabled about 60% of our kids. And you know, when my uncle [John F. Kennedy] was President, only 6% of Americans had chronic disease. Today, over 60%. And, you know, it's hard to find a kid today that's not been damaged by it, and it's coming from our food supply, from pollution, toxics in our environment, and mainly from corruption in our government that allows that to happen.

Q: You've talked about or there's been discussion that if you were to join the Trump administration in some health related position, that you have real interest in dismantling things like the FDA, the CDC, NIH. You would like to see focus away from infectious diseases to what you're talking about more chronic diseases. Is it fair to say that you would try to dismantle some of those organizations?

KENNEDY: No, I wouldn't dismantle them. I would change the focus and I would end the corruption.

End corrupt incentives on pharmaceuticals in NIH and FDA

A: I would change the focus and I would end the corruption. Right now, 75% of FDA's budget is coming from pharmaceutical companies. That is a perverse incentive. Officials in NIH who work on drug development, who incubate drugs for the pharmaceutical company, get to collect lifetime royalties from those products. These are regulators. They're supposed to be looking for problems in those products. We have these agencies that have become sock puppets for the industries they're supposed to regulate. They're not really interested in public health.

The most profitable thing today in America is a sick child. Everybody is making money. The hospitals, the pharmaceutical companies, even the insurance companies make money. And we need to end those perverse incentives. We need to get the corruption out of FDA, out of NIH, out of the CDC and make them function as they're supposed to function, which is to protect public health and particularly children's health.

Would put Dr. Fauci on trial over COVID vaccines

Public option not right thing, unless part of single-payer

Last month, Kennedy was asked if he would support "universal health care through a Medicare for All program." In his response, Kennedy shifted the goalposts in a more moderate direction, redefining "single-payer" health care to mean something more like the Obama/Biden "public option" proposal. He said, "my highest ambition would be to have a single-payer program where people who want to have private programs can go ahead and do that, but to have a single program that is available to everybody."

We will move from a sick care system to a wellness society

Un-American to end religious exemptions for vaccinations