If you think one appointment can’t change an entire system, think again.
RFK Jr. as HHS Secretary is already challenging decades of pharmaceutical dominance and bureaucratic complacency.
His decision to put reformer Dr. Martin Adel Makary in charge of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) might just redefine how America approaches health, medicine, and the power of Big Pharma.
RFK Jr. as HHS Secretary Has a Reform Agenda.
Appointing Dr. Marty Makary to Run the FDA Proves He’s Serious
In my previous post about the appointment of RFK Jr. as HHS Secretary, I shared why we, as citizens, should applaud his selection. I explained how the pharmaceutical approach to health and wellness has captivated our healthcare system in ways that are not only unhealthy but deeply corrupted.
Modern medicine is filled with well-meaning doctors, nurses, and other professionals doing their best every single day. Yet many are so immersed in the system that they cannot clearly see its flaws.
They genuinely believe the industry is doing everything possible to promote health and healing across the nation. Each day, these providers care for patients, offer emotional comfort, and lead with compassion.
However, it has become increasingly clear that modern medicine, despite its good intentions, is not serving us well in addressing chronic and autoimmune diseases.
As I will continue to argue over and over, the issue lies not in the dedication of our doctors but in the limited tools available to them. Drugs and surgery alone cannot be our only answers.
The dominance of pharmaceutical companies has long overshadowed innovation and the search for broader healing tools. RFK Jr. as HHS Secretary, faces an uphill battle in reforming this system.
Yet, his decision to appoint Dr. Marty Makary to lead the FDA signals that he is not only aware of the challenge but is genuinely determined to bring integrity and balance back to public health.
Makary Offers Hope at the FDA
While most providers in our healthcare system are busy caring for patients, a small but courageous group of physicians has dared to challenge the status quo, calling attention to the dangers of over-medication, profit-driven incentives, and pharmaceutical dominance.
In my thirty-five years of studying these issues, no voice has been more consistent or courageous than that of Marty Makary, MD.
Dr. Makary is a Professor of Surgery at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and Chief of Islet Transplant Surgery at Johns Hopkins Hospital.
He earned his medical degree from Thomas Jefferson University and holds a Master’s in Public Health from Harvard’s T.H. Chan School of Public Health. Beyond his impressive credentials, he has become a passionate advocate for meaningful reform in healthcare.
I’ve read his books Unaccountable and The Price We Pay, where he exposes hidden costs, reveals the lack of transparency, and calls for integrity throughout the system.
His work offers one of the clearest, most honest critiques of what is broken in American healthcare, and he has never shied away from speaking the truth, whether to the public or to his peers.
So you can imagine my genuine surprise and delight when RFK Jr. as HHS Secretary, appointed Dr. Marty Makary to lead the Food and Drug Administration.
If we are to loosen the stranglehold that Big Pharma has long maintained over our public health agencies, we will need a leader with Makary’s rare combination of expertise, courage, and vision.
And so far, he hasn’t disappointed.
The Press Release That Should Have Shaken Washington
Since his appointment, Dr. Makary has continued his bold and principled approach, maintaining his insistence that sweeping reform is urgently needed within our public health agencies.
On September 9, 2025, the FDA released a statement titled “FDA Launches Crackdown on Deceptive Drug Advertising.”
We’ve all seen them. Those endless streams of pharmaceutical ads with smiling, carefree actors who seem to promise that happiness is just one prescription away. The message is subtle yet unmistakable: Ask your doctor for this drug, and you, too, can feel like us.
The FDA has long-standing rules against misleading pharmaceutical advertising. Yet buried within the agency’s recent statement was a revelation that should have led every evening newscast:
“The FDA acknowledges that, over the past quarter century, enforcement of advertising regulations has declined to levels inconsistent with our public health mission.”
In the late 1990s, the agency’s Office of Prescription Drug Promotion issued hundreds of warning letters each year to pharmaceutical companies violating truth-in-advertising standards. By 2023, that number had fallen to just one.
And in 2024, none at all.
Dr. Makary assured both the media and the public that this would change immediately. Under his direction, the FDA issued roughly one hundred cease-and-desist orders to violators and thousands of warning letters to drug manufacturers and online pharmacies.
Secretary Kennedy stood firmly behind the move, declaring, “Pharmaceutical ads have hooked this country on prescription drugs. That ends now.”
Makary Reinforces the Press Release in the New York Times
Four days later, on September 16, 2025, Dr. Makary made his case directly to the American public in a New York Times op-ed titled “The Trump Administration Is Taking On Big Pharma.”
He wrote, “American drug advertisements are filled with dancing patients, glowing smiles and catchy jingles that drown out the fine print. It’s not education-it’s a distraction by design.”
Makary discussed how these uncensored advertisements have harmed the physician–patient relationship and often promote expensive brand-name drugs rather than generic or biosimilar alternatives that cost a fraction of the price.
“The United States leads the world in drug spending,” he noted. “A nonstop bombardment of ads encouraging medications over lifestyle changes is not a path to making America healthy again.”
He also exposed a troubling new form of public deception by alerting us of the fact of the rise of social media influencers paid by pharmaceutical companies to market drugs without disclosing potential side effects.
Makary cited a 2024 Journal of Pharmaceutical Health Services Research review revealing that many online drug promotions either concealed or completely eliminated risk information.
This is why we should all be celebrating Makary’s appointment to head the FDA. Never before has the head of an agency like the FDA ever confessed to such extended failure to the American public. And promised retribution.
In my first post on Secretary Kennedy’s appointment, I pointed out various points of evidence as to how Big Pharma has corrupted and controlled our healthcare system to the detriment of the public, and now Makary is confirming the problem for us all.
Makary Takes His Argument to His Colleagues
Dr. Makary also shared his confession with his fellow doctors in a piece he published in JAMA, The Journal of the American Medical Association. He addressed the issue of agency (FDA) capture by the pharmaceutical industry and reiterated his points from the NY Times piece.
Within the JAMA piece was this candid acknowledgment from Makary:
“An existing FDA regulation states that ads must not create a ‘misleading impression,’ and that ads must offer a ‘fair balance’ between a drug’s benefits and risks. But many ads today do not abide by these standards. In fact, the most common message seems to be that a drug will instantly transform you into singing and dancing endlessly.”
Through this piece, Makary not only held the pharmaceutical industry to account but also called on his medical peers to recognize how deeply this problem affects their profession and ultimately, the patients they serve.
And the Silence Was Deafening
When was the last time any of us can remember the head of a U.S. government agency openly acknowledging such a profound failure? And more significantly, this came from one of our premier public health agencies!
To prove just how unbalanced our healthcare system has become, I’m willing to bet that few, if any, of you have heard a single mention of this confession in the mainstream media.
CNN, Fox News, MSNBC? Nothing.
ABC, CBS, NBC? Not a single story.
The reason is painfully obvious to anyone who watches television and sees the endless stream of pharmaceutical ads.Not only has Big Pharma captured our public health agencies they have also, via advertising dollars, silenced our media to any criticism of their role in public health.
What Makary Did Not Say But Should Have
Readers of this blog know that my advocacy centers on changing how we treat chronic and autoimmune diseases. Modern medicine excels in trauma care and does well with infectious diseases. But when it comes to chronic illness, it consistently fails as evidenced by the fact that these conditions are still labeled “chronic.”
It’s time for a transformation in how physicians are trained. Medical education must evolve to include the tools and protocols of functional medicine, which has demonstrated far better outcomes in addressing the root causes of chronic disease rather than merely suppressing symptoms.
Most of the pharmaceutical advertising that Dr. Makary is now confronting targets chronic conditions. The most powerful step the FDA could take would be to require drug makers to reveal a deeper truth.
If a manufacturer’s own research shows that a drug manages a disease but does not cure it, then all advertising should include the following statement, alongside the list of side effects and adverse reactions:
“This drug is designed to manage the symptoms of your disease. Individual results may vary. This treatment is not intended to cure your condition and is expected to be used long term.”
The FDA’s fundamental role is to protect the public. Requiring this kind of statement would simply demand honesty from those they regulate.
This would not be unprecedented. The FDA already mandates that every nutritional supplement label carry this disclaimer:
“These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease.”
If supplement makers are held to that standard, why not pharmaceutical companies as well?
Doctors and medical students also have an ethical obligation to recognize how the pharmaceutical industry shapes their profession. They must demand that medical school training and continuing education include a broader, evidence-based understanding of functional and lifestyle medicine.
If our public health agencies are aware of potentially more effective, lower-risk approaches to wellness than the pharmaceutical model, they have an obligation to study them and to share those findings transparently with the public.
Instead, the FDA has too often aligned itself with the dictates of modern medicine’s corporate interests. It has funded, supported, and defended whatever benefits the pharmaceutical establishment.
Will Dr. Makary and Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. succeed in breaking the long-standing alliance between big government and big business that has captured our healthcare system? Only time will tell. But for the sake of our health, and our children’s, this is a mission that deserves nonpartisan support.
Nothing discussed here should be viewed through a political lens. When we strip away ideology and focus on facts, it becomes clear that meaningful reform is not only possible, but necessary.
The Department of Health and Human Services bears ultimate responsibility for the state of our healthcare system. For the first time in decades, I see leadership — in both Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Dr. Marty Makary — that places the well-being of the public above all else.
If you’d like to learn more about Dr. Marty Makary, I highly recommend his books Unaccountable and The Price We Pay. I’ve just ordered his latest work, Blind Spots: When Medicine Gets It Wrong and What It Means for Our Health (2024), and I’ll be sharing a review here soon.
Finally, I encourage you to listen to Dr. Makary’s thoughtful conversation with Dr. Mark Hyman, one of today’s leading voices in functional medicine and founder of the Center for Functional Medicine at the Cleveland Clinic.
I had the pleasure of meeting Dr. Hyman years ago at an early conference hosted by The Institute for Functional Medicine, and I can assure you, this discussion between two courageous, truth-telling physicians is well worth your time.
You can listen here.
