RFK Jr. says he’ll repair the drug disaster. Critics say his plan is dangerous : NPR

When Robert F. Kennedy Jr. talks concerning the journey that led to his rising concentrate on well being and wellness — and in the end to his affirmation hearings this week for U.S. secretary of well being and human companies — it begins not with medical coaching or a background in analysis, however along with his personal habit to heroin and different medicine.

“I turned a drug addict once I was 15 years outdated,” Kennedy mentioned final 12 months throughout an interview with podcaster Lex Fridman. “I used to be addicted for 14 years. Throughout that point, if you’re an addict, you are dwelling towards conscience … and also you form of push God to the peripheries of your life.”

Kennedy now credit his religion; 12-step Alcoholics Nameless-style applications, which even have a religious basis; and the affect of a e-book by thinker Carl Jung for serving to him beat his personal opioid habit.

If confirmed as head of the Division of Well being and Human Companies after Senate hearings scheduled for Wednesday and Thursday, Kennedy would maintain broad sway over lots of the greatest federal applications within the U.S. tackling habit: the Facilities for Illness Management and Prevention, the Nationwide Institute on Drug Abuse and the Substance Abuse and Psychological Well being Companies Administration.

Whereas campaigning for the White Home final 12 months, Kennedy, now 71 years outdated, laid out a plan to deal with the USA’ devastating fentanyl and overdose disaster, proposing a sprawling new system of camps or farms the place folks experiencing habit could be despatched to get well.

“I will convey a brand new trade to [rural] America, the place addicts will help one another get well from their addictions,” Kennedy promised, throughout a movie on habit launched by his presidential marketing campaign. “We will construct a whole bunch of therapeutic farms the place American children can reconnect with America’s soil.”

Some habit activists — particularly these loyal to the 12-step faith- and values-based restoration mannequin — have praised Kennedy’s strategy and are actively campaigning for his affirmation.

“RFK Jr is in restoration. He needs to develop the therapeutic group mannequin for recovering addicts,” Tom Wolf, a San Francisco-based activist who’s in restoration from fentanyl and opioid habit, wrote on the social media web site X. “I assist him for HHS secretary.”

A concentrate on 12-step and spirituality, not remedy and science-based therapy

However Kennedy’s strategy to habit care is controversial, described by many drug coverage consultants as dangerous, partially as a result of it focuses on the ethical dimension of restoration quite than fashionable, science-based remedy and well being care.

“He clearly cares about addicted folks,” mentioned Keith Humphreys, a number one nationwide drug coverage researcher at Stanford College. “However when it comes to the plans he is articulated, I’ve actual doubts about them.”

Based on Humphreys, Kennedy’s plan to construct a community of farms or camps does not seem to incorporate amenities that provide correct medical remedies for significantly unwell folks going through extreme habit.

“That is a threat to the well-being of sufferers, and I do not see any benefit in doing that,” Humphreys mentioned.

“I feel [Kennedy’s plan] could be an unlimited step backward,” mentioned Maia Szalavitz, an writer and activist who used heroin and different medicine earlier than coming into restoration.

“We have now spent the final 15, 20 years attempting to maneuver away from treating habit as a sin quite than a medical dysfunction,” she mentioned. “We have spent a few years attempting to get folks to take up these medicines that we all know lower your loss of life threat in half, and he appears to need to go backwards on all that.”

The overwhelming majority of researchers, medical doctors and front-line habit therapy staff agree that scientific information reveals medicines like buprenorphine, methadone and naloxone are recreation changers in the case of treating the deadliest avenue medicine, together with fentanyl and heroin.

The Biden administration moved aggressively to make medical remedies way more inexpensive and broadly accessible. Many consultants consider these applications are elements within the dramatic nationwide drop in overdose deaths that started in 2023.

Kennedy, who studied legislation and political science, not well being care, earlier than turning into an activist on topics starting from prescribed drugs and vaccines to the American weight-reduction plan, has remained largely silent with reference to science-based medical remedies for opioid habit.

His marketing campaign movie included a scene that appeared accountable methadone — a prescription remedy that has been used to deal with opioid habit because the Nineteen Seventies — for a few of the high-risk street-drug use seen on the streets of San Francisco.

In public statements, Kennedy has additionally repeated the wrong declare that the habit and overdose disaster is not enhancing. Actually, deadly overdoses have dropped nationally by greater than 20% since June 2023, based on the Facilities for Illness Management and Prevention, falling under 90,000 deaths in a 12-month interval for the primary time in half a decade.

“What we now have largely heard from Kennedy is a skepticism broadly of medicines and a concentrate on the 12-step and faith-based remedy,” mentioned Vanda Felbab-Brown, an professional on drug coverage on the Brookings Establishment, a Washington, D.C., assume tank.

“That appeals to a whole lot of essential teams which have supported President Trump within the election. However we all know what is prime for restoration and stabilization of individuals’s lives and lowering overdose is entry to medicines,” Felbab-Brown mentioned. “Sadly, lots of the 12-step applications reject medicines.”

She’s frightened that below Kennedy’s management, the Division of Well being and Human Companies might shrink or remove funding for science-based medical therapy and as a substitute concentrate on spirituality-based approaches that seem to assist a comparatively small proportion of individuals who expertise habit.

Kennedy’s views on different science-based remedies, together with vaccines, have sparked widespread opposition amongst medical researchers and physicians.

Kennedy boosts an Italian mannequin for habit restoration that has confronted controversy

One other concern about Kennedy’s habit proposals focuses on his curiosity in a program for drug therapy created in Italy within the Nineteen Seventies.

“I’ve seen this stunning mannequin that they’ve in Italy known as San Patrignano, the place there are 2,000 children who work on a big farm in a therapeutic heart … and that is what we have to construct right here,” Kennedy mentioned throughout a city hall-style look on the cable channel NewsNation final 12 months.

Based on Kennedy’s plan, outlined in interviews and social media posts, People experiencing habit would go to San Patrignano-style camps voluntarily, or they may very well be pressured or coerced into accepting care, with a menace of incarceration for individuals who refuse care.

However the San Patrignano program has been controversial and was featured in a 2020 Netflix documentary that included pictures of individuals with habit allegedly being held in shackles or confined in cages. The farm’s present leaders have described the documentary as biased and unfair.

Kennedy, in the meantime, has continued to make use of this system as a mannequin for the camps he wish to construct in the USA.

“I will construct these rehab facilities everywhere in the nation, these therapeutic camps the place folks can go, the place our youngsters can go and discover themselves once more,” he mentioned.

Szalavitz, the writer and activist who’s herself in restoration, famous that the Italian program does not embrace science-based medical care, together with opioid therapy medicines. She mentioned Kennedy’s fascination with the mannequin displays a scarcity of medical and scientific experience.

“It truly is nice to incorporate individuals who have private expertise of one thing like, say, habit in policymaking. However you do not grow to be an habit professional merely since you’re somebody who struggled with habit,” Szalavitz mentioned. “It’s a must to have interaction with the analysis literature. It’s a must to perceive extra past your individual slender anecdote. In any other case you are going to wind up doing hurt to folks.”