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During a House committee meeting Tuesday, Kennedy announced a large-scale ad campaign from the federal government to hype wearable tech.
The road to “make America healthy again” will apparently be paved with Apple Watches. Health and Human Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has just unveiled a campaign that will try to encourage the widespread use of wearables.
RFK Jr. announced the initiative Tuesday afternoon during a House Energy and Commerce Health Subcommittee meeting to discuss the HHS’ budget request for the upcoming fiscal year. In response to a question from representative Troy Balderson (R-Ohio) about wearables, Kennedy revealed that HHS will soon conduct one of the agency’s largest ever advertising campaigns to promote their use. He added that in his ideal future, every American will be donning a wearable within the next four years.
“It’s a key part of our mission to Make America Healthy Again,” RFK Jr. stated in an X post following the question.
Some medical experts are excited about the potential for wearables to become an early warning system, alerting users to their personalized risk of many health conditions (even viral infections) well before showing signs of illness. Wearables are also regularly used by people with chronic health conditions for various indications, such as people with diabetes who have continuous glucose monitors (CGM) that measure their blood sugar in real time.
But much of this potential has yet to be validated by large-scale research. While CGM devices can be helpful for people with diabetes, for instance, no published studies seem to have shown any health benefits in those without the condition. Other studies have shown that some wearables aren’t quite as accurate as hoped, coming up short to gold-standard tests like the electrocardiograph or even your own self-perception. --->READ MORE HERE
Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. wants all Americans wearing a wearable within the next four years, he told House members Tuesday.
Kennedy promised “one of the biggest advertising campaigns in HHS history” to reach that goal during a hearing of the House Energy and Commerce Health Subcommittee.
Wearable devices can include smartwatches and fitness trackers — like Apple Watches and Oura rings — and medical devices that monitor health metrics like heart rate, blood pressure and glucose levels.
Kennedy said the devices are key to his Make America Healthy Again agenda, which is largely focused on combating the rise of chronic disease.
“It’s a way people can take control of their own health. They can take responsibility,” he said. “They can see, as you know, what food is doing to their glucose levels, their heart rates and a number of other metrics as they eat it, and they can begin to make good judgments about their diet, about their physical activity, about the way that they live their lives.”
Kennedy said he has friends who’ve “changed their lives” from wearing glucose monitors — losing weight and freeing themselves from diabetes. The continuous glucose monitors can be costly, from $100 to $300 a month, but Kennedy said the agency is “exploring ways of making sure that those costs can be paid for.” He noted that Ozempic — the blockbuster weight-loss drug that can treat diabetes and obesity — costs more than $1,000 a month.
“If you can achieve the same thing with an $80 wearable, it’s a lot better for the American people,” he said. --->READ MORE HEREFollow links below to relevant/related stories and resources:
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