OPINION:
“President Trump Will Make America Healthy Again.” That’s the title of a chapter from my new book, “The New MAGA Deal.” Donald Trump’s commitment to improving the health of all Americans — particularly our children — immediately puts into focus the shared interests of Mr. Trump and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as well as the strategic importance of Mr. Kennedy’s timely endorsement of Mr. Trump.
Here’s the backstory: Big Pharma spent millions to keep then-President Donald Trump from being reelected in 2020. The giant pharmaceutical and food companies spent millions more to derail Mr. Kennedy’s 2024 presidential campaign. Mr. Trump and Mr. Kennedy now share a common cause because each understands these deep-pocketed special interests are a root cause of lethal mental and physical health problems for Americans.
Consider that in the 21st century, 54% of American children are chronically ill. They face increased rates of anxiety, depression, autism, food allergies, obesity, developmental disorders, cancer and more. Yet ever since they were captured by special interests such as Big Pharma, our federal agencies and politicians have paid little attention to these conditions.
America has one of the highest obesity rates in the world, and childhood obesity has tripled over the last three decades.
Autism is also an epidemic. Autism in American children has skyrocketed from 1 in 150 in the early 2000s to 1 in 36 today. In the 1990s, the rate of autism was 1 in 1,000, and in the 1970s, 1 in 10,000. One key to stopping the autism epidemic is ensuring toxins such as mercury, ingredients in plastics and fire retardants and certain ingredients in pharmaceuticals such as acetaminophen, vaccines and antidepressants are kept out of children’s bodies.
As for America’s obesity epidemic, major food manufacturers deliver the average American child 100 times as much sugar as they got 100 years ago, with sugar a substance as addictive as cocaine. This per capita sugar fix starkly contrasts with the 1950s, when obesity in the U.S. was virtually nonexistent.
The food companies hide the sugar in processed foods containing other harmful chemicals, including titanium dioxide, potassium bromates, brominated vegetable oil, red dye No. 3 and propylparaben. These toxic chemicals disrupt estrogen, lower sperm count, cause cancer in animals and humans, disrupt healthy gut bacteria, damage our central nervous systems, cause memory loss and muscle coordination loss, and are linked to hyperactivity in children.
Big Pharma is taking a similar toll. On the vaccination front, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends children receive an astonishing 11 vaccinations in their first 15 months of life. That is nearly twice the number recommended for children in the 1990s and nearly four times the number of vaccinations recommended for children in the 1970s.
Astonishingly, Big Pharma regularly bribes doctors to coerce parents into vaccinating their children. For example, Blue Cross Blue Shield has reported that every pediatrician with an average of 260 children under 2 years old as patients was awarded $400 each time a child received 10 vaccinations before their second birthday — a potential $100,000 year-end bonus.
The big pharmaceutical and food companies cynically target low-income American children. Not surprisingly, teenagers in low-income areas are most likely to have prediabetes and obesity from constantly eating processed foods with toxic chemicals, which usually means high cholesterol and high blood sugar.
Although the poor health brought about by eating lots of processed food isn’t lethal in and of itself, they usually result in a lifetime of dependence on medicines such as statins, insulin and Adderall, keeping the money toward medical bills sky high. It’s a marriage of special interests made in hell.
Then there is this: With obesity usually comes increased rates of depression. Adults who are obese have a 55% increased risk of developing depression over those who are not. Currently, 30% of Americans say they struggle with depression, a 10-point increase from 2015.
Instead of examining Americans’ living environment, the food they consume and the quality of water they drink to address this dramatic rise in depression, even young adults are being given prescriptions for antidepressants at a rate triple that of the previous decade. On top of this, these antidepressants have horrible side effects, including increased anxiety, insomnia and even depression — the condition they are supposed to treat.
Without serious changes to improve our national public health, our country will grow unhealthy and weak. Now, with the help of Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Mr. Trump is determined to make America healthy again. Mr. Trump and Mr. Kennedy know that to make America great again, America must be healthy again.
The political significance of Mr. Kennedy’s endorsement will not be lost on the Democrats. A Trump-Kennedy alliance is the last thing Vice President Kamala Harris needed to see at the end of her coronation devoid of any policies or substance. That’s because making America healthy again is likely to be a potent issue moving swing voters, particularly with the stamp of approval from Mr. Kennedy, a longtime warrior against Big Pharma.
• Peter Navarro served as a senior presidential adviser in the Trump White House and is the author of “The New MAGA Deal: The Unofficial Deplorables Guide to Donald Trump’s 2024 Policy Platform,” from which this piece is adapted.
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