Two of President Trump’s top health nominees are on a collision course as the incoming administration faces a crucial decision on coverage for groundbreaking anti-obesity drugs.
Mehmet Oz, President-elect Trump’s pick to run the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, has extolled the benefits of anti-obesity drugs like Ozempic, pitching them on his show and social media channels.
“In general, I think the amount of good done by these medications by helping people lose weight and improve their cardiovascular system — and it might have long-term benefits in a lot of other areas as well where obesity causes inflammation — is massive,” Oz said in an Instagram post last year.
Oz’s potential boss, Health and Human Services secretary nominee Robert F. Kennedy Jr., thinks the drugs are a scam, and the solution to obesity is to simply eat better.
“The first line of response should be lifestyle. It should be eating well, making sure that you don’t get obese,” Kennedy told CNBC’s Jim Cramer in an interview Dec. 12.
In an interview with Greg Gutfield on Fox News in October, Kennedy suggested weight loss drugs were being pushed on to gullible Americans by foreign pharmaceutical companies that wouldn’t even market the drugs in their home countries.