An Existential Threat to our Country The U.S. healthcare system is “an existential threat to our country,” Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on Monday told members of a congressional roundtable on nutrition and the prevalence of chronic illness. “Every major pillar of the U.S. healthcare system as a statement of economic fact makes money when Americans get sick,” Kennedy said. “The most valuable asset in this country today is a sick child.” Kennedy, founder and chairman on leave of Children’s Health Defense (CHD), joined a lineup of prominent doctors and medical professionals, scientists, nutritionists and academic researchers who participated in the roundtable, which was hosted by Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.). CHD CEO Mary Holland, who attended the roundtable, told The Defender: “Sen. Johnson’s roundtable on health and nutrition was both devastating and inspiring. Devastating because our food system is so corrupt and harmful to health, and inspiring because the speakers and those assembled were so passionate about turning things around quickly. “All shared the view that these problems are man-made and can be corrected — by individuals in terms of diet, by Congress in terms of law and by health agencies intent on protecting people instead of profits.” ‘Why are we allowing this to happen to our children?’ According to Kennedy, U.S. government spending on healthcare is high — for poor results. “While American life expectancy plummets, we spend 4 times per capita more on healthcare than the Italians, but Italians live 7.5 years longer than us on average. During the COVID epidemic, [the U.S. had] the highest body count of any country in the world. We had 17% of the COVID deaths [with] 4.2% of the world’s population. We literally had the worst record of any country in the world,” Kennedy said. “All this should have been a blaring wake-up call about our weakened American immune systems,” Kennedy said. He cited figures from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) showing the average American who died from COVID-19 had, on average, 3.8 chronic diseases. “No other country has anything like this,” Kennedy said. According to Kennedy, two-thirds of U.S. adults and children suffer from chronic health problems, compared to 1% 50 years ago. “In Japan, the childhood obesity rate is 3%. Half of Americans have pre-diabetes or Type 2 diabetes. When I was 10 years old and my uncle was president, a typical pediatrician would see one case of Type 2 juvenile diabetes during his 40- or 50-year career. Today, one out of every three children … is diabetic or pre-diabetic,” he said. He also called out the rising rates of autism in children and mental health issues in teens. “Why are we allowing this to happen to our children?” he asked. “These are the most precious assets that we have in this country. … How can we call ourselves a moral nation, the exemplary democracy in the world, if we are treating our children like this?” 'We are literally poisoning our children systematically for profit’ There are “two culprits” primarily responsible for the chronic disease epidemic in the U.S., Kennedy said — ultra-processed foods and toxic chemicals in food, medicine and the environment. “Seventy percent of American children’s diets is now ultra-processed, which means industrial manufactured in a factory. These foods consist primarily of processed sugar, ultra-processed grain and seed oils.” Laboratory scientists, “many of whom were formerly working for the cigarette industry,” developed new chemicals and techniques “to make our food more addictive,” including the developments of ingredients and additives that “didn’t exist a hundred years ago.” “Hundreds of these chemicals are now banned in Europe, but they’re ubiquitous in American processed foods. We are literally poisoning our children systematically for profit,” Kennedy said. “Pesticides, food additives, pharmaceutical drugs and toxic waste permeate every cell in our bodies.” Kennedy noted that the average age of puberty today in the U.S. is the lowest in the world — and is six years younger than it was in 1900. He said: “Many of these chemicals increase estrogen, because young children are ingesting so many of these hormone disruptors. America’s fertility rate has now dropped. Sperm counts in teens are about 50% of what they were a couple of generations ago, and testosterone rates have dropped.” Dr. Chris Palmer, an expert on mental and metabolic health, told the panel, “These chronic diseases … are in fact metabolic dysfunction. The cause is … a toxic environment, like poor diet and exposure to harmful chemicals.” 'Shocking' Palmer called it “shocking” that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) allows food manufacturers to introduce new chemicals into the food supply without adequate testing. “The manufacturers are allowed to determine for themselves whether this substance is safe for you and your family to eat,” Palmer said. According to Jason H. Karp, founder and CEO of HumanCo, “Our FDA uses an innocent-until-proven-guilty approach for new chemicals or ingredients that’s known as GRAS, or ‘generally recognized as safe.’ This recklessly allows new chemicals into our food system until they are proven harmful.” Panelists said that while the consumption of ultra-processed foods is encouraged, foods that were traditionally part of the human diet are under attack. “The dangers of ultra-processed foods continue to be suppressed while the fear-mongering of nutrient-dense whole foods, such as red meat and eggs, continues,” said journalist Max Lugavere. He blamed “a coordinated effort between the food industry and the upper echelons of academia and nutrition science.” Eighteen-year-old activist and filmmaker Grace Price told the panel that young people are demonized for their health issues, even though those issues are the result of a contaminated food supply — and regulatory corruption. “Adults wonder why we are on pills for depression, ADHD [attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder] and obesity, but the answer is glaring at us.” Price said. “Just look at the most recent food pyramid that was released. Lucky Charms cereal is ranked higher than ground beef.” Price also noted that 95% of the members of the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) dietary guidelines advisory committee in 2020 were found to have conflicts of interest with Big Food and Big Pharma. Participants also addressed the use of toxic pesticides such as glyphosate and the prevalence — and dangers — of genetically modified crops. Nutritionist Courtney Swan told the panel that in 1974, the U.S started spraying crops with glyphosate, “and in the early 1990s, we began to see the release of genetically modified foods into our food supply. You can assume that if it’s not organic, it is likely contaminated with glyphosate.” Regulatory agencies transformed ‘into predators against the American people’ For Kennedy, regulatory capture places young people and future generations in peril. “We are destroying our kids and we’re doing it because we’re being manipulated to do it through all of the institutions of government,” Kennedy said, noting that 75% of FDA funding comes not from taxpayers, but from Big Pharma. “The FDA, the USDA and CDC are all controlled by giant for-profit corporations. Their function is no longer to improve and protect the health of Americans. Their function is to advance the mercantile and commercial interests of the pharmaceutical industry,” Kennedy said. Dr. Marty Makary said regulatory capture and lobbying created a healthcare system focused on bureaucratic procedure instead of protecting health. “We are so busy in our healthcare system billing and coding and paying each other … Every stakeholder has their gigantic lobby in Washington, D.C., and everybody’s making a lot of money except … the American citizen,” Makary said. Brigham Buhler, founder of regenerative clinic Ways2Well, said the cost of the chronic disease epidemic for society goes beyond just “dollars and cents.” He said healthcare costs are “the No. 1 reason for bankruptcy” in the U.S. and that such costs are ultimately “paid in human lives.” According to Kennedy, “If America fails, the chief reason will be because we let our country get sicker, more depressed, fatter, more infertile at an increasing rate while crippling our national security.” He added: “The good news is that we can change all this, and we can change it very, very, very quickly. It starts with taking a sledgehammer to corruption, to the conflicts in our regulatory agency and in this building. These conflicts have transformed our regulatory agencies into predators against the American people — and particularly our children.” Johnson said those who have sounded the alarm on the epidemic of chronic illness have been demonized, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic: “Those who seriously question the current orthodoxy or offer alternative treatments and approaches are generally ridiculed, vilified and canceled, with concerted effort made to destroy their reputations and careers. “We all witnessed this during the pandemic, as eminently qualified and respected doctors who had the courage and compassion to treat COVID patients using cheap generic drugs were fired, sued, and either lost their medical licenses and certifications or had them seriously threatened.” Makary said that while what he described as the “misinformation police” have targeted doctors, scientists and others who questioned official policies, “the greatest perpetrator of misinformation has been the United States government.” Describing this as a “spiritual battle,” Kennedy said American society possesses an “inherent resilience” that may help it overcome the current health crisis. “As long as we have that resilience, we’re always going to bounce back. As Americans, we’re not going to do that if our kids all have chronic disease.” The Defender on occasion posts content related to Children’s Health Defense’s nonprofit mission that features Mr. Kennedy’s views on the issues CHD and The Defender regularly cover. Mr. Kennedy, an independent candidate for president of the U.S., is on leave from CHD. In keeping with Federal Election Commission rules, this content does not represent an endorsement of Mr. Kennedy’s candidacy or his support for President Donald Trump’s campaign. Watch the roundtable discussion here (scroll down the page to the video link on the CHD page please.) Michael Nevradakis, Ph.D.Michael Nevradakis, Ph.D., based in Athens, Greece, is a senior reporter for The Defender and part of the rotation of hosts for CHD.TV's "Good Morning CHD."
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