Stephanie Armour
On his strategy to an Ultimate Fighting Championship occasion, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. stopped by the house of podcaster Gary Brecka. The two frolicked in a hyperbaric oxygen chamber and tried some intravenous vitamin drips that Brecka, a self-avowed longevity and wellness maven, sells and promotes on his present, “The Ultimate Human.”
Then the podcast taping started, and Kennedy — who was additionally on the mic — took goal at Big Pharma’s affect on federal well being coverage.
“We have a sick-care system in our country, and the etiology ultimately of all that disease is corruption,” Kennedy mentioned earlier than the present reduce away to an advert for vitamin chips. “And it’s the capture of these agencies by the industries they are supposed to regulate.”
While Kennedy lambastes federal companies he says are overly influenced by the pharmaceutical {industry}, he and another figures of the “Make America Healthy Again,” or MAHA, motion — comparable to siblings Calley and Casey Means, Robert Malone, and Peter McCullough — have their very own monetary ties to an unlimited and largely unregulated $6.3 trillion world wellness {industry} additionally they assist and promote.
Kennedy and people 4 advisers — three of whom have been tapped for official authorities roles — earned at the very least $3.2 million in charges and salaries from their work opposing Big Pharma and selling wellness in 2022 and 2023, based on a KFF Health News evaluate of economic disclosure kinds filed with the U.S. Office of Government Ethics and the Department of Health and Human Services; printed media stories; and tax kinds filed with the IRS.
The whole doesn’t embody income from talking charges, the sale of wellness merchandise, or different earnings sources for which information isn’t publicly obtainable.
The Means siblings have launched wellness firms which have raised greater than $99 million from traders, based on firm news releases in addition to data from Clay, a buyer analysis information firm, and Tracxn, an information technology firm that gives entry to a database of firms, funding rounds, and investor data.
“Secretary Kennedy, and all HHS officials, fully comply with all ethics and financial disclosure laws,” company spokesperson Emily Hilliard mentioned in an e mail. “Any attempt to suggest impropriety is reckless and politically motivated.”
Some public well being leaders and ethicists say the monetary ties elevate purple flags, with the potential for private earnings to form decision-making on the highest ranges of federal well being companies.
“It’s becoming completely corrupted,” mentioned Arthur Caplan, founding head of the medical ethics division at New York University’s Grossman School of Medicine. “You shouldn’t have a vested interest in making recommendations on wellness or supplements or health. It opens the door to all kinds of shenanigans. Big Wellness is no different than Big Pharma. They’re a well-organized political force.”
Unlike some other earlier administration, President Donald Trump’s administration has elevated anti-vaccine and wellness leaders to positions at HHS from which they’ll steer federal coverage. Adherents to the MAHA motion say the change is lengthy overdue, arguing that earlier administrations haven’t devoted ample consideration to the potential harms of conventional medical approaches.
Critics together with well being coverage leaders and physicians say they fear the revamped HHS and its companies are actually harming public well being. For instance, they level to a latest Kennedy resolution to take away and exchange all of the members of a vaccine advisory group, a transfer the American Medical Association criticized as missing transparency and correct vetting. Two of Kennedy’s newly named panel members — Malone and Martin Kulldorff — beforehand earned cash as paid consultants in vaccine lawsuits in opposition to Merck, as first reported by Reuters and the life-sciences news outlet BioSpace.
Calley Means, who has criticized the advisable U.S. vaccine schedule for teens and has no medical coaching, is a special government employee and a high well being adviser to Kennedy. He additionally co-founded the wellness company Truemed.
The firm permits folks to spend pretax {dollars} from Flexible Spending Accounts and Health Savings Accounts to pay for wellness merchandise, health food, and SoulCycle classes.
Truemed’s web site says it might present prospects with a “Letter of Medical Necessity” for the gadgets.
The IRS has warned customers about firms that misrepresent wellness gadgets like meals as FSA-eligible when they aren’t, in truth, permitted medical bills.
The IRS didn’t reply to questions concerning the standing of that coverage beneath the Trump administration.
In 2024, when Kennedy was operating for president as an unbiased, he promoted Means’ firm on his own podcast. Means additionally promoted his shut reference to Kennedy final 12 months on podcasts and on Instagram whereas additionally utilizing social media to advance Truemed. And whereas working for the general public as a particular authorities worker since March, Means has used social and new media to advertise podcasters who earn a living promoting wellness merchandise, to criticize specific pharmaceutical drugs, and to tout the wellness book he co-wrote, “Good Energy,” based on a KFF Health News evaluate of social media posts and podcasts.
Means has additionally used podcasts and social media to rail against new injectable weight reduction medicine. The Trump administration in April determined to not finalize a rule that would have allowed Medicaid and Medicare to cowl the injectable medicine, placing them out of attain for tens of millions of potential customers.
Hilliard, the HHS spokesperson, didn’t reply to questions on whether or not Means, as a Kennedy adviser, has recused himself from selections that would have an effect on his enterprise. Neither HHS nor the White House responded to requests to talk with him.
His sister, Casey Means, is Trump’s decide for surgeon normal and was additionally an adviser to Kennedy throughout his 2024 presidential run. She co-founded Levels, an organization valued at $300 million in 2022 that promotes glucose monitoring for nondiabetic, wholesome people. Consumers pay $199 for a one-month provide of steady glucose displays.
She has used social media to name for public coverage that will encourage blood sugar monitoring for wholesome people, saying “tips to stabilize glucose should be on every billboard in America.” Research has found little evidence that such monitoring offers well being advantages for folks with out diabetes.
Her firm stands to profit beneath the Trump administration. Kennedy mentioned in April that he was contemplating a regulatory framework for federal well being applications’ protection of injectable weight reduction medicine that will first require sufferers to attempt glucose monitoring or different choices.
“And if they don’t work, then you would be entitled to the drug,” he instructed CBS News.
Casey Means isn’t a working towards physician and doesn’t maintain an lively medical license, based on information from the Oregon Medical Board. And, as a web-based influencer, she “failed to disclose that she could profit” from gross sales of merchandise she recommends, based on The Associated Press.
HHS spokesperson Hilliard didn’t reply questions on whether or not Casey Means would recuse herself from engaged on something that will immediately profit her firm, or why she didn’t disclose that she might revenue from gross sales of merchandise she recommends. HHS didn’t reply to questions on Means’ ties to Kennedy or company assist for glucose monitoring, nor did the company reply to a request to talk on to the Trump surgeon normal decide.
Outside Advisers
McCullough, a former cardiac physician who has monetary ties to the wellness {industry}, has been a part of Kennedy’s circle of casual advisers, based on folks near the secretary. He additionally has sufficient sway with some GOP lawmakers that they’ve had him testify earlier than Congress. In May, he instructed a Senate subcommittee that mRNA covid-19 vaccines can lead to deaths which have been underreported. But the FDA says the covid vaccines are safe, with fewer than 1 in 200,000 vaccinated individuals experiencing a extreme allergic response or coronary heart issues like myocarditis or pericarditis.
He earnings from his anti-covid-vaccine message. McCullough devised a protocol he says helps people detox from covid mRNA photographs, promoting the merchandise by The Wellness Co. McCullough is the corporate’s chief scientific officer, attracts a partial salary, and holds an fairness stake.
For $89.99, customers can buy Ultimate Spike Detox dietary supplements containing nattokinase, an enzyme from fermented soybeans. A two-month provide of Spike Support dietary supplements sells on Amazon for about $62. More than 900 bottles have bought up to now month.
McCullough didn’t reply to an e mail in search of remark. HHS additionally didn’t reply to questions on his relationship with Kennedy.
Some well being coverage leaders and docs say the monetary connections federal well being officers and advisers should the wellness {industry} elevate issues.
“It’s exactly the problem RFK has taken up with the FDA, saying it’s too beholden to pharma,” mentioned Pieter Cohen, an affiliate professor of drugs at Harvard University.
“When you’re in bed with supplement manufacturers, you are creating the same kinds of conflicts of interest, whether or not you directly profit,” he mentioned. “You should be independently advocating for public health, not cheerleading for any particular industry.”
The wellness sector contains private care, weight reduction, well being, vitamin, and wellness tourism.
Its lobbying affect is markedly smaller than the lobbying attain of pharmaceutical firms, based on OpenSecrets, a analysis group that tracks cash in U.S. politics. The nutritional and dietary supplements industry spent about $3.7 million on lobbying in 2024, for instance, in contrast with the $387 million the pharmaceutical {industry} spent the identical 12 months.
It’s additionally gotten far much less scrutiny. The {industry} is a rising political drive with its personal lobbyists, celebrities, and industry-backed advocacy teams, and analysis exhibits that public interest in wellness has grown for the reason that pandemic. Eighty-four p.c of U.S. customers say wellness is a “top” or “important” precedence, based on a survey released this year by McKinsey & Co.
Unlike with Big Pharma, there’s scant regulation of the {industry}. Companies can promote dietary supplements and different merchandise with out notifying the FDA, and there’s little oversight by the Federal Trade Commission of their product claims.
“The wellness industry profiteers by undermining and creating distrust in science and regulated products,” mentioned Andrea Love, an immunologist and microbiologist who based ImmunoLogic, a science and well being training group. “They are messaging that the government and Big Pharma are hiding information and treatments or cures to keep us weak and vulnerable.”
Ethics and Disclosures
People on each side of the difficulty say the {industry} has discovered its captain in Kennedy, an anti-vaccine activist with deep ties to the MAHA and wellness actions.
He has profited by referring folks to legislation companies which are suing over alleged vaccine damage. For instance, he will get a payment for referring potential shoppers to a Los Angeles private damage agency, based on a January ethics assertion to HHS and his financial disclosures. One of his grownup sons works on the private damage legislation agency.
When his nomination to the HHS secretary put up was into consideration, Kennedy indicated in his ethics disclosure that he meant to proceed benefiting from lawsuits over Gardasil, a Merck vaccine that protects in opposition to HPV. After Democrats raised issues with the monetary relationship, he instructed Congress he would divest his curiosity and signal over the monetary stake to one in every of his grownup sons.
Federal ethics rules bar authorities staff from collaborating in issues wherein they, their partner, or their minor little one has a monetary stake. It doesn’t embody grownup youngsters comparable to Kennedy’s sons.
“There are a lot of loopholes, and that is one of them,” mentioned Cynthia Brown, senior ethics counsel on the Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, a watchdog group centered on U.S. authorities ethics and accountability. “It certainly is an appearance problem. Even if it’s not a technical violation, it is an ethical problem in terms of influence.”
Some lawmakers and ethics leaders weren’t mollified by Kennedy’s deliberate divestiture. Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) referred to as on Kennedy to conform to a four-year, post-employment ban on accepting any compensation from lawsuits involving any entity regulated by HHS.
“It would be insufficient for RFK Jr. to only divest his interest in the Gardasil case while leaving the window open to profit from other anti-vax lawsuits, including future cases he could bring after leaving office,” she said in a statement.
Kennedy additionally made cash on the MAHA identify by making use of in September to register it as a trademark. He transferred trademark ownership to a restricted legal responsibility firm led by buddy and MAHA ally Del Bigtree after making about $100,000 off the phrase, based on his monetary disclosure.
HHS’ Hilliard didn’t reply questions on whether or not Kennedy had signed over his curiosity in charges from authorized referrals to his son, the cash he made by registering MAHA as a trademark, or whether or not he agreed with Warren’s request that upon leaving workplace he settle for a four-year ban on accepting cash from lawsuits involving entities regulated by HHS.
Bigtree is govt director of the Informed Consent Action Network, or ICAN, an anti-vaccination group. He was communications director for Kennedy’s failed presidential marketing campaign, and as an informal adviser to the secretary he helped vet candidates for HHS jobs. Bigtree’s wage on the nonprofit was $234,000 for the 2023 fiscal 12 months, based on paperwork filed with the IRS. ICAN paid $6 million in authorized charges to Siri & Glimstad in 2023. The agency’s managing companion, Aaron Siri, focuses on vaccine damage. He has been Kennedy’s personal lawyer and adviser, and likewise helped vet candidates for the secretary.
Brown, an ethics counselor, mentioned the switch and ongoing advisory relationship might elevate questions on who’s influencing Kennedy. Bigtree, at a Politico event in February, referred to as on Kennedy to recruit scientists to HHS who imagine vaccines trigger autism, for instance. One of Kennedy’s early actions at HHS was the launch of a examine on the causes of autism.
ICAN didn’t reply to an e mail in search of remark. HHS additionally didn’t reply to questions on Kennedy’s switch of the MAHA trademark to Bigtree.
“This is the type of Washington wheeling and dealing that raises questions about integrity in government,” Brown mentioned. “If it was trademarked before he became a public official, there may be no law broken. But by transferring it to someone he knows, it illustrates the constant trickle of influence among those in power.”
Past administrations have confronted comparable criticism over well being regulators’ ties to Big Pharma. Alex Azar, who led HHS in the course of the earlier Trump administration, labored for drugmaker Eli Lilly earlier than coming into public workplace. Robert Califf, FDA commissioner in the course of the Biden administration, was a consultant to drug companies.
Scott Gottlieb, who was FDA commissioner from 2017 to 2019 and an adviser to Trump’s presidential marketing campaign, stepped down to affix the board of the drugmaker Pfizer.
“Big Pharma is well off. But, in general, financial conflicts don’t depend on how much the organizations are spending,” mentioned Zeke Emanuel, a bioethicist who served on a covid advisory board beneath President Joe Biden. “The question is, is there a reasonable concern that financial or other concerns are affecting their judgment?”
