The surprise coming together of Donald Trump and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. (RFK) has led to a fascinating twist in the issues now on the table. Suddenly we are hearing about the public health crisis in America, including obesity, chronic diseases, and the possible causal links to chemical-laden food and an overreliance on pharmaceuticals. They both pledge to change this problem.
Make America Healthy Again, goes the slogan. Somehow I never expected to hear that as part of any political campaign.
Hearing about all of this on the campaign trail struck me as a bit strange. The problems they identify are real and pressing. As I think back on it, however, I don’t think health as such has ever been a national campaign issue, at least not in my lifetime. And now suddenly it is.
To be sure, there was a time back in the Clinton years when health insurance reform was on the table. Then we got Obamacare later, which dramatically changed the way people pay for their medical care and how health insurance works. It promised lower premiums and more access, but now premiums are higher than ever, and we hear nothing but frustration from people who have the misfortune of having to deal with a convoluted system of obscure payments, endless visits to specialists, and massive bureaucracies that follow systems rather than deal with patients.
The debates surrounding those changes were not really about health. They were about the system that would pay for health care, which is a different issue entirely. What RFK and Trump are doing is highlighting the actual reality of declining health itself among the American public, particularly with regard to obesity, heart diseases, the rise of autism, and the dependency of the public on a seemingly endless stream of pharmaceutical concoctions rather than natural health and health maintenance.
Searching for a theory concerning why these issues have not been typically political, I suspect it traces to an American presumption that there is some separation between health and politics, a belief that in the system of private enterprise, matters of health pertain to individuals and families and not to political leaders. This presumption has long been maintained in American public life. In this way, it is unlike Europe, which has a very long history of socialist provision of health care, and so politics and health have long been bound up with each other.
What blew open this issue in the United States was, of course, the policy response to COVID-19. Here we had a fast-spreading respiratory virus that was widely feared, but specialists were telling us as early as January 2020 that these fears were misplaced.
Many others said the same, even Dr. Anthony Fauci. But whatever the reason, the lockdowns and mass quarantines happened anyway. They reached very deeply into our lives. Churches and movie theaters were closed. Malls became ghost towns. Many people could not hold house parties. Schools were shut, in some cases for fully two years.
The disruption was like nothing we had ever experienced. The reason cited over and over was that this was necessary for health, but it was never clear why and how it could be that denying people access to gyms and health food stores while keeping the pot shops and liquor stores open was consistent with good health. So of course Americans put on weight: the COVID-19 pounds, went the joke. But it was not a laughing matter when the demand for medical services skyrocketed.
In fact, the data look strange. The worse the COVID-19 infections and the more intense the lockdowns were, the less in the way of medical services was consumed. But as restrictions relaxed, the opposite happened, and people flooded into hospitals. Prices soared too.
Then the consumption of services related to disability soared also, and now we are at highs in terms of the number of people listed as disabled: fully 34 million people are so listed. This could be a reflection of the use of resources, but it is also likely very real too.
During this entire period, all authorities proclaimed that the vaccine would be the answer. When those vaccines came along, millions of people were forced to get them as a condition of employment, even when people did not want them and did not need them. The result was a huge increase in the reports of injury and death from the vaccines themselves. The data from the VAERS system reveal numbers we’ve never seen before.
There is more going on than just this. Once trust was lost, other questions opened up. What about the food? What about so many other vaccines and medications that the Food and Drug Administration has approved? Exactly how does this system work, and is it really good for us?
The past few years since this fiasco have seen the coming to light of new questions concerning the food supply. Those who have traveled internationally often tell stories of eating all that they want but coming home from trips thinner than when they left. This certainly happened to me on more than one occasion. In particular, I lost weight while traveling and eating my way all over Israel. I could tell then that the food was different. I was never sure why precisely, but it just seemed fresher and more real.
A movement I had long ago dismissed in America emphasized organic foods and at-home cooking while avoiding grocery store dreck. This movement eschewed chemical fertilizers, franken-seeds, and insecticides and insisted instead on regenerative agricultural practices.
I had somehow associated this movement with crunchy liberals who rejected the glories of capitalism. I was completely wrong in my assessment, and I’m startled to find that I’ve joined them in being far more careful about what I buy and what I eat. I now get what they are saying. I’ve joined them.
My change of heart, like millions of others, came after the COVID-19 period, when the scales fell from my eyes. Looking into it, I discovered that we’ve had many decades of heavy government subsidies for the worst food, and so much in the way of corn, soy, and wheat are produced that we’ve invented new ways to use it.
The most common new form is in the sweetener called high-fructose corn syrup, which research has shown to be extremely bad for health as compared with old-fashioned sugar. But sugar in the United States is twice as expensive relative to other countries precisely so that corn sugar can be more competitive. And today, it is hard to find any product in the local convenience store that does not contain corn sugar as the main sweetener.
It was perhaps just a matter of time before issues of health—not policies over health care provision but actual human health—would enter into our politics. We look at pictures of people in cities or at the beach in the 1970s and compare them with today, and the results are shocking. We have changed as people and for the worse.
As we examine our food and pharmaceutical systems, we find all kinds of subsidies, mandates, and regulations that favor corporate monopolies, and we are coming to realize that they have exercised inordinate influence over our bodies and lives. It is time to turn that around, but part of the answer must include a change in policy so that good health rather than corporate profits becomes a priority. RFK deserves every credit for convincing Trump of this issue, and it is satisfying to see both of them talking about this on the campaign trail.
In the end, however, health should not be a partisan issue. Americans are among the least healthy people in the world despite spending more per capita than any nation on earth. Above all else, we need to take greater responsibility for our own health education and practices, and we need systems of freedom that allow us to engage in the marketplace without being browbeaten and cajoled by monopolists in league with regulators.
This is the first campaign season in my lifetime in which the health and physical well-being of the American public has become a serious political issue. It will surely not be the last.
