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In another moment of clarity that is now characteristic of the new Trump administration, Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS) Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. observed that the nation is not only experiencing “a health crisis,” but also “a spiritual crisis – and those things are connected.”
“We’re the sickest nation on earth,” Kennedy told Fox News’ The Ingraham Angle host Laura Ingraham on Friday – a day after being confirmed by the Senate.
“And, you know, you have a whole generation of kids that feel alienated, dispossessed, and they are in an existential crisis,” he said. “You know, 77% of our kids can’t qualify for military service. There’s a purposelessness in their lives and no sense of usefulness or effectiveness or connectedness to their communities.”
Kennedy explained further how this “disconnectedness” drives both “the chronic disease epidemic” and the mental health epidemic of “depression, of suicide, of alcoholism, of drug addiction.”
“I think we have to address all of those things at the same time,” the secretary said. “We can’t just say we’re going to make you physically healthy.”
Kennedy explained that physical health is related to a state of mind that is not simply focused on making oneself happy, but aware of the need to reach outside of ourselves to serve others.
“We have to get up and say, ‘What am I going to do to make myself useful today, to be useful to my friends, my family, to my community,’” he said, “And that, paradoxically, is ultimately the path to happiness, a connectedness that you get from, from doing, you know, from doing good things, from being of service to others.”
Ingraham posted to X as well Kennedy’s deep concern about Americans’ reliance on pharmaceutical drugs when health outcomes in the country are still among the worst in the world:
We spend, we are 4.2% of the world’s population. We buy 70% of the pharmaceutical drugs on Earth. We spend two to three times what other countries pay for health care, and we have worse health outcomes. We literally have the sickest population in the world … We need somebody different who can come in and say, I’m going to be a disrupter. I’m not going to let the food industry and the pharmaceutical industry run health policy anymore. We’re going to … turn health policy over to people who are actually concerned with public health.
Kennedy reflected on his own history of addiction, and how “spiritual realignment” or “a spiritual fire” is necessary to “overcome that biological impulse.”
“I think, you know, that comes from connectedness to community,” he explained. “And you know alcoholism and addiction are diseases of isolation – people end up in jails, institutions, and dead, or in bathrooms by themselves or … insulated by secrets … they withdraw from the community and from connectedness. And the process of getting sober is a process of reconnecting to community.”
When asked about abortion-inducing drugs – which the Biden-Harris administration made more easily available to women and young girls – Kennedy said that while the president “hasn’t made a decision about the issue yet,” he has asked him to “study the safety signals, and I think that that’s worth doing.”
“During the Biden administration, the NIH [National Institutes of Health] did something that was inexcusable – which is to tell doctors and patients not to report injuries. And that’s not a good policy,” the secretary said.
Upon Kennedy’s confirmation last week, CatholicVote (CV) vice president Josh Mercer wrote that he believes the risk of celebrating the former Democrat’s decision to back President Trump has “paid off.”
“RFK Jr. is set to overhaul the pharmaceutical and medical industries … but more importantly, he has the potential to incite a major shift in the fight against abortion,” Mercer observed, explaining that while many initially believed Kennedy would not share the pro-life values of Catholics, “we took a chance on him – and we ended up working with him in critical ways over the last several months.”
“At first, we weren’t sure if he would embrace our cause: to build a culture where abortion is unthinkable,” the CV co-founder continued. “But after engaging with his campaign, we quickly recognized that RFK Jr. wasn’t like other politicians.He’s willing to engage on issues of faith, life, and solidarity.”
He cited Kennedy’s statement during his confirmation hearing:“Every abortion is a tragedy … We cannot be a moral nation with 1.2 million abortions a year.”
“And we need greater accountability for those profiting off this death culture,” Mercer wrote. “This is our chance to work with RFK and to build a culture of life. We’re committed to helping him in every way we can to make that happen.”
