HHS says it will cut workforce by 10K, saving $1.8B annually
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) announced that it will lay off about 10,000 full-time employees.
The move is projected to save taxpayers $1.8 billion annually.
What the department billed as a "dramatic restructuring" comes in response to President Donald Trump's executive order implementing the Republican's "Department of Government Efficiency Workforce Optimization Initiative."
HHS said it expects a total downsizing of between 82,000 to 62,000 full-time employees when combining this latest effort with early retirement and the results of the Fork in the Road, the deferred resignation offer of full pay and benefits until September.
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"We aren't just reducing bureaucratic sprawl. We are realigning the organization with its core mission and our new priorities in reversing the chronic disease epidemic," HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. said in a statement. "This Department will do more – a lot more – at a lower cost to the taxpayer."
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"Over time, bureaucracies like HHS become wasteful and inefficient even when most of their staff are dedicated and competent civil servants," Kennedy added. "This overhaul will be a win-win for taxpayers and for those that HHS serves. That's the entire American public, because our goal is to Make America Healthy Again."
Thursday's announcement is intended to streamline the functions of HHS. The department said the 28 divisions of HHS contain "many redundant units," and the restructuring plan will consolidate them into 15 new divisions, including a new Administration for a Healthy America, or AHA. It also will "centralize core functions" such as Human Resources, Information Technology, Procurement, External Affairs, and Policy, the department said. Five of the 10 regional offices will shut down.
The reorganization of the department is also meant to implement "the new HHS priority of ending America's epidemic of chronic illness by focusing on safe, wholesome food, clean water, and the elimination of environmental toxins."
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The AHA – described as a "new, unified entity" – will encompass the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Health (OASH), Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA), Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR), and National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH).
The department said the centralization "will improve coordination of health resources for low-income Americans and will focus on areas including Primary Care, Maternal and Child Health, Mental Health, Environmental Health, HIV/AIDS, and Workforce development." HHS said transferring SAMHSA to AHA "will increase operational efficiency and assure programs are carried out because it will break down artificial divisions between similar programs."
The restructuring is also meant to strengthen the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). HHS said the Administration for Strategic Preparedness and Response (ASPR), responsible for national disaster and public health emergency response, will transfer to the CDC, "reinforcing its core mission to protect Americans from health threats."
Notably, Trump earlier this week named Susan Monarez, the current acting director of the CDC, to hold that position permanently. Her nomination replaces Trump's original pick for the role, Dr. David Weldon.
HHS said Thursday it will create a new assistant secretary for enforcement to oversee the Departmental Appeals Board (DAB), Office of Medicare Hearings and Appeals (OMHA), and Office for Civil Rights (OCR) to "combat waste, fraud, and abuse in federal health programs." The department will also merge the assistant secretary for planning and evaluation (ASPE) with the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) to create the Office of Strategy "to enhance research that informs the Secretary's policies and improves the effectiveness of federal health programs."
The department said "critical programs that support older adults and people with disabilities will be integrated into other HHS agencies, including the Administration for Children and Families (ACF), ASPE, and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS)." HHS said the reorganization will not impact Medicare and Medicaid services.
Fox News' Kevin Gora contributed to this report.Original article source: HHS says it will cut workforce by 10K, saving $1.8B annually
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Yahoo
19 minutes ago
- Yahoo
‘A Total Sham': Michelle Obama's Nutrition Adviser Lets Loose on MAHA
Before there was MAHA, there was Michelle. Anyone following the rise of Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s Make America Healthy Again movement can't help but recall former First Lady Michelle Obama's efforts to improve Americans' diets — and the vitriol she faced in response. Now, many of the same Republicans who skewered Michelle Obama as a 'nanny state' warrior have embraced the MAHA movement. To explore this head-spinning turn, I called up Sam Kass, the former White House chef under President Barack Obama and a food policy adviser wholed the first lady's 'Let's Move' initiative. Kass said he was happy to find common ground with Kennedy and his MAHA brigade where possible. But he argued Kennedy's HHS has done little to actually improve the health of the public so far, and was instead mostly taking steps that would do real damage, including by undermining the use of vaccines. Kass also warned potentially MAHA-curious food advocates against legitimizing the Trump administration by offering support for Kennedy. 'Those who are lending their voice for the things that they support are going to ultimately help enable outcomes that are going to be quite devastating for this country and for our kids,' he said in an interview with POLITICO Magazine. At the same time, Kass is not surprised with MAHA's growing popularity. In the 10-plus years since Kass left the White House, the issues of diet-related chronic disease haven't abated and Americans are more anxious about their health than ever. Wellness is a trillion-dollar industry, and MAHA influencers have filled the gap left by Democrats. 'The Democratic Party has absolutely blundered this issue,' he said. 'We're getting what we deserve here in some ways.' This conversation has been edited for length and clarity. How do you square the earlier conservative criticism of the 'Let's Move' initiative with the rise of MAHA? Are you surprised by the seeming contradiction? I think most of that is because Republicans are fearful of President Trump. And therefore, if he is putting somebody in a position of great power and backing him, there's a huge part of the party that's going to go along with whatever that may be. I don't think this is actually about the Republican Party taking this up. This is actually about a Democrat, traditionally, who had built up a pretty strong following on these issues, and decided to join forces with President Trump. It's not like any of these ideas are coming from the GOP platform. This is an RFK-led effort that they're now supporting. So are they hypocrites for that? Certainly. But I welcome Republican support on trying to genuinely improve the health of the nation. Frankly, if we had had that for the last 20 years, I think that cultural retention would be far better. The reality, though, is what they're actually doing I don't think is going to have any positive impact, or very little. Even what they're saying is problematic on some levels, but what they're doing is a far cry from anything that's going to create the health outcomes this country needs. When you say that, do you mean banning soda from SNAP or the food dyes issue? Are there specific things that come to mind? It's a long list. There's the critique that MAHA brings at the highest level, that chronic disease has exploded in our country. Nobody can refute that, and what we're eating is a big driver of poor health outcomes on many different levels. That is absolutely true. What we grow, how we're growing it, and what's being made out of it is quite literally killing people. That is something that First Lady Michelle Obama said way back when. I've been saying it for a couple of decades. After that, everything falls apart in my mind. We can start with food dyes as the biggest announcement they made thus far. I'm all for getting food dyes out of food. There's just not a basis of evidence that most of the ones that are being used are actually the drivers of many of these health conditions. It was reported that they were banning food dyes. Sadly, what they did was a total sham. It was a farce of an event. There was no policy at all that was announced. There was no guidance, there was no regulatory proposal, there wasn't even a request for information. There was absolutely nothing put forward to revoke the approvals of these dyes. And the reason I believe is that to revoke an approval, you have to show that it's harming the public health. That's what we did for trans fats. Trans fats had been approved for consumption. There was plenty of evidence to show that that food was really driving death and disease in the country, and we banned it through a regulatory mechanism. I could not fathom making an announcement like that without actually having a real policy to put in place. I didn't know whether to laugh or cry about what they did. Also, you see a bunch of the influencers holding up bags of Fruit Loops and saying, 'In Europe or Canada, these have no [synthetic] food dyes and ours do.' But the fact of the matter is Fruit Loops aren't good for you either way. Part of the danger of RFK is he keeps talking about gold standard science and rebooting our public policy and science. The reality is he's doing the exact opposite. He's going to fast food restaurants, touting them on national television as the head of Health and Human Services, [saying that] a cheeseburger and french fries is good for you now because it's cooked in beef fat which is just the most insane thing on literally every single level. It has absolutely no basis in science. We're focusing on issues that are absolutely not going to make an iota of difference in public health. It's absolutely shocking. They have a platform that is fear-based on certain issues, like these food dyes or seed oils, which are absolutely not addressing the core of what we're eating and the core of what's really harming our health. The problem is the fries and the cheeseburger. It's not the oil that it's fried in. It's actually quite scary to me to see what's playing out. Why do you think the politics of food have changed in the years since you were in the White House, and why do you think MAHA ideas have such appeal? I don't exactly know for sure. In the age of social media, the thing that gets the algorithms the most activity is more extreme views. I think people are very vulnerable to very compelling, very scientifically sounding narratives that [MAHA influencers] all have, based on one study here or another study there, that can weave a narrative of fear. It's not like food dyes are good, I'm happy to see them go. But you get people scared of what they're eating to the point where people stop eating vegetables because they're worried about the pesticides, which is just not good for their health. This fear is definitely taking hold. I think it's because the mediums on which this information travels are exacerbating that fear. You already mentioned the food dye announcement and why that was concerning to you. What are some of the other actions that you think aren't necessarily achieving the stated goals? If you step back and start to look at what actions have actually been taken, what you're actually seeing is a full-on assault on science throughout HHS. You're seeing a complete gutting of NIH, which funds much of the research needed to understand what in hyper-processed foods is undermining people's health and how to actually identify those correlations so you can regulate it very aggressively. You're seeing the complete gutting or elimination of departments within CDC and FDA that oversee the safety of our food. Food toxicologists have been fired. There's a department in CDC that's in charge of assessing chronic health and environmental exposures to toxins. Those offices have been eliminated. The idea that somehow you're going to be more aggressively regulating based on the best science, while you're absolutely wholesale cutting scientific research and gutting the people who are in charge of overseeing the very industry that you're trying to clamp down on is a joke. Then look at the 'big, beautiful bill' that is being supported by this administration, and it's catastrophic to the public health of the United States of America. Eight million people are going to lose access to health care. Three million plus are going to lose SNAP assistance. Then we can get into USDA and EPA. Everybody's got to remember that the number one threat to the public health of the United States of America is climate change. If we continue on this path of pulling back every regulatory effort that's been made to try to transition our society to a much more sustainable, lower-carbon world, that's also preparing itself to deal with the volatility that's coming from the climate, we're not going to have food to eat. This idea that you're going to have big announcements about food dyes and Fruit Loops, while you completely roll back every effort to prepare our agricultural system and our food system to deal with climate change, you're gaslighting the American public. Have you spoken to the former first lady about MAHA at all? Not in any kind of depth. Have you ever been in touch with Kennedy? Have you ever talked to him about these issues? He's very close to a number of people I'm good friends with, but no, I have not. You noted Kennedy used to be a Democrat. His issues — his opposition to pesticides, his support for healthy nutrition, with all the caveats that we just discussed — these were Democratic issues. Now, this MAHA coalition helped Trump win the White House. Why do you think Democrats have ceded this terrain? The Democratic Party has absolutely blundered this issue. These are kitchen table issues. Our very well-being, our ability to eat food that's not harming ourselves and our kids, is fundamental to life on planet Earth and what it means to have a vibrant society. The fact that Democrats, much to my chagrin, definitely not because of lack of trying, have not taken this issue up with great effort over the last 15 years is shameful. We're getting what we deserve here in some ways. I'm deeply critical of Democrats, with some exceptions. Sen. Cory Booker has been amazing on these issues. [Former Sen.] Jon Tester is also great. But it was never part of the platform, and it absolutely always should have been. If there's some common ground to be found with Republicans, then great. We could get a lot done. But we can't just turn over the keys to this issue to people who are not serious. When you worked in the Obama White House, you pushed better nutrition labeling, active living, bans on unhealthy foods in school meals and trans fat. The recent MAHA report pointed the finger at similar programs for chronic illness. Is that a place where you and MAHA advocates are on the same page, and how do you balance that with the concerns you've raised? There's no clean answer to that. We largely, not entirely, share the same critique when it comes to food. Vaccines are another thing which are important to also talk about. People are trying to pick the issue that they like and can get around and pretend like the rest isn't happening. It would be great if we got food dyes out, but it would pale in comparison to if he continues down the path to undermine vaccines as the foundation of public health and people start dying, like they are, with measles. That is not even close to a trade. For all of my food friends who read this, or everybody in policy who are like, 'Oh yeah, I can work with him on this issue, but I'm going to turn a blind eye to that,' that doesn't work. That's going to lead to devastating outcomes. On the report, I share the general critique of the problem. I spent my life saying those things and working on these issues. That's the easy part. What matters is what you do about it. How do you actually change what people are eating, and what is it going to take to really put the country on a different trajectory when it comes to health? So far, I've seen absolutely no indication that the issues that they're focused on are going to have any meaningful or measurable impact on public health. Frankly, there's many other things that I think are going to be extremely detrimental. We will see. We're only a few months in. I could, depending on what happens, have a different perspective in six months or 12 months. RFK has blamed the food industry for Americans' poor health. He's argued that government institutions are overwrought with corporate influence. Do you think he's right? And what do you think about RFK's approach to trying to curb corporate influence? I'm all for curbing corporate influence. I had some big fights with industry. I won some of them, and sometimes I got my ass kicked. It's the nature of Washington when you're threatening the basic interests of an industry. What's stunning to me is that the food industry so far has been silent. They haven't done anything to fight back, which says to me that they're not feeling threatened yet. I think they're waiting to see what's going to happen. I'm sure they're doing some stuff in the background, but this is nothing like what we were dealing with. I agree that we should put the public's best interest first, not succumb to industry influence. I think the way that RFK talks about it is a real overstatement down a very dark conspiracy theory. The idea that JAMA and the American Medical Association and the New England Journal are just like corporate journals that just put corporate, completely distorted research out for the sake of making profits, it's just not serious. He starts to discredit the very institutions, like HHS, that you actually need to do the work to rein in industry. The way that industry does make inroads is that they fund a lot of research. If you want to reduce industry influence, you should dramatically increase [government] investment in funding of scientific research on agriculture and climate change, on food and nutrition. One of the biggest fights in the Obama era was over stricter nutrition standards for school lunches. The administration won some of those battles, but quite a few children still have obesity, according to the latest data. Is there anything you wish the Obama administration had done differently? Are there things policymakers should be doing differently? School nutrition is just one part of a young person's diet. You're not going to solve kids' health issues just through school nutrition, but obviously it's a huge lever to pull. If we really want to make progress, you have to look much more holistically at the food environment that people are living in. This is generational work. It's going to take literally decades of work to shift, not just the policies, but our culture, our businesses, to change how people are eating. I think the one thing we missed would have been a much stricter restriction on sugar across the board. We had it for drinks,, but we didn't [apply it across the board], and that was a miss. We should have pushed harder on sugar. I think the policy was a really important start. It can always be improved and strengthened. Both the first Trump administration and this one are looking to roll back some of that. The thing that we have to not forget — and this is true for schools, and certainly true for SNAP and WIC — is the biggest problem is not enough money for these programs. I started doing a lot of work on finding ways to restrict sugary drinks as an example from the SNAP program. But if you want to do that and actually get the health outcomes you need, you need to also increase the total dollar amount that people have so they can purchase healthier food. Part of the reason why people are drinking these things is they're the cheapest available drink. Coke is cheaper than water sometimes. RFK recently called sugar 'poison.' Do you agree with that? One of their tactics to obfuscate truth in science is dosage, right? The amount that we're consuming matters. If you had a birthday cake on your birthday and you have a cookie — my kids eat a cookie, they're not dying, they're not being poisoned to death. They're fine. I think the problem is the amount of sugar we're consuming and the sizes of the portions we have. It's the cumulative amount of sugar. It's probably technically not exactly the right word, poison. But I don't take issue with that. I think the levels of sugar consumption for young people are deeply alarming and are absolutely going to drive preventable death and disease for millions and millions of people. It already is and will continue to do so. It is a very serious problem. But what do you do? I can't wait to see the policy proposals here. It's a tough problem to solve. It is not a problem that can be solved overnight, and it's going to take a very comprehensive effort to really shift the amount of sugar we're consuming, but it should be the goal of this administration. They should work very hard at it in a very serious and science-based way. Thus far, I have not seen that.
Politico
34 minutes ago
- Politico
‘A Total Sham': Michelle Obama's Nutrition Adviser Lets Loose on MAHA
Before there was MAHA, there was Michelle. Anyone following the rise of Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s Make America Healthy Again movement can't help but recall former First Lady Michelle Obama's efforts to improve Americans' diets — and the vitriol she faced in response. Now, many of the same Republicans who skewered Michelle Obama as a 'nanny state' warrior have embraced the MAHA movement. To explore this head-spinning turn, I called up Sam Kass, the former White House chef under President Barack Obama and a food policy adviser who led the first lady's 'Let's Move' initiative. Kass said he was happy to find common ground with Kennedy and his MAHA brigade where possible. But he argued Kennedy's HHS has done little to actually improve the health of the public so far, and was instead mostly taking steps that would do real damage, including by undermining the use of vaccines. Kass also warned potentially MAHA-curious food advocates against legitimizing the Trump administration by offering support for Kennedy. 'Those who are lending their voice for the things that they support are going to ultimately help enable outcomes that are going to be quite devastating for this country and for our kids,' he said in an interview with POLITICO Magazine. At the same time, Kass is not surprised with MAHA's growing popularity. In the 10-plus years since Kass left the White House, the issues of diet-related chronic disease haven't abated and Americans are more anxious about their health than ever. Wellness is a trillion-dollar industry, and MAHA influencers have filled the gap left by Democrats. 'The Democratic Party has absolutely blundered this issue,' he said. 'We're getting what we deserve here in some ways.' This conversation has been edited for length and clarity. How do you square the earlier conservative criticism of the 'Let's Move' initiative with the rise of MAHA? Are you surprised by the seeming contradiction? I think most of that is because Republicans are fearful of President Trump. And therefore, if he is putting somebody in a position of great power and backing him, there's a huge part of the party that's going to go along with whatever that may be. I don't think this is actually about the Republican Party taking this up. This is actually about a Democrat, traditionally, who had built up a pretty strong following on these issues, and decided to join forces with President Trump. It's not like any of these ideas are coming from the GOP platform. This is an RFK-led effort that they're now supporting. So are they hypocrites for that? Certainly. But I welcome Republican support on trying to genuinely improve the health of the nation. Frankly, if we had had that for the last 20 years, I think that cultural retention would be far better. The reality, though, is what they're actually doing I don't think is going to have any positive impact, or very little. Even what they're saying is problematic on some levels, but what they're doing is a far cry from anything that's going to create the health outcomes this country needs. When you say that, do you mean banning soda from SNAP or the food dyes issue? Are there specific things that come to mind? It's a long list. There's the critique that MAHA brings at the highest level, that chronic disease has exploded in our country. Nobody can refute that, and what we're eating is a big driver of poor health outcomes on many different levels. That is absolutely true. What we grow, how we're growing it, and what's being made out of it is quite literally killing people. That is something that First Lady Michelle Obama said way back when. I've been saying it for a couple of decades. After that, everything falls apart in my mind. We can start with food dyes as the biggest announcement they made thus far. I'm all for getting food dyes out of food. There's just not a basis of evidence that most of the ones that are being used are actually the drivers of many of these health conditions. It was reported that they were banning food dyes. Sadly, what they did was a total sham. It was a farce of an event. There was no policy at all that was announced. There was no guidance, there was no regulatory proposal, there wasn't even a request for information. There was absolutely nothing put forward to revoke the approvals of these dyes. And the reason I believe is that to revoke an approval, you have to show that it's harming the public health. That's what we did for trans fats. Trans fats had been approved for consumption. There was plenty of evidence to show that that food was really driving death and disease in the country, and we banned it through a regulatory mechanism. I could not fathom making an announcement like that without actually having a real policy to put in place. I didn't know whether to laugh or cry about what they did. Also, you see a bunch of the influencers holding up bags of Fruit Loops and saying, 'In Europe or Canada, these have no [synthetic] food dyes and ours do.' But the fact of the matter is Fruit Loops aren't good for you either way. Part of the danger of RFK is he keeps talking about gold standard science and rebooting our public policy and science. The reality is he's doing the exact opposite. He's going to fast food restaurants, touting them on national television as the head of Health and Human Services, [saying that] a cheeseburger and french fries is good for you now because it's cooked in beef fat which is just the most insane thing on literally every single level. It has absolutely no basis in science. We're focusing on issues that are absolutely not going to make an iota of difference in public health. It's absolutely shocking. They have a platform that is fear-based on certain issues, like these food dyes or seed oils, which are absolutely not addressing the core of what we're eating and the core of what's really harming our health. The problem is the fries and the cheeseburger. It's not the oil that it's fried in. It's actually quite scary to me to see what's playing out. Why do you think the politics of food have changed in the years since you were in the White House, and why do you think MAHA ideas have such appeal? I don't exactly know for sure. In the age of social media, the thing that gets the algorithms the most activity is more extreme views. I think people are very vulnerable to very compelling, very scientifically sounding narratives that [MAHA influencers] all have, based on one study here or another study there, that can weave a narrative of fear. It's not like food dyes are good, I'm happy to see them go. But you get people scared of what they're eating to the point where people stop eating vegetables because they're worried about the pesticides, which is just not good for their health. This fear is definitely taking hold. I think it's because the mediums on which this information travels are exacerbating that fear. You already mentioned the food dye announcement and why that was concerning to you. What are some of the other actions that you think aren't necessarily achieving the stated goals? If you step back and start to look at what actions have actually been taken, what you're actually seeing is a full-on assault on science throughout HHS. You're seeing a complete gutting of NIH, which funds much of the research needed to understand what in hyper-processed foods is undermining people's health and how to actually identify those correlations so you can regulate it very aggressively. You're seeing the complete gutting or elimination of departments within CDC and FDA that oversee the safety of our food. Food toxicologists have been fired. There's a department in CDC that's in charge of assessing chronic health and environmental exposures to toxins. Those offices have been eliminated. The idea that somehow you're going to be more aggressively regulating based on the best science, while you're absolutely wholesale cutting scientific research and gutting the people who are in charge of overseeing the very industry that you're trying to clamp down on is a joke. Then look at the 'big, beautiful bill' that is being supported by this administration, and it's catastrophic to the public health of the United States of America. Eight million people are going to lose access to health care. Three million plus are going to lose SNAP assistance. Then we can get into USDA and EPA. Everybody's got to remember that the number one threat to the public health of the United States of America is climate change. If we continue on this path of pulling back every regulatory effort that's been made to try to transition our society to a much more sustainable, lower-carbon world, that's also preparing itself to deal with the volatility that's coming from the climate, we're not going to have food to eat. This idea that you're going to have big announcements about food dyes and Fruit Loops, while you completely roll back every effort to prepare our agricultural system and our food system to deal with climate change, you're gaslighting the American public. Have you spoken to the former first lady about MAHA at all? Not in any kind of depth. Have you ever been in touch with Kennedy? Have you ever talked to him about these issues? He's very close to a number of people I'm good friends with, but no, I have not. You noted Kennedy used to be a Democrat. His issues — his opposition to pesticides, his support for healthy nutrition, with all the caveats that we just discussed — these were Democratic issues. Now, this MAHA coalition helped Trump win the White House. Why do you think Democrats have ceded this terrain? The Democratic Party has absolutely blundered this issue. These are kitchen table issues. Our very well-being, our ability to eat food that's not harming ourselves and our kids, is fundamental to life on planet Earth and what it means to have a vibrant society. The fact that Democrats, much to my chagrin, definitely not because of lack of trying, have not taken this issue up with great effort over the last 15 years is shameful. We're getting what we deserve here in some ways. I'm deeply critical of Democrats, with some exceptions. Sen. Cory Booker has been amazing on these issues. [Former Sen.] Jon Tester is also great. But it was never part of the platform, and it absolutely always should have been. If there's some common ground to be found with Republicans, then great. We could get a lot done. But we can't just turn over the keys to this issue to people who are not serious. When you worked in the Obama White House, you pushed better nutrition labeling, active living, bans on unhealthy foods in school meals and trans fat. The recent MAHA report pointed the finger at similar programs for chronic illness. Is that a place where you and MAHA advocates are on the same page, and how do you balance that with the concerns you've raised? There's no clean answer to that. We largely, not entirely, share the same critique when it comes to food. Vaccines are another thing which are important to also talk about. People are trying to pick the issue that they like and can get around and pretend like the rest isn't happening. It would be great if we got food dyes out, but it would pale in comparison to if he continues down the path to undermine vaccines as the foundation of public health and people start dying, like they are, with measles. That is not even close to a trade. For all of my food friends who read this, or everybody in policy who are like, 'Oh yeah, I can work with him on this issue, but I'm going to turn a blind eye to that,' that doesn't work. That's going to lead to devastating outcomes. On the report, I share the general critique of the problem. I spent my life saying those things and working on these issues. That's the easy part. What matters is what you do about it. How do you actually change what people are eating, and what is it going to take to really put the country on a different trajectory when it comes to health? So far, I've seen absolutely no indication that the issues that they're focused on are going to have any meaningful or measurable impact on public health. Frankly, there's many other things that I think are going to be extremely detrimental. We will see. We're only a few months in. I could, depending on what happens, have a different perspective in six months or 12 months. RFK has blamed the food industry for Americans' poor health. He's argued that government institutions are overwrought with corporate influence. Do you think he's right? And what do you think about RFK's approach to trying to curb corporate influence? I'm all for curbing corporate influence. I had some big fights with industry. I won some of them, and sometimes I got my ass kicked. It's the nature of Washington when you're threatening the basic interests of an industry. What's stunning to me is that the food industry so far has been silent. They haven't done anything to fight back, which says to me that they're not feeling threatened yet. I think they're waiting to see what's going to happen. I'm sure they're doing some stuff in the background, but this is nothing like what we were dealing with. I agree that we should put the public's best interest first, not succumb to industry influence. I think the way that RFK talks about it is a real overstatement down a very dark conspiracy theory. The idea that JAMA and the American Medical Association and the New England Journal are just like corporate journals that just put corporate, completely distorted research out for the sake of making profits, it's just not serious. He starts to discredit the very institutions, like HHS, that you actually need to do the work to rein in industry. The way that industry does make inroads is that they fund a lot of research. If you want to reduce industry influence, you should dramatically increase [government] investment in funding of scientific research on agriculture and climate change, on food and nutrition. One of the biggest fights in the Obama era was over stricter nutrition standards for school lunches. The administration won some of those battles, but quite a few children still have obesity, according to the latest data. Is there anything you wish the Obama administration had done differently? Are there things policymakers should be doing differently? School nutrition is just one part of a young person's diet. You're not going to solve kids' health issues just through school nutrition, but obviously it's a huge lever to pull. If we really want to make progress, you have to look much more holistically at the food environment that people are living in. This is generational work. It's going to take literally decades of work to shift, not just the policies, but our culture, our businesses, to change how people are eating. I think the one thing we missed would have been a much stricter restriction on sugar across the board. We had it for drinks,, but we didn't [apply it across the board], and that was a miss. We should have pushed harder on sugar. I think the policy was a really important start. It can always be improved and strengthened. Both the first Trump administration and this one are looking to roll back some of that. The thing that we have to not forget — and this is true for schools, and certainly true for SNAP and WIC — is the biggest problem is not enough money for these programs. I started doing a lot of work on finding ways to restrict sugary drinks as an example from the SNAP program. But if you want to do that and actually get the health outcomes you need, you need to also increase the total dollar amount that people have so they can purchase healthier food. Part of the reason why people are drinking these things is they're the cheapest available drink. Coke is cheaper than water sometimes. RFK recently called sugar 'poison.' Do you agree with that? One of their tactics to obfuscate truth in science is dosage, right? The amount that we're consuming matters. If you had a birthday cake on your birthday and you have a cookie — my kids eat a cookie, they're not dying, they're not being poisoned to death. They're fine. I think the problem is the amount of sugar we're consuming and the sizes of the portions we have. It's the cumulative amount of sugar. It's probably technically not exactly the right word, poison. But I don't take issue with that. I think the levels of sugar consumption for young people are deeply alarming and are absolutely going to drive preventable death and disease for millions and millions of people. It already is and will continue to do so. It is a very serious problem. But what do you do? I can't wait to see the policy proposals here. It's a tough problem to solve. It is not a problem that can be solved overnight, and it's going to take a very comprehensive effort to really shift the amount of sugar we're consuming, but it should be the goal of this administration. They should work very hard at it in a very serious and science-based way. Thus far, I have not seen that.
CNET
35 minutes ago
- CNET
The Aging Brain: 6 Things You Should Be Doing to Slow Cognitive Decline
When it comes to healthy aging, we tend to focus a lot on body health by exercising and eating well. One thing you might not be thinking about is brain health. But you should be. Your brain runs the rest of your body, and as we age, it changes, too. Cognition declines over time due to several factors, including age-related structure changes, brain injuries or excess stress hormones. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, one in nine American adults over 65 report cognitive decline. "The parts of our brain that help with learning information and remembering can become smaller, and the brain can weigh less as we age," said Colleen Marshall, chief clinical officer for Two Chairs. Aging doesn't happen at the same rate for everyone, but we all experience it in one way or another. Focusing on brain fitness now may help you slow the change and ensure your brain stays sharp through the years. How to start nourishing your brain for healthy aging 1) Solve puzzles We'll start with the easiest strategy to integrate into your daily life: puzzles. Solving puzzles can benefit the brain in several ways, from improving memory to boosting problem-solving skills. "They may slow the rate of cognitive decline and how quickly the brain decreases in size as we age," Marshall said. A study published in the journal Neurology reported that playing games like checkers or completing jigsaw puzzles can delay the onset of Alzheimer's by about five years. Different research supports the idea that solving crossword puzzles or journaling can lower the risk of dementia. Experts suggest that puzzles help curb cognitive decline because they expand the brain's cognitive reserve, or the ability to solve and cope with problems. Activities to try include putting together jigsaw puzzles or solving other types of puzzles, such as Sudoku, crosswords, memory games and math problems. 2) Learn a new skill Like stimulating the brain by playing games or solving puzzles, learning a new skill has short-term and long-term advantages. By learning a new skill, you're strategically activating several parts of your brain simultaneously. You're also promoting neuroplasticity by creating new pathways and strengthening those connections as you continue honing the skill. It could be learning a new language, painting or trying out a new sport. Just make sure it's challenging or complex, and continue to practice for the best brain results.3) Prioritize sleep Sleep is one of the most important things you can do for your body. While I'm not saying there's a right or wrong way to sleep, research suggests that how much sleep you get and the quality of your sleep influence your risk for dementia. According to a study published in the Journal of Neuroscience, a single night of sleep deprivation can age your brain. A lot goes on in the brain while we sleep, including clearing out toxins and creating new neural pathways. If you don't get enough sleep, your brain doesn't have time to carry out these functions and cognition suffers. Establishing a bedtime routine can have a big impact on your sleep quality. From reading a book to practicing yoga before bed, integrating relaxation into your night can help boost your sleep. 4) Focus on your nutrition What you eat also will influence the rate of cognitive decline you experience as you age. Studies have found that people who follow the Mediterranean and MIND (Mediterranean Dash Intervention for Neurodegenerative Delay) diets tend to have fewer cognitive impairments and dementias compared to those following other diets. More research is needed to conclude why this is true. However, it might have something to do with the way those diets prioritize foods that protect the brain with anti-inflammatory and antioxidant properties. Read more: Master the Mediterranean Diet With the Help of These Tips and Recipes No matter if you choose to follow a strict diet or just improve your current meal rotation, you'll want to focus on improving your blood sugar and dropping high levels of LDL cholesterol to reduce your risk of dementia. Foods to incorporate into your diet for better brain health: Leafy greens like spinach, kale and lettuce Salmon Dark berries Nuts Greek yogurt Dark chocolate Green tea Vegetables like broccoli and carrots 5) Exercise Studies have found that following an active lifestyle is associated with lower cognitive decline over time. Your heart rate increases when you exercise, which increases blood flow to the brain. This can help spark new development of nerve cells, a process called neurogenesis. Exercise also promotes increased connections between cells, making the brain more adaptive. Generally, any exercise that's good for the body will also help the mind. It doesn't have to be lifting weights; walking, swimming and dancing also achieve the same results. Read more: How Exercise Helps Boost Your Memory-Brain Health as You Age6) Make connections with others Marshall pointed out that prioritizing high-quality relationships with others can benefit the brain. According to a meta-analysis of longitudinal cohort studies, limited or poor relationships were associated with cognitive decline. Prioritizing social contact is an essential part of aging well. Whether spending time with your family or putting yourself out there at your local community center, staying connected is an integral part of aging gracefully. Too long; didn't read? Our brains change as we age; there is no way around it. However, integrating any of these easy habits into your routine can help nourish and safeguard your brain for the future. There are also a few things you should avoid to keep your brain in top shape. Heavy cigarette smoking has been associated with cognitive decline in middle age. Marshall added that heavy drinking, poor diet and unmanaged high blood pressure can also negatively impact the brain as we age. Don't worry; there's still time to turn it around. Even if you smoke now, quitting has the potential to return your risk of cognitive decline to a level that's comparable to those who never smoked.
