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U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said on Tuesday that it is his vision “that every American is wearing a wearable within four years.”
He made the comments regarding devices like smartwatches, smart rings and fitness trackers to members of Congress, adding that the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) is “about to launch one of the biggest advertising campaigns in HHS history to encourage Americans to use wearables.”
Kennedy said during a hearing before the House Committee on Energy and Commerce’s Subcommittee on Health that wearables are a way “people can take control of their own health.”
“They can see, as you know, what food is doing to their glucose levels, their heart rates, and a number of other metrics as they eat it,” he told members of Congress. “And they can begin to make good judgments about their diet, about their physical activity, about the way that they live their lives.”
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The health secretary said he has had friends who have “utterly changed their lives just from wearing a glucose meter,” who have lost weight while monitoring their diabetes.
Shares of continuous glucose-monitoring device makers Abbott and Dexcom were up 3.6% and 10%, respectively, in afternoon trading, Reuters reported.
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While he has been critical of the diabetes drug Ozempic, which is often used for weight-loss, he has expressed support for the prescription of such weight-loss drugs for adults with morbid obesity and diabetes, provided they are accompanied by exercise.
“You know the Ozempic is costing $1300 a month, if you can achieve the same thing with an $80 wearable, it’s a lot better for the American people,” Kennedy said, adding, “We’re exploring ways of making sure that those costs can be paid for.”
J.P. Morgan analyst Robbie Marcus commented, “We think it’s premature to interpret this as a direct comment on whether Medicare and other commercial payors will move towards covering non-intensive Type II diabetes patients or other areas of proactive monitoring.”
Kennedy has long promoted healthy eating over medicine as a way to combat obesity, and has been a prominent skeptic of vaccine safety.
He added, both in person and on X, that the forthcoming wearables campaign is “a key part of our mission to Make America Healthy Again.”
Reuters contributed to this report.
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