President-elect Donald Trump’s pick for health secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., said Thursday he believes anti-obesity drugs “have a place.”
The comment, given in a brief interview to CNBC off the floor of the New York Stock Exchange, was the strongest suggestion yet that, if confirmed to take over the Department Health and Human Services, Kennedy wouldn’t necessarily move to block access to a class of drugs that he’s sharply criticized in the past but that doctors are hailing as a powerful tool in the obesity epidemic.
When asked how he felt by drugs that mimic the actions of the GLP-1 hormone, Kennedy said “the first line of response should be lifestyle, it should be eating well, making sure that you don’t get obese, and that those GLP drugs have a place.”
Secretary of Health and Human Services nominee Robert F. Kennedy Jr. departs the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) on Dec. 12, 2024, in New York.
David Dee Delgado/AFP via Getty Images
Kennedy’s aside comes one day after Trump adviser Elon Musk said he believes “nothing would do more to improve the health, lifespan and quality of life for Americans than making GLP inhibitors super low cost to the public.”
The seeming endorsement of medications such as Ozempic, Wegovy, Mounjaro and Zepbound from two people who have Trump’s ear is likely to be a relief for the pharmaceutical industry following Kennedy’s sharp questioning of America’s reliance on weight-loss medications. Previously, Kennedy has said that if America paid more for quality food, it would solve the obesity crisis “overnight” — a statement obesity experts criticized as overly simplistic.
Tesla CEO and X owner Elon Musk listens as US President-elect Donald Trump speaks during a meeting with House Republicans at the Hyatt Regency hotel in Washington, Nov. 13, 2024.
Allison Robbert/POOL via Reuters, FILES
Still in question is how the incoming administration plans to handle coverage of the drugs through Medicare and Medicaid and any regulation of the private insurance industry.
The Biden administration has called for Medicare and Medicaid to expand coverage of weight-loss drugs for people struggling with obesity, not just as a treatment for diabetes. But because that rule won’t kick in until 2026, it’ll be up to the incoming administration to enact.
Covering GLP-1 drugs under federal health insurance programs would come at a significant cost to the country. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that expanding coverage of anti-obesity drugs in Medicare alone would increase federal spending by about $35 billion from 2026 to 2034.
Calley Means, a top adviser to Kennedy, has criticized the Biden proposal’s embrace of weight-loss drugs instead of pushing lifestyle changes and suggested that the incoming administration should work on “benefit flexibility where patients can work with their doctors on the best solution to reverse obesity for them,” including “lifestyle coaching, food interventions, or, in some cases, drugs.”
In this Oct. 31, 2023 file photo, a box of Ozempic and contents sit on a table in Dudley, North Tyneside, Britain.
Lee Smith/Reuters, FILE
Means also said the government should ensure the price mirrors European costs.
“The problem isn’t that Ozempic exists,” Means tweeted on Thursday. “It is the fact that this Danish company has been able to pay US regulators, media, and lawmakers to force this drug down our throats as the only option.”
In the CNBC interview on Thursday, Kennedy also reiterated his stance that he doesn’t oppose all vaccines.
While Kennedy has said he’s not opposed to all vaccines, he has falsely claimed that childhood vaccines cause autism, despite the retraction of the fraudulent study that originally suggested this link, and numerous subsequent high-quality studies disproving this theory.
In a Time magazine interview, Trump said the issue of vaccine safety still warrants a “big discussion” and that he would be open to restricting some vaccines if Kennedy found them “dangerous.”
Kennedy has said he is “fully vaccinated,” except against COVID-19.
