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RFK JR...First Interview As Health Secretary · Gil I Am

0:05
Speaker 1: We just came from a press conference where there was
0:07
Speaker 1: discussion about legislation to try to, for example, get rid
0:11
Speaker 1: of additives to food on a state level. You've told
0:15
Speaker 1: me earlier today that in places like Europe they simply
0:19
Speaker 1: don't have these kind of additives. So I would love
0:23
Speaker 1: if you would share if there is a plan to
0:25
Speaker 1: sort of get it from the top down, to speak
0:27
Speaker 1: to the food companies and say how can we get
0:29
Speaker 1: it out of the food so that we don't have
0:31
Speaker 1: to go state by state by state and get it
0:32
Speaker 1: out through legislation.
0:34
Speaker 2: I mean, you know, one of the first groups I
0:37
Speaker 2: met with when I came in, when I was after
0:40
Speaker 2: I was sworn in, was there were the big food companies.
0:43
Speaker 2: All of the major food processors and producers in.
0:47
Speaker 3: This country had that go and it went very well.
0:50
Speaker 2: And I think they're at the point where they see
0:53
Speaker 2: the writing on the wall. And you know, one of
0:56
Speaker 2: the things I said is that the food dies kind
0:58
Speaker 2: of the most egregious guys. They don't use them in
1:01
Speaker 2: any other country. They're clearly associated with a variety a
1:06
Speaker 2: grim inventory of diseases, including cancers and behavioral disease, neurological
1:11
Speaker 2: disease like ADHD and it's very very well documented, and
1:17
Speaker 2: they're making that in many cases the same products in
1:20
Speaker 2: this country that have those dyes, and then they use
1:23
Speaker 2: vegetable dyes in Canada, Mexico and Europe.
1:26
Speaker 1: So can't you say to them, we want the stuff
1:28
Speaker 1: you're making there.
1:29
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's what I said to them, And you know,
1:33
Speaker 2: there was no real pushback. They it was just about timing.
1:36
Speaker 2: They said it's going to take us a while. For example,
1:39
Speaker 2: they the CEO of Pepsi, which hones Doritos, said that
1:47
Speaker 2: in Dorito's, you know people the consumers like them to
1:51
Speaker 2: be very red, and we have not yet found a
1:54
Speaker 2: vegetable dye that we can match, but we're going to
1:57
Speaker 2: do it. And I said, they all have to be
1:59
Speaker 2: out with it years.
2:00
Speaker 1: Within two years. You said it's going to take a while.
2:02
Speaker 1: What's a while.
2:03
Speaker 2: Well, I think we can go much faster than that.
2:06
Speaker 2: And I met with Tyson's Foods this two weeks ago
2:11
Speaker 2: and they only used one dye. They're down to one die,
2:14
Speaker 2: which is a caramel that is used in some of
2:17
Speaker 2: the meat products, and they said, we're already working on
2:19
Speaker 2: a way to get it out very quickly.
2:21
Speaker 1: So are there other things you can let us in
2:23
Speaker 1: on that haven't been publicly announced yet. That's happening in
2:26
Speaker 1: the background.
2:27
Speaker 2: Well, you know, we're getting rid of the GRASS standard,
2:29
Speaker 2: which is.
2:31
Speaker 3: Kind of the biggest villain.
2:33
Speaker 2: Which stands for general, generally recognized and safe, and it
2:36
Speaker 2: was a in the in the nineteen forties and fifties,
2:41
Speaker 2: FDA adopted this standard and started testing chemicals and food. Initially,
2:47
Speaker 2: FDA was a response to adulterated foods. It was testing
2:51
Speaker 2: for bacterian foods and began regulating chemical content of food
2:54
Speaker 2: and chemical additives. And it didn't want to it wanted
2:59
Speaker 2: to draw a line or have to test everything.
3:01
Speaker 3: So the traditional.
3:04
Speaker 2: Ingredients like yeas and wheat and eggs, et cetera. They said,
3:11
Speaker 2: for those kinds of foods, we're going to adopt a
3:13
Speaker 2: standard generally recognize the safe. We don't have to test them.
3:16
Speaker 2: We're not going to make the companies test them. But
3:19
Speaker 2: the FDA became captured by the food industry and they
3:25
Speaker 2: enlarge the GRASS standard to apply to everything. And that's
3:27
Speaker 2: why we have ten thousand ingredients in our food and
3:30
Speaker 2: the Europeans only have four hundred in there is because
3:33
Speaker 2: in Europe, before you add something a chemical to a food.
3:37
Speaker 3: You got to prove that it's safe. In our country,
3:39
Speaker 3: it is. It is a rubber stamped. Everything is assumed
3:43
Speaker 3: to be faved.
3:44
Speaker 1: So it's the precautionary it's the.
3:46
Speaker 2: Precautionary principle, which is, you know, you keep it out
3:49
Speaker 2: until you prove it safe.
3:51
Speaker 1: I have to turn to the news of the day
3:53
Speaker 1: since we have you here. A second child in Texas
3:57
Speaker 1: has died from measles. Why are Americans dying from measles
4:01
Speaker 1: in twenty twenty five.
4:03
Speaker 2: Well, there's you know, there's there's only three deaths from
4:07
Speaker 2: measles in twenty years, and they are all people with
4:12
Speaker 2: extreme complications.
4:15
Speaker 1: That's how you die from measles because of the complications. Yeah.
4:18
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's people who are already sick.
4:21
Speaker 1: And there's no there was no evidence with for example,
4:24
Speaker 1: these two girls, the two children, that they were sick
4:28
Speaker 1: before and they got sick from the measles. Right.
4:30
Speaker 3: Well, No.
4:31
Speaker 2: Daisy held, a brand whose funeral I attended this week,
4:35
Speaker 2: was hospitalized three times from other illnesses. She had extreme
4:39
Speaker 2: to hustle actomy, she had mononucleosis that she could not kick,
4:47
Speaker 2: and then she got measles.
4:48
Speaker 3: She got over the measles. According to her parents.
4:51
Speaker 2: And according to the medical reports that I saw a
4:54
Speaker 2: report on it today, the thing that killed her was
4:58
Speaker 2: not the measles, but it was a bacteriological infection.
5:00
Speaker 1: Of her lungs.
5:03
Speaker 2: Well, she was graph positive for strip bacteria in her bloodstream.
5:09
Speaker 1: Right. But what kills you with with measles, of course,
5:11
Speaker 1: is you have the measles virus and you get pulmonary
5:14
Speaker 1: allness because because the measles damage is the lungs and
5:17
Speaker 1: then the bacteria get in and that's the secondary infection.
5:20
Speaker 1: But it's the measles. But you came out, So.
5:23
Speaker 2: You know what, we do a pretty good job. We
5:25
Speaker 2: do a very good job at controlling the measles in
5:28
Speaker 2: this country. And although the numbers of measles cases are
5:33
Speaker 2: now around the six hundred and forty, those numbers will
5:36
Speaker 2: continue to grow because you're adding old cases to new
5:39
Speaker 2: cause and.
5:40
Speaker 1: There's a long incubation period of ten to fourteen days,
5:42
Speaker 1: so you don't know who's out there spreading.
5:44
Speaker 3: No but you're counting all the old cases where people
5:46
Speaker 3: have already got it.
5:47
Speaker 1: There are also people infected today who are traveling and
5:49
Speaker 1: you don't know who they're infecting.
5:50
Speaker 2: Right, But the point I'm making is that the rate
5:54
Speaker 2: of increase has substantially decreased, so we are successfully drawing it.
6:01
Speaker 2: I mean, I was going to prepare this compared to Europe,
6:03
Speaker 2: where they've had now one hundred and twenty seven thousand
6:06
Speaker 2: measles cases compared to eight hundred and forty here, and
6:09
Speaker 2: they've had thirty seven deaths. So you asked, why are
6:13
Speaker 2: we you know, why are we still having these We're
6:15
Speaker 2: having measles for we're always going to have measles no
6:19
Speaker 2: matter what happens.
6:20
Speaker 3: The vaccine wanes very quickly.
6:22
Speaker 1: And well, I guess the issue here is is and
6:24
Speaker 1: I'm so sorry for interrupting you. The issue was like
6:26
Speaker 1: a couple of days ago you did come out and said,
6:29
Speaker 1: and why don't you say you your what your statement
6:32
Speaker 1: was about measles vaccine, because I was interested to read
6:35
Speaker 1: that when you.
6:35
Speaker 3: Tweet measles vaccines limit the.
6:37
Speaker 1: Spread you said you said it was the most effective
6:41
Speaker 1: way to limit the limit the spread.
6:43
Speaker 2: But yeah, you know, with the President Trump's position, in
6:46
Speaker 2: my position is there's people who do not want to
6:50
Speaker 2: get vaccine and that's their choice, right, and we ought
6:53
Speaker 2: to be able to treat them and we ought to
6:55
Speaker 2: know how to treat them, and doctors want to have
6:57
Speaker 2: the besest information how to treat them.
7:00
Speaker 3: Stood that, and we're focusing on that.
7:03
Speaker 1: But I get the.
7:06
Speaker 3: Vaccine right because it does limit to.
7:09
Speaker 1: The spread when and it prevents it right. It's it's
7:12
Speaker 1: preventing the illness, you know, effective. And you said that,
7:16
Speaker 1: you said that two Louisiana babies have died a protestis
7:20
Speaker 1: that prompted Senator Cassidy to tweet? And I'm reading this
7:22
Speaker 1: because I want to get it exactly right. No child
7:25
Speaker 1: in Louisiana should die from a vaccine preventable disease. Please
7:29
Speaker 1: protect your child with a vaccine. Would you consider making
7:33
Speaker 1: a similar statement the vaccine is you know, no, he's
7:38
Speaker 1: just saying about a vaccine. Just would you consider making
7:41
Speaker 1: a statement saying, please protect your child with vaccine, even
7:46
Speaker 1: if you want to say specifically the measles vaccine. And
7:48
Speaker 1: because there is a measles.
7:49
Speaker 2: Well, I would say definitely so for the measles vaccine.
7:53
Speaker 1: Because you see it, you see what I'm getting a.
7:55
Speaker 3: Science on all the vaccines.
7:56
Speaker 2: There are some vaccines, like the Protestant vaccine, don't prevent transmission.
8:01
Speaker 3: And you know there are that in some.
8:04
Speaker 2: Ways can be dangerous too, because what can happen is
8:08
Speaker 2: that people do not get become symptomatic, and yet there
8:12
Speaker 2: can spread.
8:13
Speaker 1: I understand that. It's one thing though. I'm so sorry
8:15
Speaker 1: to interest, but I know we have like twenty minutes
8:17
Speaker 1: and I want to just make sure I get through
8:18
Speaker 1: and I want to get back to food. It's one
8:21
Speaker 1: thing to say the measles vaccine is the best way
8:24
Speaker 1: of preventing spread, but it's another thing to then say,
8:26
Speaker 1: and therefore we suggest that you get the measles vaccine.
8:31
Speaker 3: Are you encouraged people to get the measles vaccine? Okay?
8:34
Speaker 1: So that I mean, I think that's actually the next step.
8:36
Speaker 1: And that's news as far as I'm concerned that you're
8:39
Speaker 1: saying that, because you know, there's the issue of the
8:41
Speaker 1: federal government. We talked about this earlier when it came
8:44
Speaker 1: when we were talking about food, that what's the position
8:48
Speaker 1: philosophically of the federal government.
8:50
Speaker 2: In terms of the federal government's position, my position is
8:52
Speaker 2: people should get the MEAs vaccine. But if that, the
8:58
Speaker 2: government should not be mannedated.
9:00
Speaker 1: Understand, and the same thing we talked about about food.
9:03
Speaker 2: But you've always said during my campaign and every bath,
9:07
Speaker 2: every public statement I've made, I'm not going to take
9:11
Speaker 2: people's vaccines away from What all I'm going to do
9:13
Speaker 2: is make sure that we have good science so that
9:16
Speaker 2: people can make an informed choice. And we are doing
9:18
Speaker 2: that science today, so we know the risks of that
9:23
Speaker 2: product and we also know what the benefits are. Right now,
9:26
Speaker 2: we don't know the risks of many of these products
9:28
Speaker 2: because they're not a safety.
9:29
Speaker 1: And I understand that position, but just to be clear,
9:32
Speaker 1: you are saying and we do on the federal level,
9:34
Speaker 1: and you personally do recommend that people get the measles vaccine.
9:38
Speaker 2: And when I say they're not safety tested, what I
9:40
Speaker 2: mean is they're not adequately. Many of the vaccines are
9:43
Speaker 2: tested for only three or four days, with no place
9:46
Speaker 2: eba group.
9:47
Speaker 1: I want. I want to move forward because I know,
9:48
Speaker 1: I know time is ticking, and thank you for even
9:51
Speaker 1: giving us this time. But I don't want to leave
9:54
Speaker 1: the subject without saying, you just went to the funeral
9:57
Speaker 1: of a young girl who died from measles? What was
10:01
Speaker 1: that like for you?
10:03
Speaker 2: You know, it was very heartbreaking as a community that's
10:06
Speaker 2: lost two children over a very very short period of time.
10:11
Speaker 3: Too, a six year old girl, Kaylee Kayley Fair and
10:18
Speaker 3: the eight year old.
10:18
Speaker 2: Girl Daisy hill Brand And you know, I've spent a
10:21
Speaker 2: lot of time with both parents, both sets of parents,
10:25
Speaker 2: and it was, you know, in some ways, it was
10:28
Speaker 2: very nice to be able to actually meet them in
10:31
Speaker 2: person and spend a whole day with them, and share
10:35
Speaker 2: their lives with them, and get to know their community,
10:37
Speaker 2: which was very welcoming and loving towards me. And to
10:42
Speaker 2: attend these very very moving services for these girls, and
10:46
Speaker 2: to meet people, these extraordinary people who are so resilient
10:50
Speaker 2: and so so god fearing.
10:55
Speaker 3: And resourceful and just kind.
11:00
Speaker 2: Did you use the odd community, I mean, men night
11:04
Speaker 2: community was It was beautiful to me because I went
11:07
Speaker 2: to a large lunch with the whole community and you had,
11:12
Speaker 2: you know, boys and girls sitting together and nobody was
11:17
Speaker 2: on his cell phone and they were talking to each
11:20
Speaker 2: other and they were being part of a community, and
11:22
Speaker 2: it's you know, I think it's an ideal that the
11:25
Speaker 2: rest of us ought to be emulating.
11:26
Speaker 1: You know, as a physician, it's one thing to like
11:28
Speaker 1: look at something that's going on across the country. It's
11:31
Speaker 1: nothing to be in the room where it's happening, and
11:33
Speaker 1: I wonder if you had any epiphanies, any any revelation
11:36
Speaker 1: to just to yourself as you were sitting there and
11:39
Speaker 1: listening to people and thinking about what had happened. Did
11:41
Speaker 1: it change you in any way?
11:44
Speaker 2: You know, it's always It's just it was a very moving,
11:47
Speaker 2: moving day, and I just appreciated that the welcome the
11:52
Speaker 2: community gave me, and.
11:54
Speaker 3: You know, the I just appreciate the way that they live.
11:58
Speaker 1: Let's move on to the last week's staff reductions. In
12:03
Speaker 1: the coming reorganization. I think there are a lot of questions,
12:05
Speaker 1: and I've sort of been down in the trenches talking
12:07
Speaker 1: to people and hearing sort of the uncertainties between all
12:11
Speaker 1: of the resignations and retirements and the layoffs. The number
12:14
Speaker 1: of employees been reduced by about twenty five percent. Are
12:17
Speaker 1: things going according to plan?
12:20
Speaker 3: Well, it's yes, they are going according to plan.
12:23
Speaker 2: And you know, our agency grew by thirty eight percent
12:28
Speaker 2: over the past four years, right, so these reductions just.
12:32
Speaker 3: Bring it down to pre COVID levels.
12:35
Speaker 2: And the agency grew over the last eighty years or
12:40
Speaker 2: seventy years, and it's it grew in a way that's
12:43
Speaker 2: very unwieldy. We have one hundred communication departments. We have
12:48
Speaker 2: we have forty procurement departments, we have forty IT departments,
12:52
Speaker 2: we have nine HR departments, and many of them have
12:54
Speaker 2: computer systems that can't talk to each.
12:56
Speaker 1: Other, that are that are faxing to each other.
12:58
Speaker 2: Right, and we all so had we had twenty eight
13:02
Speaker 2: different institutes or eight sub agencies, and many of them
13:07
Speaker 2: were redundant. So what this reorganization is meant to do
13:11
Speaker 2: is to eliminate the redundancies, to streamline the agency, and
13:16
Speaker 2: to reorient it so that we are trying to make
13:18
Speaker 2: America healthy because a lot of times people when they
13:22
Speaker 2: live in silos, are you know, become their mission comes
13:30
Speaker 2: to accomplish a very very narrow task. And I want
13:36
Speaker 2: everybody at that agency to wake up every morning like
13:38
Speaker 2: I do, and say what do I need to do
13:41
Speaker 2: today to make America healthy again? And to imbue them
13:45
Speaker 2: with and inspire them with that sense of mission. And
13:48
Speaker 2: we need to streamline the agency to do that.
13:50
Speaker 1: Whenever you make such enormous changes, things are going to
13:52
Speaker 1: be disruptive. Something on that right, it's disruptive. So are
13:56
Speaker 1: things being disrupted like for example, monitoring food and drug
14:00
Speaker 1: safety or preparing for the next pandemic. Do you have
14:02
Speaker 1: a sense that that's being No, you don't.
14:04
Speaker 3: Know the no. The the.
14:09
Speaker 2: In almost every every situation, cutswame weight or administrative cuts,
14:15
Speaker 2: and they were redundancies. In some cases we cut programs,
14:20
Speaker 2: but we only did that one. We consolidated them into
14:23
Speaker 2: another program. So the task will continue, that their their
14:27
Speaker 2: mission will continue.
14:29
Speaker 3: The people are still there for the most part.
14:31
Speaker 1: Although I guess things get lost in the sauce before
14:34
Speaker 1: I was looking for examples. The novavax covid vaccine and
14:37
Speaker 1: that's not an m RNA vaccine was expected to be
14:40
Speaker 1: approved by the FDA, but there's a delay. Why is
14:43
Speaker 1: there a delay? Is it just personnel being shoveled, chef?
14:47
Speaker 2: Why is that We're looking at that vaccine and it
14:50
Speaker 2: is a single ergen vaccine and for respiratory illnesses, the
14:56
Speaker 2: single anagen vaccines have never worked.
14:58
Speaker 1: So it's not because of lack a personnel.
15:01
Speaker 2: I mean we are we are actually shifting our priorities
15:06
Speaker 2: to multiple nagen vaccines and NIH is already working on
15:10
Speaker 2: a number of those.
15:12
Speaker 1: So that's so that's the answer to that. That's I
15:14
Speaker 1: get that last week you said twenty percent of those
15:17
Speaker 1: fired were by mistake and you knew that was going
15:19
Speaker 1: to happen.
15:21
Speaker 3: That I didn't say that.
15:24
Speaker 1: Tell me, tell me what you said mentally.
15:26
Speaker 2: Yeah, that was a statement that that Elon made at
15:29
Speaker 2: the beginning.
15:29
Speaker 1: It was like an eight what do you need to say?
15:32
Speaker 2: So for the record, you know what Elon said to
15:35
Speaker 2: us at the beginning and in our cabinet made and
15:37
Speaker 2: I think it made a lot of mistake, it.
15:41
Speaker 3: Made a lot of sense.
15:42
Speaker 2: Is that when you do you know, our government were
15:46
Speaker 2: spending two trillion dollars more than we have each year,
15:50
Speaker 2: and that's existential, and that's a public health issue, and
15:54
Speaker 2: we need to cut the size of the government and
15:56
Speaker 2: make it more efficient and make it to services more efficiently.
16:00
Speaker 2: Agh As his job is to make America healthy and
16:03
Speaker 2: we're spending one point nine trillion dollars a year and
16:05
Speaker 2: people are not getting healthy, people are getting sicker and sicker.
16:08
Speaker 2: So along those lines, so what Elon said is that
16:12
Speaker 2: when you do a disruption, it is a lot of times,
16:15
Speaker 2: you know, eighty percent of the people that get cut,
16:18
Speaker 2: and you know, my heart goes out to anybody who
16:20
Speaker 2: use their job. It's heartbreaking for all of us, but
16:24
Speaker 2: it's something that has to be done if we're going
16:26
Speaker 2: to save our country and restore it. And he said
16:29
Speaker 2: that anytime you do a disruption like this, eighty percent of.
16:33
Speaker 3: The people need to go.
16:35
Speaker 2: You may you may make mistakes as much as twenty
16:38
Speaker 2: and then you go back and and remedy that.
16:42
Speaker 1: Again, so that brings up the question, what specific metrics
16:46
Speaker 1: is those using to decide if a program is waste,
16:49
Speaker 1: fraud or abuse.
16:52
Speaker 2: Well, they you know, they have a very very sophisticated
16:56
Speaker 2: group of people, and they have a very sophisticated, hated
17:01
Speaker 2: systems for detecting fraudways in US.
17:03
Speaker 1: But and yet twenty percent of the people who were cut.
17:06
Speaker 3: That was that was a hypothetical, but a.
17:09
Speaker 1: Lot of people were fired and then rehired, right So
17:12
Speaker 1: the you know, I'm just wondering, you know, as like
17:14
Speaker 1: I'm just trying to imagine, you know, And I've also
17:17
Speaker 1: you know, run a company in the past. You know,
17:19
Speaker 1: wouldn't it have been better or was thought given to
17:22
Speaker 1: say before firing them, going through and saying hmm, what
17:25
Speaker 1: is that job? What is that your line by line
17:27
Speaker 1: by line and saying I think that person's job maybe
17:31
Speaker 1: isn't needed. You know, this has to be.
17:33
Speaker 2: A limited That would have been another approach, and it's
17:36
Speaker 2: the approach that has been has failed.
17:39
Speaker 1: For sixty years because you mean, it takes too long.
17:41
Speaker 3: It takes too long, and you lose political momentum. You
17:44
Speaker 3: need to do.
17:45
Speaker 1: But there are some casualties the twenty percent.
17:47
Speaker 2: Yeah, and there's going to be There are going to
17:49
Speaker 2: be casualties, and there's gonna be mistakes. And what our
17:51
Speaker 2: job is as we reconstant is agency make sure that
17:57
Speaker 2: you know those mistakes are rectified.
17:59
Speaker 1: Good and we're moving along nicely. So I want to
18:01
Speaker 1: go to the cuts to research and progms. You proposed
18:05
Speaker 1: more than eleven billion dollars in cuts to local and
18:07
Speaker 1: state programs addressing things like infectious disease, mental health, addiction,
18:11
Speaker 1: and childhood vaccination. Did you personally approve those cuts.
18:15
Speaker 2: I'm not familiar with those cuts, you know, I mean,
18:19
Speaker 2: we'd have to go, we'd have to go.
18:21
Speaker 1: There's like more than fifty pages of you know, of
18:24
Speaker 1: cuts that I actually went through.
18:25
Speaker 3: All the guys were mainly the I got was the president.
18:28
Speaker 1: There were a lot, but I'll give you I mean,
18:30
Speaker 1: and I actually my eyes are blurry from going through them.
18:32
Speaker 1: And I understand because my eyes were blurry, why you
18:35
Speaker 1: might not have seen every one of them. But I'm
18:38
Speaker 1: for example, about seven hundred and fIF you talk about diabetes,
18:42
Speaker 1: adolescent diabetes so important, About seven hundred and fifty thousand
18:45
Speaker 1: dollars of a University of Michigan grant into adolescent diabetes
18:49
Speaker 1: was cut. Did you know that?
18:52
Speaker 3: I didn't know that, And that's something that we'll look at.
18:54
Speaker 1: Yeah, So, I mean that's you know, I wonder should
18:57
Speaker 1: these be considered? Doge cuts these?
19:00
Speaker 2: Well, I you know, I couldn't speak to that doctor
19:03
Speaker 2: Lepeuge because I you know, I just I'm not familiar
19:07
Speaker 2: with that particular study. But there's a number of studies
19:10
Speaker 2: that were cut that came to our attention and that
19:14
Speaker 2: did not deserve to be cut, and we reinstated them.
19:17
Speaker 2: Our purpose is not to reduce any level of scientific
19:22
Speaker 2: research that's important.
19:24
Speaker 1: So that's that's that's I'm so glad you said that,
19:26
Speaker 1: because figuring out what's important is tough, right, because you
19:30
Speaker 1: may not know at the time you're doing basic research
19:32
Speaker 1: what will end up being super important later on. For example,
19:35
Speaker 1: a discovery made in nineteen seventy ended up leading to
19:38
Speaker 1: the monoclonal antibody therapy against COVID that helped save the
19:41
Speaker 1: life of President Trump fifty years later. So you know,
19:46
Speaker 1: if at the time he rolled into the emergency room,
19:48
Speaker 1: somebody said, oh, I have an idea, let's have an
19:49
Speaker 1: antibody stop up the virus, it's way too late. You
19:51
Speaker 1: need decades of research. So how do you plan to
19:53
Speaker 1: ensure today's cuts won't mean decades in the future somebody
19:57
Speaker 1: will end up not getting the kind of care.
19:59
Speaker 3: They could have had. Well, I mean, if the research
20:02
Speaker 3: was done.
20:02
Speaker 2: For that virtue, you should just fund everything and and
20:08
Speaker 2: I hope for the best. That's you know, fifty years
20:10
Speaker 2: from now that this is.
20:11
Speaker 1: Well, no, but at least you go line out of
20:13
Speaker 1: my life say, oh, diabetes research.
20:15
Speaker 3: We're trying to do.
20:16
Speaker 2: We're trying to target problems that we have in our
20:18
Speaker 2: society today that are very obvious, which is chronic disease,
20:22
Speaker 2: and we're trying to end in infectious disease. And we're
20:27
Speaker 2: trying to target our cuts, or are targeting our funding
20:32
Speaker 2: or to actually solving that problem. And we're reorienting, reorienting,
20:36
Speaker 2: recalibrating our course.
20:39
Speaker 3: And we look at everything.
20:40
Speaker 2: And say, is this design to make is this likely
20:43
Speaker 2: to make americalthy?
20:44
Speaker 3: And you have to do that.
20:45
Speaker 2: Any anybody who's funding research makes those decisions.
20:49
Speaker 1: And it's tough, right because you know as well as anybody.
20:51
Speaker 1: I would think that you just may not know. If
20:53
Speaker 1: you go back to nineteen seventy, Oh, there's a plasma
20:56
Speaker 1: cell that we can fiddle around with to make it
20:58
Speaker 1: make one type of antibody. Why would anybody want to
21:01
Speaker 1: do that cut? You know? And then he turns out
21:03
Speaker 1: fifty years later it ends up helping to save the
21:05
Speaker 1: life of President Trump. So I think, what's it like
21:08
Speaker 1: for you in this position to be making those kind
21:10
Speaker 1: of you know, life and life and death decisions? Now?
21:13
Speaker 2: Ugily, I have an extraordinarily talented group of people, probably
21:16
Speaker 2: the most talented people who have ever worked in an
21:18
Speaker 2: Iaja Botachara who was at the Stanford, Marty McCarey, who's
21:24
Speaker 2: running FDA, who came to us from Johns Hopkins. These
21:28
Speaker 2: are among the researchers and doctors in the world.
21:32
Speaker 1: So are those are the people you're going to be
21:33
Speaker 1: talking with? Who are you talking about?
21:34
Speaker 3: I talk with them every day, with them every day.
21:37
Speaker 2: I talk with them every day, and they share my
21:39
Speaker 2: aspirations and President Trump's aspirations that we want to do.
21:43
Speaker 2: We want to make sure that America remains the hub
21:47
Speaker 2: of scientific research in the world.
21:50
Speaker 1: And yet I've been up to some of these universities
21:52
Speaker 1: and there are people who are worried about brain drain.
21:55
Speaker 1: They're saying, look, you know, it's tough enough to be
21:57
Speaker 1: a researcher. I'm out of here. I'm not. And even
21:59
Speaker 1: people in high school college are saying, you know, you
22:01
Speaker 1: know what, it's too tough. I don't know what's going
22:02
Speaker 1: to be funded. I'm out of here. And so people
22:04
Speaker 1: are really worried about brain dam Well, I.
22:07
Speaker 2: Don't think anybody who's doing good research is anything to
22:09
Speaker 2: worry about.
22:11
Speaker 1: And who's deciding what's good research.
22:13
Speaker 2: Well, at this point it's going to be Jay Boutichara
22:15
Speaker 2: and Matt Mamoli. You who's a top flu researcher at
22:19
Speaker 2: an IAGE is going to be one running an IAID.
22:22
Speaker 1: And were they involved in the cuts that were already made?
22:24
Speaker 1: Those fifty more than fifty pages lot, but a.
22:26
Speaker 2: Lot of the cuts were made, I doge. Yeah, they
22:29
Speaker 2: were cuts that targeted specific areas. As I said, I
22:32
Speaker 2: you know, I have to look into these I know,
22:35
Speaker 2: some research got cut that we didn't want to get done,
22:37
Speaker 2: and we've been able to restore it, but you know,
22:41
Speaker 2: most of it, virtually all the cuts were DEI cuts.
22:44
Speaker 3: Got it.
22:46
Speaker 1: You've been a rabble rouser your whole life from the outside.
22:50
Speaker 1: What's it like to be on the inside? Now?
22:52
Speaker 3: It's good?
22:53
Speaker 2: I mean, I you know, it's the best job I've
22:55
Speaker 2: ever had. I look forward to going to work every day.
23:00
Speaker 2: I'm working with immensely talented people, and you know, as
23:04
Speaker 2: you probably know, the greatest joy.
23:07
Speaker 3: Of going.
23:11
Speaker 2: To work every day is if you are mission oriented
23:16
Speaker 2: and you're working with exceptional people.
23:18
Speaker 3: And you know I have that privilege.
23:21
Speaker 1: I know, I'm running out of times. Somebody say, if
23:23
Speaker 1: you could change one thing about the pharmaceutical industry, what
23:26
Speaker 1: would it be?
23:29
Speaker 3: You know, I.
23:32
Speaker 2: Think what we need to do is to realign our
23:35
Speaker 2: incentives in this country. At this point, pharmaceutical drugs are
23:39
Speaker 2: the third biggest killer of Americans, and so pharma has
23:43
Speaker 2: given us extraordinary inventions and extraordinary medical treatments, but the
23:52
Speaker 2: profit orientation of the industry has sometimes given us also
23:59
Speaker 2: reverse outcome and outcomes that you know, we need to
24:02
Speaker 2: do everything that we can regard against.
24:05
Speaker 3: And what we are trying to do.
24:07
Speaker 2: Our overall objective is to realign the incentives for the
24:12
Speaker 2: industry or hospitals, for the entire medical establishment with our
24:20
Speaker 2: public needs, which is to make America healthier again.
24:23
Speaker 1: You know, in nineteen sixty when your uncle was president,
24:27
Speaker 1: thirteen percent of American adults through obese, and as you
24:31
Speaker 1: well know, that number is up to about forty two
24:32
Speaker 1: percent of something like that. And so you have this
24:35
Speaker 1: problem of you wanted to make America healthy again, so
24:38
Speaker 1: creating an environment where that young people come into a
24:41
Speaker 1: much better environment than they don't become obese. But you
24:44
Speaker 1: also have all of these millions of people who already
24:47
Speaker 1: are obese, and we know that the GLP one agonists,
24:49
Speaker 1: for example, are really the most effective way of treating them.
24:53
Speaker 1: So I know, so what are you going to do
24:56
Speaker 1: in terms of coverage of the GLP one agonists for
24:59
Speaker 1: people on Medica aid in Medicare, Because you have to
25:02
Speaker 1: simultaneously have the next generation come in and be healthy.
25:05
Speaker 1: But also you can't just ignore the people who it's
25:07
Speaker 1: really the best thing to do to decrease their risk
25:10
Speaker 1: of dying, of dying prematurely and getting diagageged I mean
25:14
Speaker 1: everything else.
25:15
Speaker 2: You know what we're glp agness, which are extraordinary drugs,
25:19
Speaker 2: aren't They are available to anybody who's got diabetes. Anybody
25:23
Speaker 2: who's diagnosed as diabetic or prediabetic are entitled that drugs.
25:27
Speaker 1: But obesity and for morbidly obs for people over over
25:34
Speaker 1: thirty it's I think it's over the over BM I
25:36
Speaker 1: have twenty seven with some hard risk and over thirty.
25:39
Speaker 2: Yeah, we're looking at a reletive regulatory framework from making
25:43
Speaker 2: it available to people under insurance, it will be available
25:47
Speaker 2: to anybody who wants to pay for it.
25:48
Speaker 3: We are reducing the call. We're going to reduce the costs.
25:52
Speaker 1: Will Medicaid and medicare cover it?
25:54
Speaker 3: They want?
25:56
Speaker 2: Let me finish in telling you what our blueprint is. Ideally,
26:02
Speaker 2: over the long term, we'd like to see that those
26:07
Speaker 2: drugs available are people after they try other interventions, so
26:14
Speaker 2: glucose monitors, for example, which are very very effective. It
26:17
Speaker 2: only costs eighty dollars a month and they've been shown
26:21
Speaker 2: to be extraordinarily effective in helping people lose weight and
26:24
Speaker 2: avoid diabetes. Health regimens including particularly change and diet, but
26:32
Speaker 2: also exercise.
26:34
Speaker 1: Which of course have been tried for half a century.
26:36
Speaker 3: Weak.
26:36
Speaker 2: Yeah, but now we have ways of monitoring health so
26:39
Speaker 2: that people can honor themselves and they can show that
26:42
Speaker 2: they've done these interventions. If they don't work, then you
26:44
Speaker 2: would be entitled to the drug. So they don't work framework.
26:47
Speaker 1: That's news also to me. So if that doesn't work,
26:50
Speaker 1: and a caregiver, a health care provider says, you know what,
26:53
Speaker 1: given a good try, Medicare and Medicaid will cover the glpple.
26:57
Speaker 2: That's what That is the framework that we're now debating.
27:00
Speaker 2: You know, I read last night and as you know,
27:02
Speaker 2: I mean, if you just made it, I mean, you know,
27:05
Speaker 2: I think everybody would like to make those drugs available
27:08
Speaker 2: to everybody under medicaid medicare, but the impact on our
27:14
Speaker 2: medical costs would increase dramatically. And you know, one of
27:18
Speaker 2: the estimates I saw is that the average employer in
27:22
Speaker 2: this country would end up paying double what they're paying
27:25
Speaker 2: now for healthcare cause.
27:27
Speaker 3: For their workers.
27:28
Speaker 2: And that if if if we made GLPAGE just get
27:33
Speaker 2: in Europe, they're they're they're one third the cost of
27:35
Speaker 2: you know.
27:36
Speaker 3: They're less than that.
27:37
Speaker 2: I think, you know, it's thirteen hundred dollars here at
27:39
Speaker 2: the list price, and in London it's eighty eight dollars
27:43
Speaker 2: for the same drug. So President Trump has ordered us
27:47
Speaker 2: to get to bring it down to something around European pricing.
27:53
Speaker 1: I'm getting this meaning wrap up. I'm going to give
27:54
Speaker 1: you one last question, which is basic question.
27:58
Speaker 3: What's the basic.
27:59
Speaker 1: Level of care every American should receive and who should
28:02
Speaker 1: pay for it?
28:03
Speaker 2: Well, you know that's a when it comes to healthcare,
28:07
Speaker 2: that's a difficult question because people have a choice about
28:10
Speaker 2: how sick they're going to be.
28:11
Speaker 3: Many people.
28:13
Speaker 2: If you don't have any choice and you know are
28:16
Speaker 2: then we should give you all the resources that you
28:21
Speaker 2: that you want. But I mean it's a moral question too,
28:24
Speaker 2: and it's a philosophical question. If if you're smoking three
28:29
Speaker 2: packs of cigarettes a day, should you expect society to
28:33
Speaker 2: pay when you.
28:34
Speaker 3: Get sick.
28:37
Speaker 1: Most?
28:37
Speaker 3: Yeah? Or should we encourage people?
28:39
Speaker 2: Should we incentivize people to take care of themselves and
28:43
Speaker 2: then when they get sick, make sure they're taken care of.
28:47
Speaker 2: Shouldn't we build in some incentives for people to actually
28:51
Speaker 2: self care so that they say so they benefit society.
28:55
Speaker 2: It's the patriotic thing to do, it's a sensible thing
28:58
Speaker 2: to do, and it will help every and really, and
29:01
Speaker 2: that's all about realigning our incentive systems so people have
29:06
Speaker 2: an so people have an incentive to keep themselves healthy,
29:11
Speaker 2: and so that the industry has an incentive to actually
29:15
Speaker 2: look at outcomes rather than you know, amplifying the number
29:19
Speaker 2: of tests that they do.
29:21
Speaker 1: And so so if somebody is trying as hard as
29:24
Speaker 1: they can, they just doing everything, but they still are
29:27
Speaker 1: not sort of getting there, is there a certain.
29:29
Speaker 3: Society you should take care of them in that case?
29:31
Speaker 1: And of course the questions be, well, who decides that
29:33
Speaker 1: they've tried everything they can and it's got it? And
29:36
Speaker 1: who would that be The person who decides.
29:37
Speaker 2: Well, I mean there's a million ways to make that decision.
29:41
Speaker 2: And the way insurance industry used to do it is
29:45
Speaker 2: they'd say, are you a smoker? And if you were
29:47
Speaker 2: a smoker, the price of your insurance would go up.
29:51
Speaker 3: Oh, there were built.
29:52
Speaker 2: In incentives and you know you. And if you have
29:54
Speaker 2: private industry that is looking at actuarial charts and is
29:59
Speaker 2: looking at as an incentive to look at our behavior
30:02
Speaker 2: and to encourage us to take better care of ourselves,
30:05
Speaker 2: that's one way to do it. And what we're trying
30:08
Speaker 2: to figure out is how do you do it under
30:10
Speaker 2: the current system where there is no penalty for bad behavior,
30:14
Speaker 2: you know, for destructive behavior. And I don't if you
30:18
Speaker 2: want to eat you know, donuts all day or you know,
30:22
Speaker 2: on drink, soat is that's your choice that we live
30:25
Speaker 2: in America and you, God bless you, you can make
30:27
Speaker 2: that choice. And I would never take that away from somebody.
30:30
Speaker 2: But in terms of should you then expect society to
30:35
Speaker 2: care for you when you predictably get very sick at
30:40
Speaker 2: this same level as somebody who was born with a
30:43
Speaker 2: congenital illness? And you know, those these are all moral questions,
30:47
Speaker 2: they're philosophical questions, but they're also pragmatic questions that we
30:52
Speaker 2: need to be thinking about and we need to be answering.
30:55
Speaker 2: And the way to do that, the best answer to
30:57
Speaker 2: that is to realign our incentives so that they the
31:01
Speaker 2: economic incentives the individuals and industry, align with the public
31:06
Speaker 2: health outcomes that we desire.
31:08
Speaker 1: Well, that leaves us ending on Albert Lee, Minnesota, right,
31:10
Speaker 1: one of the blue zone creations. Have you heard about this,
31:14
Speaker 1: Dan Bute? Now, so Albert Lee Minnesota. He tried to
31:16
Speaker 1: you know about the blue zones. Of course, and he
31:18
Speaker 1: tried to recreate it an Albert Lee, Minnesota, and he
31:22
Speaker 1: talked to the chefs, and he talked to the mayor,
31:24
Speaker 1: and they made new walkways where people could go, and
31:26
Speaker 1: they made the whole place healthier. And it was remarkable.
31:30
Speaker 1: In a couple of years they had extended people's predicted lifespan.
31:35
Speaker 1: People were healthier, and that was by creating an environment
31:39
Speaker 1: where it wasn't you have to make a choice. Like
31:41
Speaker 1: in Sardinia, people are healthy because guess what, every morning
31:44
Speaker 1: the churches at the top of the hill, they got
31:46
Speaker 1: to walk up the hill and then walk down the hill.
31:48
Speaker 1: So the idea is to make an environment where you
31:51
Speaker 1: just trip over good health, the food is good, there's
31:53
Speaker 1: no other choices. You have to walk from what place
31:55
Speaker 1: to place. And I wonder how you scale something.
31:58
Speaker 2: Like that, And that is exactly the mission that we're
32:04
Speaker 2: working toward now, is how do you and how do you?
32:07
Speaker 2: And you know, there are many businesses in our country
32:10
Speaker 2: that have adopted those kind of protocols. A Cleveland clinic
32:14
Speaker 2: has done an extraordinary job at that the study of
32:18
Speaker 2: its own workers, but there are many other industries that
32:21
Speaker 2: have said if you work here and you do certain
32:25
Speaker 2: things to take care you of your health.
32:27
Speaker 3: There will be advantages for you in this job.
32:30
Speaker 2: And their healthcare costs have declined dramatically, and their lost
32:35
Speaker 2: work days have declined dramatically, and they have a happier workforce.
32:40
Speaker 3: So you know, I think.
32:43
Speaker 2: What we're trying to do is to create incentives for
32:47
Speaker 2: a win win situation where everybody is where people who
32:51
Speaker 2: are needy are taken care of, and where everybody is
32:56
Speaker 2: encouraged to take care of themselves and keep themselves healthy.
32:59
Speaker 1: And not just in centives, but building an environment where
33:02
Speaker 1: they just trip over the course. Thank you so much
33:04
Speaker 1: for all your time. Thank you very much for misty Secretary.
33:07
Speaker 1: I really appreciate it.