3 things RFK Jr. gets right about American health — even if you can’t stand him

One of the hardest things in American public life right now is to admit that someone you disagree with might be right about something.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the U.S. secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS), is the test case. Mention his name, and the conversation stops. People sort into camps before the next sentence. The man becomes the message, and the actual problem he’s pointing to — the slow, generational decline of American health — disappears behind him.

This is a luxury we can no longer afford.

I’ve spent more than three decades working as a holistic health advocate and supplement maker, most of it with people whose bodies stopped tolerating modern life. Consider setting Kennedy aside for a moment to evaluate what he’s actually saying. Whatever you think of him, three concerns merit a closer look.

First, chronic disease, not contagion, is our real emergency.

On the campaign trail in September 2024, Kennedy called for declaring a national chronic disease emergency and stated that chronic illness represents a public health crisis requiring urgent action. We still picture a health crisis as something sudden, like COVID-19 or a bad flu season. This crisis is quieter and far more expensive.

A 2010 JAMA study by Jeanne Van Cleave and colleagues found that chronic conditions in U.S. children more than doubled between 1994 and 2006, climbing from 12.8 percent to 26.6 percent. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) now estimates that roughly 129 million American adults (more than........

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