[Music] Robert F Kennedy Jr participated in a Roundtable this week where the conversation focused on America's chronic illness crisis in his speech he blasted Americans unhealthy Lifestyles exacerbated by our Foods by big Pharma and by our Congress now over 100 members of whom have received funding from Nordic drug OIC here's a clip from the round table discussion let's watch and there's a pushed to recommend OIC for Americans as young as six over a condition obesity that is completely preventable and barely even existed 100 years ago since n 74% of Americans are obese the cost of
all of them if they take their OIC prescriptions will be $3 trillion a year this is a drug that has made NOA nordis the biggest company in Europe it's a Danish company but the Danish government does not recommend it it recommends a change in diet to treat obesity and exercise Kennedy added that at half the cost of OIC $3 trillion for Americans yearly the government could provide organic food plus a gym membership to each person in the US independent Senator Bernie Sanders weighed in on the matter at a congressional hearing saying quote no company should
get away with charging Americans up to 15 times more than other countries for a life-saving drug let's watch some of what he said in that hearing the price you are charging Americans for AIC is still nearly $600 that's with all of the rebates and all of the discounts that's over nine times as much as people in Germany pay for the product and the price you are charging for w GOI to Americans is over $800 nearly four and a half times as much as it cost in Denmark now these comments from Sanders follow a new report
released Tuesday showing that not just obesity but severe obesity is on the rise in the United States commissioned by the Centers for Disease Control and prevention between August of 2021 and August of this year the study found almost one in 10 of those surveyed reported severe obesity women were nearly twice as likely as men to report severe obesity and overall it climbed from 8% of the population to 10% in the last decade now while severe obesity is up obesity has not changed overall from a decade ago people with a body mass index of 30 are
considered to have obesity those with a BMI of 40 or higher have severe obesity well look I appreciate Robert F Kenny Jr shining a spotlight on this issue um Rising rates of not obesity but Extreme obesity particularly for children are a huge problem um I don't think giving gym memberships to people would be an answer at all um again that so many people have made bad Health decisions for a variety of reasons for societal factors I'm not saying it's all your fault that you're overweight um but if if you've fallen into that condition just like
e you know improving your eating improving your exercise regimen is very hard for people who are suffering from severe obesity so I don't know that that's necessarily the solution now I don't love the idea of just giving more drugs and more pills to everyone and fixing everything um that way either but um I would not be and and of course you know big farmer is going to benefit from selling things like OIC but I I do think OIC is going to be the solution for a good number of people who find themselves in the solution
or or tell me what the solution is but it's not going to be just giving gym memberships to people so so I've genuinely mixed feelings about this because I I know people who have used OIC they've found it very useful I know some a friend of mine who's politically left Center argues that it could really help people you know help Public Health bring obesity rates down and all of that the the difficulty I have and this may be unusual where I have more sympathy with Robert F Kennedy than than you do but because I'm not
a huge fan of his but here I do see the argument that it's just a firstly it's supplying or making it easier to supply people with a drug that is manufactured commercially and therefore the drug makers have an interest in promoting its use but the other thing is is there a broader argument against the Quick Fix of medication or a pill versus looking at all the additives all the other bad stuff that is in our food Kennedy in those remarks we played mentioned obesity was not a problem I can't remember what time frame he said
50 or 70 years ago now is that only because we have become more sedentary or is it actually because there's more corn syrup there's more chemical additives in food all the processing of the food I mean this is purely anecdotal and I hate making anecdotal arguments but I I've experienced this so many people I know have experienced this that when you go to Europe and you eat people go on vacation right we go as tourists we eat I went to Italy a year ago you eat tons of pasta you drink T tons of wine you
have you don't gain any weight compared to here where there's it's like there's something in the food supply that is just bad for you it makes you feel gross and makes people become overweight unless they're very very very active um and and that that is a that is a real effect so I I hear that and I just don't want to just like throw pills at people either although I think the the category where I'm I'm more concerned about overmedicating is for the more um emotional kind of wellbeing you give everybody anti-depressants give everybody stimulants
get every kid has you know some version of hyperactivity or Autism or something so they need some some kind of pill that has very limited you know if you look at the research very limited positives to be said about this of course some people do benefit from them some people benefit from all of these drugs being available and I don't want to make the I don't want to you know gatekeep and make it more difficult to get medicine for you that you may need I think that's you know your choice or your choice with your
doctor um but just you know giving that to everyone Society wise is is not often going to be the answer on in terms of now in terms of the cost the cost being and this comes up again and again with drugs here I saw Lena Khan complaining about this on 60 Minutes a few days ago Bernie Sanders complains about this all the time that they the drug companies charge different prices in different in in different countries they charge us more here and you know and that's consistent with every product being charged differently like the same
you know Starbucks prices are going to be slightly higher in a city than in the rural parts of the country the your dollar purchases you more in um less developed places even within America here's how I would fix this why don't we if they're charging less for it in Germany I would just make it legal to buy the drug in Germany and bring it here but it's not it's illegal under us law you cannot buy drugs elsewhere and ship them here that would immediately fix this problem of the drugs costing Less in other places you
just Amazon and have it brought in here we could do that right now but the US government makes it illegal to purchase drugs in other countries as people have to go to Mexico and smuggle them in we could just fix that and then they couldn't charge it differently we could be a global a global Marketplace um that's a US Government problem go Suave and Bernie Sanders kind of is on the same side on something this is almost I guess well I don't know what I don't know what his solution his solution is probably to to
mandate that the company has to sell it here in the US market for whatever the cost is in Germany I'm just saying just run around him just buy it from Germany well I I think he would probably agree with you in the sense of the government being sort of captive to these corporate interests but I can solve it with a market way rather than than a government way but it's drug makers who want to make the big profits here right so I mean that's the argument that if you freed people up to just get it
anywhere then they could get the lower prices and you would bypass this and if we relax some of these um these patent laws are so abusive I mean you know I I have some agreement with the left criticism of big Pharma and how how they pursue profits but some of their some of their business model is is like government protected in terms of the patents and everything that you unable to introduce or have generics for medicine because of ridiculous again this is public policy this is not this is not a totally free Marketplace this is
saying you can't sell a rival you a different firm can't sell a rival product which would help bring down the cost because we the government are arbitrarily saying this only this firm has the right to sell this product we could fix some of this with Market Solutions is all I'm saying we could but they could also get you know food manufacturers to have less sugar and less corn syrup and all that in in food I know you we were talking about disliking anecdotal evidence but I remember trying to reduce food in my diet I happen
to like bacon you need to buy bacon that says no sugar added like that's it is so rare that we don't add sugar to bacon that no sugar added bacon is a thing that seems crazy to me just eat a giant pile of bacon and bacon is good for you it's meat it's it's it's the kind of you know all you need the the whole cutting carbs thing does kind of work is the these glorified Atkins diet or paleo diet or whatever it that that does actually work awesome this is very true more Rising right
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