GOP White House doc unleashes profanity-laced rant on Trump official over new health claim
A doctor who served the George W. Bush administration has called out RFK Jr. for a recent claim on sickness rates in the United States.
The Secretary of Health and Human Services claimed the US has the sickest population on the planet. In an appearance on Theo Von's podcast, RFK Jr claimed that ultra-processed foods and a lack of disease information are making the country sicker. He posted a two-minute clip of the podcast appearance to his X account.
RFK Jr added in the caption, "Americans didn’t become the sickest people in the world because they’re lazy. We are sick because ultra-processed foods dominate our diets—and because the government misled the public about what drives disease."
Speaking to Theo Von, the Secretary of Health said, "When my uncle [John F. Kennedy] was president of this country, I was 10, he spent nothing on chronic illness. Zero.
"Today we spend $4.3trillion a year, and it's about 40 cents out of every tax dollar that is paid by you, to the federal government, that is going towards treatment for chronic disease. It's unsustainable, and it's getting worse every year.
"Individuals have a responsibility - when I was a kid, one in five children were obese. Today it's- overweight is 40%, and adults are even higher. People do not get obese because they're invalids or lazy, or they don't want to do exercise. They got that way because they are being mass poisoned.
"They're being mass poisoned because the government lied to them. And it lied about the food. Now, 70% of the food that our kids eat is ultra-processed food, and it's no coincidence. It's just poison."
Jonathan Reiner, the former cardiologist to Vice President Dick Cheney, disagreed with RFK Jr's claim that America had become the sickest country on the planet.
He wrote on X, "Americans are not the sickest people in the world. There’s a lot we can do to improve the health of our population, including eating better (and vaccinating our kids) but to call Americans the sickest people in the world, is just bulls---."