RFK Jr. Aims for All Americans to Have Wearable Devices in Four Years

The road to “make America healthy again” will apparently be paved with Apple Watches. Health and Human Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has just unveiled a campaign that will try to encourage the widespread use of wearables.

RFK Jr. announced the initiative Tuesday afternoon during a House Energy and Commerce Health Subcommittee meeting to discuss the HHS’ budget request for the upcoming fiscal year. In response to a question from Senator Troy Balderson (R-Ohio) about wearables, Kennedy revealed that HHS will soon conduct one of the agency’s largest ever advertising campaigns to promote their use. He added that in his ideal future, every American will be donning a wearable within the next four years.

“It’s a key part of our mission to Make America Healthy Again,” RFK Jr. stated in an X post following the question.

Some medical experts are excited about the potential for wearables to become an early warning system, alerting users to their personalized risk of many health conditions (even viral infections) well before showing signs of illness. Wearables are also regularly used by people with chronic health conditions for various indications, such as people with diabetes who have continuous glucose monitors (CGM) that measure their blood sugar in real time.

But much of this potential has yet to be validated by large-scale research. While CGM devices can be helpful for people with diabetes, for instance, no published studies seem to have shown any health benefits in those without the condition. Other studies have shown that some wearables aren’t quite as accurate as hoped, coming up short to gold-standard tests like the electrocardiograph or even your own self-perception.

It’s worth noting that the current nominee for the U.S. Surgeon General, Casey Means, is the co-founder of a company that provides continuous glucose monitors and other health trackers to clients. Means has argued that CGM is the “most powerful technology for generating the data and awareness to rectify our Bad Energy crisis in the Western world.”

Overhyping aside, people are also worried about the possible loss of privacy that could come from the mass adoption of wearables. While wearable tech might be able to detect early signs of overheating among outside workers, for instance, privacy advocates and labor rights groups have warned that there are few guardrails in place today that could prevent employers from leveraging the health-related data collected from these devices against workers. Breaches and hacks could also put our personal data in the hands of not-so-scrupulous people.

These concerns and challenges aren’t insurmountable, but given the current people in charge, any skepticism is understandable. Kennedy has spouted misinformation about a variety of health issues for a long time, vaccines in particular.

Earlier this month, for example, RFK Jr. unilaterally fired all 17 members of an outside advisory panel that helps guide vaccine policy in the U.S. He then quickly, without any public review, restocked the panel with new appointees, some of whom have their own reputations for misrepresenting vaccine science. This week, the panel is set to reexamine long-debunked talking points from the anti-vaccination movement, such as the supposed health risks of thimerosal in flu vaccines.

There’s nothing inherently wrong with wearables. But let’s just say I’m not too stoked to take any health recommendations from someone who doesn’t seem to be a fan of germ theory.