STAT+: Kennedy paves way for flood of wellness companies in white coats
With health secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s explicit and implicit encouragement, medical entrepreneurs are offering pricey new products, including some unproven to help.
A drug for a rare blood disorder that instead is prescribed to amp up “mental clarity.” A peptide approved for growth hormone deficiency that may boost muscle lost to Ozempic. A full-body MRI administered not for symptoms, but for prevention, to detect any incipient cancer.
These are just a few of the tests and treatments being marketed by a growing class of health and wellness companies selling a message aligned with the Make America Healthy Again movement. The pitch: Corporate interests in the medical establishment are keeping patients from taking care of themselves. Take your health into your own hands, and prevent chronic illness before it comes for you.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has lived by that credo for years, attributing his health both to vigorous exercise and clean diet and also to practices that go beyond medical consensus, including testosterone therapy, stem cells, and peptides. Now, as health secretary, he’s giving Big Wellness a national stage, to the excitement of entrepreneurs and the consternation of some medical experts.
