Response from Bill Gifford, co-author on Peter Attiaās āOutliveā book:
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A_User
#4
This story is too on the nose.
The steelman is what people want, could be considered pent-up from the lockdowns and mandates.
What good can come from Sec Kennedy is I think their choice of Deputy Sec as the previous CEO of SENS. Thereās probably plenty of other things. I think many might be accepting of the bull roaming around the china shop.
I donāt like many things and expect them to be bad but itās not going to be all bad. And itās going to be uncertain how health will progress with new inventions and AI agent progress increasing rapidly. If Iād guess now without any progress in AI agents and without the current expected Deputy Sec, Iād say on net negative for health over the coming years. But there are a lot of changes happening simultaneously. Does that make sense?
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Sad. Squandering intellectual capital is exactly right. Especially ironic given the whole āMAHAā thing and the administration theoretically is on board with clamping down on processed food etc.
Hopefully he gets a job somewhere else which will let him continue the same work.
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My concern in this is that the government appear to be enforcing a scientific view on scientists working for the government. Once that is done in one place then one needs to assume it is done throughout.
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I think Musk had it right. GLP1 medications need to be freely, cheaply and readily available for everyone and thatāll solve the obesity issue. We can discuss fast food and its impact all we want but itāll lead nowhere and nothing will ever get done about it anyway.
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Sure, that is and was a good ideaā¦
But it got cancelled
Trump Drops Bidenās Medicare Obesity Drug Coverage Proposal
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-04-04/trump-drops-biden-s-medicare-obesity-drug-coverage-proposal
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Never claimed that the Trump administration would listen to Musk. See Muskās recent criticism of Trumpās economic advisor Peter Retarrdo (also known as Ron Vara).
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Such a typical āAmericanā problem though, isnāt it. You have the pharma industry making massive profits fixing problems that the food and advertising industries caused (while they also made massive profits). The only loser is the poor sucker who is simultaneously spending their money on both Big Macs and Wegovy.
I had been vaguely hopefully that with RFK Jr, the government might at least grow a spine and work to improve the food environment. Itās actually pretty easy to do, but it requires a more heavy handed government than Americans are typically comfortable with. This administration seems pretty happy to go authoritarian, but unfortunately theyāre applying it in senseless ideological battles rather than things that could make a meaningful difference.
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