Health
Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. Urges ‘Make America Healthy Again’

From Heartland Daily News
Despite dropping out of the race for president in August, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. is turning up the volume on reforming national health care and drug policy and attracting attention to what role he might play in an administration depending on the outcome of the November election.
Kennedy has endorsed former president Donald Trump, and Trump has hinted that there could be a role in his second Trump administration.
Kennedy, who founded the safety advocacy group Children’s Health Defense, recently revealed the scope of his health care recommendations through his “Make America Healthy Again” agenda. Trump named Kennedy to his transition team and pledged to establish a panel of experts to work with Kennedy to investigate the increase of chronic health problems and childhood diseases in the United States (see related articles, pages 8,9).
In a September 5 op-ed in The Wall Street Journal, Kennedy laid out his 12-point Make America Healthy Again plan. Some of the ideas include reducing conflicts of interest at federal health agencies, implementing drug price caps, setting chemical and pesticide standards, requiring nutrition classes in medical school, redirecting money toward preventative care, rereleasing a presidential fitness standard, and expanding health savings accounts.
Boundary Crossing
Over the years, Kennedy has not hesitated to express his opinions, many of which have challenged long-held positions of the public health establishment on issues from vaccines and childhood obesity to the role of big pharmaceutical companies.
Kennedy’s stances cross ideological boundaries. His support of a single-payer national health care system conflicts with free-market opinions on the right, and his criticism of big-government bullying alienates the left. The nation’s painful experience with the measures taken to stem the spread of COVID-19 has attracted attention to Kennedy’s health care opinions in the wake of his forceful criticisms of those policies.
In a wide-ranging interview with Preferred Health magazine in June, Kennedy lambasted the lockdowns and the people he says profited from them.
“The people who came into the pandemic with a billion dollars, the Bill Gates, the Mark Zuckerbergs, the Bloombergs, the Jeffery Bezos, increased their wealth on average by 30 percent,” Kennedy told the publication.
“The lockdowns were a gift to them, the super-rich,” said Kennedy. “Jeffery Bezos, the richest or second-richest man in the world, was able to close down all of his competitors, 3.3 million businesses, and then give us a two-year training course about how to never use a retail outlet again in our lives. Forty-one percent of the black-owned businesses will never reopen. And he was instrumental because he was censoring the books that were critical of the lockdowns, including one that I wrote.”
Insider Advantage
Kennedy’s criticisms appeal to Craig Rucker, president of the Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow (CFACT).
“Kennedy, by virtue of his family name, is an insider, but his unorthodox views make him a provocative outsider,” said Rucker. “The public-health establishment, against which he has railed for years, failed miserably during the coronavirus pandemic. The ties between HHS and Big Pharma are far too cozy, and we have good reason to believe public health suffers as a consequence. A free spirit like his could be just what the doctor ordered.”
NIH Reform Call
Echoing his criticisms of the pandemic response, Kennedy says he wants to overhaul federal health care agencies, beginning with the National Institutes of Health (NIH).
The NIH suppressed the use of ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine during the early stages of the pandemic, in favor of, first, remdesivir and later the COVID vaccines through emergency use authorization, Kennedy argues. Saying the NIH “has been transformed into an incubator for the pharmaceutical industry,” Kennedy recommends removing much of the NIH’s funding for virology.
“It has stepped away from rigorous, evidence-based science, evidence-based medicine, into kind of a magical world,” Kennedy told Preferred Health. “It needs to have scientific discipline reimposed on the entire field of virology. We ought to be funding the study of the etiology of chronic diseases in our universities.”
Focus Shift
Kennedy has also spoken widely on chronic childhood diseases, some of which he has attributed to vaccines. Kennedy has called for public health authorities to shift their focus from infectious diseases such as COVID and influenza to devote more attention to diabetes, obesity, environmental toxins, and other longer-term concerns.
Kennedy has also cited large-scale factory farming and processed food as contributing to the nation’s health problems.
Peter Pitts, president and co-founder of the Center for Medicine in the Public Interest, says Kennedy brings a fresh perspective to public health debates.
“RFK Jr.’s penchant for not taking things at face value could go a long way toward forcing government public-health agencies to argue on behalf of their beliefs rather than simply relying on a ‘because I said so’ defense,” said Pitts.
Surprising Endorsements
Texas Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller, a Republican, praised Kennedy’s efforts in a September 26 op-ed for Fox News.
“The role of Big Food, much like Big Pharma, is to prioritize their profits over our health,” wrote Miller. “I enthusiastically support RFK Jr.’s campaign to hold these industries accountable by reforming our food and medicine approval and patenting systems. In this he is uniquely qualified: the $1.7 trillion pharmaceutical industry has unfairly maligned him for decades, and he’s still standing strong.”
In a move that raised eyebrows, Robert Redfield, who headed the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) under Trump from 2018 to 2021, endorsed Kennedy’s reform efforts in a Newsweek op-ed in September.
“If the next president prioritizes the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to identify which exposures are contributing to the spike in chronic disease in children, we will finally find out and end what is slowly destroying our children,” wrote Redfield.
Bonner Russell Cohen, Ph.D., ([email protected]) is a senior fellow at the National Center for Public Policy Research.
armed forces
Yet another struggling soldier says Veteran Affairs Canada offered him euthanasia

From LifeSiteNews
‘It made me wonder, were they really there to help us, or slowly groom us to say ‘here’s a solution, just kill yourself.’
Yet another Canadian combat veteran has come forward to reveal that when he sought help, he was instead offered euthanasia.
David Baltzer, who served two tours in Afghanistan with the Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry, revealed to the Toronto Sun that he was offered euthanasia on December 23, 2019—making him, as the Sun noted, “among the first Canadian soldiers offered therapeutic suicide by the federal government.”
Baltzer had been having a disagreement with his existing caseworker, when assisted suicide was brought up in in call with a different agent from Veteran Affairs Canada.
“It made me wonder, were they really there to help us, or slowly groom us to say ‘here’s a solution, just kill yourself,” Baltzer told the Sun.“I was in my lowest down point, it was just before Christmas. He says to me, ‘I would like to make a suggestion for you. Keep an open mind, think about it, you’ve tried all this and nothing seems to be working, but have you thought about medical-assisted suicide?’”
Baltzer was stunned. “It just seems to me that they just want us to be like ‘f–k this, I give up, this sucks, I’d rather just take my own life,’” he said. “That’s how I honestly felt.”
Baltzer, who is from St. Catharines, Ontario, joined up at age 17, and moved to Manitoba to join the Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry, one of Canada’s elite units. He headed to Afghanistan in 2006. The Sun noted that he “was among Canada’s first troops deployed to Afghanistan as part Operation Athena, where he served two tours and saw plenty of combat.”
“We went out on long-range patrols trying to find the Taliban, and that’s exactly what we did,” Baltzer said. “The best way I can describe it, it was like Black Hawk Down — all of the sudden the s–t hit the fan and I was like ‘wow, we’re fighting, who would have thought? Canada hasn’t fought like this since the Korean War.”
After returning from Afghanistan, Baltzer says he was offered counselling by Veteran Affairs Canada, but it “was of little help,” and he began to self-medicate for his trauma through substance abuse (he noted that he is, thankfully, doing well today). Baltzer’s story is part of a growing scandal. As the Sun reported:
A key figure shedding light on the VAC MAID scandal was CAF veteran Mark Meincke, whose trauma-recovery podcast Operation Tango Romeo broke the story. ‘Veterans, especially combat veterans, usually don’t reach out for help until like a year longer than they should’ve,’ Meincke said, telling the Sun he waited over two decades before seeking help.
‘We’re desperate by the time we put our hands up for help. Offering MAID is like throwing a cinderblock instead of a life preserver.’ Meincke said Baltzer’s story shoots down VAC’s assertions blaming one caseworker for offering MAID to veterans, and suggests the problem is far more serious than some rogue public servant.
‘It had to have been policy. because it’s just too many people in too many provinces,” Meincke told the Sun. “Every province has service agents from that province.’
Veterans Affairs Canada claimed in 2022 that between four and 20 veterans had been offered assisted suicide; Meincke “personally knows of five, and said the actual number’s likely close to 20.” In a previous investigation, VAC claimed that only one caseworker was responsible—at least for the four confirmed cases—and that the person “was lo longer employed with VAC.” Baltzer says VAC should have military vets as caseworkers, rather than civilians who can’t understand what vets have been through.
To date, no federal party leader has referenced Canada’s ongoing euthanasia scandals during the 2025 election campaign.
2025 Federal Election
Study links B.C.’s drug policies to more overdoses, but researchers urge caution

By Alexandra Keeler
A study links B.C.’s safer supply and decriminalization to more opioid hospitalizations, but experts note its limitations
A new study says B.C.’s safer supply and decriminalization policies may have failed to reduce overdoses. Furthermore, the very policies designed to help drug users may have actually increased hospitalizations.
“Neither the safer opioid supply policy nor the decriminalization of drug possession appeared to mitigate the opioid crisis, and both were associated with an increase in opioid overdose hospitalizations,” the study says.
The study has sparked debate, with some pointing to it as proof that B.C.’s drug policies failed. Others have questioned the study’s methodology and conclusions.
“The question we want to know the answer to [but cannot] is how many opioid hospitalizations would have occurred had the policy not have been implemented,” said Michael Wallace, a biostatistician and associate professor at the University of Waterloo.
“We can never come up with truly definitive conclusions in cases such as this, no matter what data we have, short of being able to magically duplicate B.C.”
Jumping to conclusions
B.C.’s controversial safer supply policies provide drug users with prescription opioids as an alternative to toxic street drugs. Its decriminalization policy permitted drug users to possess otherwise illegal substances for personal use.
The peer-reviewed study was led by health economist Hai Nguyen and conducted by researchers from Memorial University in Newfoundland, the University of Manitoba and Weill Cornell Medicine, a medical school in New York City. It was published in the medical journal JAMA Health Forum on March 21.
The researchers used a statistical method to create a “synthetic” comparison group, since there is no ideal control group. The researchers then compared B.C. to other provinces to assess the impact of certain drug policies.
Examining data from 2016 to 2023, the study links B.C.’s safer supply policies to a 33 per cent rise in opioid hospitalizations.
The study says the province’s decriminalization policies further drove up hospitalizations by 58 per cent.
“Neither the safer supply policy nor the subsequent decriminalization of drug possession appeared to alleviate the opioid crisis,” the study concludes. “Instead, both were associated with an increase in opioid overdose hospitalizations.”
The B.C. government rolled back decriminalization in April 2024 in response to widespread concerns over public drug use. This February, the province also officially acknowledged that diversion of safer supply drugs does occur.
The study did not conclusively determine whether the increase in hospital visits was due to diverted safer supply opioids, the toxic illicit supply, or other factors.
“There was insufficient evidence to conclusively attribute an increase in opioid overdose deaths to these policy changes,” the study says.
Nguyen’s team had published an earlier, 2024 study in JAMA Internal Medicine that also linked safer supply to increased hospitalizations. However, it failed to control for key confounders such as employment rates and naloxone access. Their 2025 study better accounts for these variables using the synthetic comparison group method.
The study’s authors did not respond to Canadian Affairs’ requests for comment.
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Correlation vs. causation
Chris Perlman, a health data and addiction expert at the University of Waterloo, says more studies are needed.
He believes the findings are weak, as they show correlation but not causation.
“The study provides a small signal that the rates of hospitalization have changed, but I wouldn’t conclude that it can be solely attributed to the safer supply and decrim[inalization] policy decisions,” said Perlman.
He also noted the rise in hospitalizations doesn’t necessarily mean more overdoses. Rather, more people may be reaching hospitals in time for treatment.
“Given that the [overdose] rate may have gone down, I wonder if we’re simply seeing an effect where more persons survive an overdose and actually receive treatment in hospital where they would have died in the pre-policy time period,” he said.
The Nguyen study acknowledges this possibility.
“The observed increase in opioid hospitalizations, without a corresponding increase in opioid deaths, may reflect greater willingness to seek medical assistance because decriminalization could reduce the stigma associated with drug use,” it says.
“However, it is also possible that reduced stigma and removal of criminal penalties facilitated the diversion of safer opioids, contributing to increased hospitalizations.”
Karen Urbanoski, an associate professor in the Public Health and Social Policy department at the University of Victoria, is more critical.
“The [study’s] findings do not warrant the conclusion that these policies are causally associated with increased hospitalization or overdose,” said Urbanoski, who also holds the Canada Research Chair in Substance Use, Addictions and Health Services.
Her team published a study in November 2023 that measured safer supply’s impact on mortality and acute care visits. It found safer supply opioids did reduce overdose deaths.
Critics, however, raised concerns that her study misrepresented its underlying data and showed no statistically significant reduction in deaths after accounting for confounding factors.
The Nguyen study differs from Urbanoski’s. While Urbanoski’s team focused on individual-level outcomes, the Nguyen study analyzed broader, population-level effects, including diversion.
Wallace, the biostatistician, agrees more individual-level data could strengthen analysis, but does not believe it undermines the study’s conclusions. Wallace thinks the researchers did their best with the available data they had.
“We do not have a ‘copy’ of B.C. where the policies weren’t implemented to compare with,” said Wallace.
B.C.’s overdose rate of 775 per 100,000 is well above the national average of 533.
Elenore Sturko, a Conservative MLA for Surrey-Cloverdale, has been a vocal critic of B.C.’s decriminalization and safer supply policies.
“If the government doesn’t want to believe this study, well then I invite them to do a similar study,” she told reporters on March 27.
“Show us the evidence that they have failed to show us since 2020,” she added, referring to the year B.C. implemented safer supply.
This article was produced through the Breaking Needles Fellowship Program, which provided a grant to Canadian Affairs, a digital media outlet, to fund journalism exploring addiction and crime in Canada. Articles produced through the Fellowship are co-published by Break The Needle and Canadian Affairs.
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