Thursday’s swearing in of Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. as President Donald Trump’s Health and Human Services Secretary was a beautiful thing to behold. As I wrote previously, the health industrial complex in Alabama is strong, but the health outcomes of our women, children, elderly, and underserved populations are poor. It’s a dichotomy that needs addressing, and the Make America Health Again (MAHA) agenda could be just what is needed to usher in a new paradigm for a healthy Alabama.
Kennedy’s acceptance speech was quite profound, and I recommend you listen to it in its entirety.
Three takeaways from Kennedy’s speech could be applied to our great state of Alabama, and everyone should take note of how a MAHA movement could transform and change the health trajectory of our citizens.
Kennedy’s sense of mission is quite powerful, and he began his speech with that, saying, “For 20 years, I've gotten up every morning on my knees and prayed that God would put me in a position where I could end the childhood chronic disease epidemic in this country.”
Well, thanks to Trump, Kennedy now has that opportunity, and this state sorely needs that help because our institutions continue to fail us. For example, we have a huge research hospital at University of Alabama Birmingham which is unappy with the Trump administration because DOGE cut NIH funding for administrative overhead. These cuts do not necessarily affect the funding for the actual research, mind you, just the excessive costs for staff and other things that probably could use streamlining.
While a judge issued a temporary stay on the cuts since the White House announced them, legacy media and political commentators are clutching their pearls and screaming about an apocalypse and how children will die. That’s despite the fact that the last big focus (and money boondoggle) of UAB’s NIH funding was 1.5 million to study pain sensitivity in transgenders. Can you see why DOGE and now MAHA are so important?
With all the years and money poured into research – not just in Alabama – but the entire nation, children are still getting sick and dying. Now that MAHA is entering the fray, its goal is to find ways to cut chronic disease before it becomes chronic – frankly, I can get on board with that. Instead of using excessive amounts of money to manage and cure sick children, how about using some of those funds to make sick children a rarity?
It can be done, and it must be done. RFK in place at HHS is a good indication that it will be done.
In the preamble to Kennedy’s swearing in, Trump signed an executive order establishing the “Make America Healthy Again Commission.” In it the president wrote:
This concern applies urgently to America’s children. In 2022, an estimated 30 million children (40.7 percent) had at least one health condition, such as allergies, asthma, or an autoimmune disease. Autism spectrum disorder now affects 1 in 36 children in the United States — a staggering increase from rates of 1 to 4 out of 10,000 children identified with the condition during the 1980s. Eighteen percent of late adolescents and young adults have fatty liver disease, close to 30 percent of adolescents are prediabetic, and more than 40 percent of adolescents are overweight or obese.
Trump further stated that 77% of military-aged youth are ineligible because of these health metrics. Our state has a proud heritage of military service and readiness, but this cannot be carried out if we have a generation of children unequipped or unprepared for service. MAHA looks to change this.
This later statement in Kennedy’s speech really hit me between the eyes: “A healthy person has a thousand dreams. A sick person only has one. Sixty percent of our population has only one dream: that they get better.”
The concept that one can get better is what brings hope. Now citizens will be offered options beyond surgery, pharmaceuticals, and perpetual medical visits.
As a senior citizen in this state, the options given me when I visit a doctor are too often limited to managed pharmaceuticals or managed death. Thankfully, I am a tenacious person and have networks allowing me to expand my options beyond Alabama, giving me the chance to thrive in my golden years and pursue my life, not manage my decline.
Children, with their entire life ahead of them, should have the same options and medical freedoms that allow them to be healthy, get healthy, and stay healthy. Mothers and fathers should have the hope that their children can thrive without being chained to pharmaceutical or medical manipulations. The entrance of Kennedy and the MAHA agenda will be a gamechanger to usher in these options and give Alabamians hope.
The golden age of health for Alabama and America is within our grasp.
Jennifer Oliver O'Connell, As the Girl Turns, is an investigative journalist, author, opinion analyst, and contributor to 1819 News, Redstate, and other publications. Jennifer writes on Politics and Pop Culture, with occasional detours into Reinvention, Yoga, and Food. You can read more about Jennifer's world at her As the Girl Turns website. You can also follow her on Facebook, Twitter, and Telegram.
The views and opinions expressed here are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the policy or position of 1819 News. To comment, please send an email with your name and contact information to Commentary@1819news.com.
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