Snake oil salesmen will be eating good during the Trump presidency. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. recently declared that he will greatly expand people’s access to experimental and alternative medical treatments, even while acknowledging that a “lot of charlatans” are likely to take advantage of suffering people as a result.
RFK Jr. made the announcement during a recent interview on the Ultimate Human Podcast hosted by Gary Brecka, a self-proclaimed biologist, biohacker, and longevity expert (Brecka appears to possess two bachelors’ degrees in biology, but is not a licensed medical doctor). Kennedy stated that, under his reign as Secretary of Health and Human Services, Americans will more easily be able to get their hands on treatments not currently approved by health regulators.
“If you want to take an experimental drug—you can do that, you ought to be able to do that,” Kennedy told Brecka.
While many patient advocates in general have pushed for looser regulations surrounding experimental or off-label treatments, other experts have cautioned that it’s important to strike a balance between improved access and safety. And it’s unlikely Kennedy’s approach will meet that threshold.
For starters, Kennedy has long spread misinformation about vaccines (one of the most effective medical interventions ever created), nutrition, and other health topics. And he’s no stranger to backing alternative treatments that have next to no evidence supporting their use. During this latest interview, for instance, he referenced chelation and stem cells as unproven therapies that people should have easier access to.
Stem cell medicine is a legitimate and growing field of research. But direct-to-consumer stem cell clinics often exaggerate their benefits, claiming stem cells can treat everything from cancer to long covid. In recent years, this cottage industry has exploded in the U.S. and overseas, and some patients have been severely injured from buying into the hype. People have experienced pulmonary embolisms, bacterial infections, and other serious complications, including blindness, from visiting these clinics.
The risk-balance equation is arguably even worse with chelation therapy. Chelation involves using drugs that bind to heavy metals in the body, allowing them to be excreted out through urine. It’s an effective treatment for certain kinds of acute poisoning or toxic exposures. But in alternative medicine circles, chelation is regularly used to “cleanse” people of supposed toxins dubiously blamed for a bevy of chronic illnesses, including autism. As with stem cells, people have gotten hurt or died after taking chelation for unapproved uses.
RFK seems to be fully aware of the potential danger that would come with making these treatments easier to access, yet brushed that off as inevitable during his interview.
“And of course you’re going to get a lot of charlatans, and you’re going to get people who have bad results,” he said. “And ultimately, you can’t prevent that either way. Leaving the whole thing in the hands of pharma is not working for us.”
The Food and Drug Administration has previously warned the public to stay away from chelation therapy for autism and from unregulated stem cell treatments, but who knows if these warnings will stay up for much longer. Kennedy and the Trump Administration have repeatedly undermined approved medical treatments like vaccines. Now he’s set to open the floodgates for unlicensed drugs that may not work or will harm people desperate enough to use them.
