English listening Practice with Health News Stories Ep 798
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Hi there, and welcome to this podcast from Adept English. I like to cover news, but I don't usually do world politics. But what a week it's been for world politics. With Donald Trump in the White House, there's been a different news story every day about what he's planning to do. Some of it is appalling to many people around the world. Some of it isn't surprising.

and some of it is very surprising. Donald Trump is what's known as a divisive figure, D-I-V-I-S-I-V-E, meaning that he divides opinion. Or another way of saying this in British English, Donald Trump is Marmite. People either really love him

or hate him. But today, let's look at one aspect of internal politics in the United States under Trump. Some really great vocabulary for politics and health today and an interesting story as well.

Hello, I'm Hilary and you're listening to Adept English. We will help you to speak English fluently. All you have to do is listen. So start listening now and find out how it works.

So this week, governments across the world are finding that they have to do business with Donald Trump. There's no choice but to have a relationship with him. So there are huge changes in world politics at the moment because of Donald Trump. Like him or loathe him, you cannot ignore him. But today, let's focus on one of the people that Trump has chosen to play an important role in his government.

That person is Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Before that, just a reminder that if you like the Adept English podcast, but you'd like to move faster with your English language learning and you'd like even more

up-to-the-minute English to listen to, try our paid subscription service. The Adept English paid subscription service is helping people all around the world improve their English. Eight episodes a month on a variety of topics. More topics and more in-depth than this weekly podcast.

It's a really excellent way to improve your English. Great vocabulary learning, great grammar learning, all while listening to interesting articles. And the cost of subscription every month is very small. It's well worth it. Go to our website, adeptenglish.com, to find out more. Obviously, our attention has been on the foreign politics of

Trump and America. But it's also interesting to have a look at some of the internal politics and the plans for government inside America. Again, you might think some of it is horrific.

Some of it is surprising and some of it is interesting. Many of the people that Trump has chosen to appoint as his main team for the important roles in government, well, they're controversial figures, controversial people.

Controversial means they create controversy, they create disagreement. Anon is more so than the appointment of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to the position of Secretary of Health and Human Services, otherwise known as RFK Jr. for short. He was confirmed last week by 52 votes to 48 in the Senate.

Quite close then. So RFK Jr. is the nephew of John F. Kennedy or JFK, the US president who was shot, assassinated in 1963. Also assassinated this time in 1968, Robert Francis Kennedy, JFK's brother and the father of RFK Jr.,

Robert F. Kennedy was, at the time, running to be chosen as the Democratic candidate for the presidency. Can you imagine being part of that family? RFK Jr. is accused of being a conspiracy theorist, someone who promotes theories which are thought to be untrue and somewhat paranoid.

I would have thought it's actually difficult not to be a conspiracy theorist if you're part of the Kennedy family. And that's what you've lived through. Both uncle and father assassinated in the context of politics.

And I think there are some conspiracy theories which actually turn out to be true. Reputedly, one of the conditions that RFK Jr. has made to Donald Trump in agreeing to work for him, that the official government files associated with the assassination of President John F. Kennedy be declassified.

and President Trump promised as part of his election campaign, when I return to the White House, I will declassify and unseal all JFK assassination-related documents. It's been 60 years. Time for the American people to know the truth.

And Trump has now ordered that declassification, not only for JFK, but also for Robert Kennedy Sr. and for the assassination of Martin Luther King. So to declassify means to remove that top secret status and hopefully make the information public. That means we get to hear about it. This is going to be interesting.

So Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is going to be making big changes to US policy on food and drugs as part of so-called MAHA, M-A-H-A, Make America Healthy Again. This echoes Trump's stated policy.

purpose, MAGA or Make America Great Again. So RFK Jr. will oversee health insurance programs, vaccine recommendations and food safety. He'll be in charge of the CDC, the Center for Disease Control, the FDA, the Food and Drug Administration, the NIH or National Institute of Health and the Centers for Medicare,

and Medicaid services. That is a huge brief and huge responsibility. But the former director of the National Institute of Health, one of those bodies that RFK Jr. will now direct, this is

Dr. Harold Varmus, he said that RFK Jr. is not fit to run a nearly $3 trillion operation. This is a blow, in my view, to the success of American medical science. Quite a strong opinion then. So who is RFK Jr. and why is he so controversial? RFK Jr. himself ran for the White House.

ran to be president in 2024 as an independent, but subsequently he backed out and endorsed or supported Trump. RFK Jr. is 71 years old and has had a varied life. He was obviously born into this well-known Kennedy family and his history is largely as a lawyer and environmentalist.

Someone battling in the interests of nature, in other words. He has a reputation for his legal battles challenging large organisations.

and sometimes winning his case, for example, against the American agricultural industry and their use of weed killer on cereal crops. Many of RFK Jr.'s legal actions were successful, but much of the controversy surrounds RFK Jr.'s viewpoint on vaccines, V-A-C-C-I-N-E. He's known as an anti-vaxxer,

That's anti-V-A-X-X-E-R, meaning someone who disagrees with the value of vaccination. This term is sometimes used to instantly dismiss and discredit someone as being a bit crazy and not worth listening to if they are not 100% in favour of vaccination. However,

What RFK Jr. actually says is things like there is no such thing as a safe and effective vaccine. Actually, what he means here is there's always going to be an issue with the safety of vaccines for a small minority of people who take them. They're never entirely risk free, in other words.

This is an unpopular statement with governments who want people to comply with vaccine programmes. But technically, RFK Jr. is correct. A small number of people are harmed by vaccines. It's a matter of balancing benefit and risk. So Kennedy has denied that he's an anti-vaxxer, pointing out that his own children and grandchildren are all vaccinated. He insists that he merely supports...

more stringent studies, more careful studies and safety tests for vaccinations, more holding the pharmaceutical industry to account, in other words, which is harder to see as crazy given how much money is made out of vaccination programs. Other beliefs of RFK Jr., which are thought to be crazy, are contained in his book,

the real Anthony Fauci. Here, RFK Jr. describes how he believes COVID was a byproduct of a secret US bioweapons program run by the National Institute for Health or NIH in Wuhan, China. It sounds the stuff of conspiracy theories. And yet it's interesting that no one has attempted to sue SUE, take control,

Kennedy to court about the content of his book. I also find it really interesting that Anthony Fauci was granted a preemptive pardon by Joe Biden before Biden left office. That means that Anthony Fauci is exempt.

from court action. He cannot be prosecuted for his activities between 2014 and 2024. Why does Fauci need that, I wonder? It feels as though we've not got to the bottom of all this yet. This is why RFK Jr. is seen as a bit crazy by some people. But I think we may get to know more about this in due course.

What Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is really wanting to focus on is the health crisis in America, the obesity epidemic, the rise in diabetes. Obesity, O-B-E-S-I-T-Y, is the condition of being very overweight in a way that threatens your health. And it's a huge problem in the U.S.

Many Republicans have praised Kennedy for his criticisms of the use of food additives and his thoughts on ultra-processed foods, which I've also talked about in podcast episodes, namely 665 and 680.

768 if you want to listen to those. Also, if you recall my podcast on the list of junk foods named by the UK government, whose advertising is banned during children's television, that's podcast 788. Well, RFK Jr. is thinking in the same way. Great, I say.

RFK Jr. also wants to challenge Dye's D-Y-E colourings in children's food, many of which are banned by other countries, but still used in America. Basically, RFK Jr. wants to take on the food industry in the US, or Big Food.

food, as it's known. He wants to reduce the amount of processed food, which can't be seen as mad or crazy. This needs to be done to improve the health of the country. The American diet is currently estimated to be 60 to 70 percent processed food.

Kennedy also wants to curb big pharma. He believes that the pharmaceutical companies make their billions often through overemphasising the positives of the drugs and the drug trials, and that sometimes cheaper drugs

and more natural alternatives could be better. RFK makes very sensible criticism of the way that regulation, R-E-G-U-L-A-T-I-O-N, rulemaking around food safety and drugs happens in the US. He thinks it's

overly influenced by these billion dollar industries, big food and big pharma. And particularly with pharma, dangerously, it's often the same people moving between being employed by the regulator and then employed by the industry or vice versa. This is what's known as vested interest. Surely it's not crazy to want to reform that.

But RFK Jr. is perhaps going to have some difficulty here working against the interest of industry, especially big industries which contribute lots of money to the American government. It's perhaps only with the backing of a president like Trump

who is fairly autocratic in his style, that RFK Jr. may actually succeed. RFK Jr. is well-placed to take on the big players in industry. He's used to being the underdog, U-N-D-E-R,

For years, as a lawyer and as professor of environmental law, he fought and won against big companies who were polluting the Hudson River in New York State. And he succeeded in getting the Hudson River cleared.

one amongst lots of similar achievements. So RFK Jr. is not afraid of a David and Goliath situation. Let's hope that RFK, from a traditionally democratic family, can keep Trump's support and actually achieve some of what he's setting out to do.

It's going to be interesting to watch, that's for sure. Let us know what you think on this really interesting topic. Enough for now. Have a lovely day. Speak to you again soon. Goodbye.