Kennedy and Medical Wearables: A Clarification
Let’s not allow our vigilance to be hijacked by forces seeking to neutralize our movement.
BY CHARLES EISENSTEIN
View original article at Brownstone.org.
Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.’s remark in a Congressional hearing last week that “My vision is that every American is wearing a wearable within four years” stirred an uproar in MAHA circles, as one influencer after another scrambled to denounce his statement and accuse him of being a sellout or a traitor. Ignoring his staunch decades-long advocacy of civil liberties, these critics took his statement as proof that he is advancing a totalitarian plan to continuously monitor every person’s body.
Since Kennedy has in the past warned about precisely this – the “internet of people” in which not even our own heartbeat is private – I reached out to him to see if he’d changed his mind. “What were you thinking?” I asked.
Kennedy admitted that he chose his words poorly. “What I was trying to say is that I want this technology to be universally available as one of the ways people can get on top of their health,” he explained. “Of course I don’t want to mandate it. And the idea of everyone’s body being hooked up to a data center somewhere is horrifying. This data should be private, and when it is shared with the device provider it must be subject to health privacy laws.”
Those answers are consistent with his long-standing positions. However, there are other issues involved besides privacy. I asked, “Aren’t you concerned about the health effects of a Bluetooth device affixed to your body 24/7?” After all, during his presidential campaign, he spoke out about the health hazards of wireless radiation.
“Yes,” he replied. “Personally, I am concerned about it, but HHS doesn’t have a policy. We are going to initiate research on the topic, though, so that Americans can make an informed decision about whether the risks of these devices outweigh the benefits.”
A deeper issue is the basic direction of healthcare: do we continue down a technological path, or do we turn back toward nature? The MAHA community, comprising high-tech biohackers alongside back-to-the-land homesteaders, is far from unanimous on this issue. “Is this really the path?” I asked him. “Is the future of health one of increasing dependency on technology? Are we to accept a transhumanist future where flesh merges with machine?”
Kennedy was clear that he doesn’t agree with that vision either. “Technology has its place,” he said, “but for most people it should be a temporary aid to help us recover good eating habits. The blood glucose monitors help people see in real time the impact of their dietary choices. But once they learn the ropes, most people shouldn’t have to wear them long-term.”
He continued, “Everyone is making this more complicated than it has to be. The basics of health are simple: wholesome, natural food, and the right amount of exercise. Wearables can help people make good choices, but they can’t make the choices for them. That’s up to each one of us.”
Obviously, Kennedy had used an ill-considered figure of speech when he spoke of “every American” wearing a device. What was more alarming than his words, though, was how swiftly so many MAHA influencers turned on him. It isn’t the first time. Whenever he makes a necessary political compromise or appoints someone who isn’t an anti-vax hardliner, many in the movement accuse him of treason.
The reflex to excommunicate anyone who makes an ill-considered remark smacks of the kind of cancel culture that the health freedom movement rightly resisted during the Covid era. A movement is not built by constantly scrutinizing every word and gesture for ideological correctness. Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. faces enormous political headwinds and bureaucratic inertia in carrying out his most ambitious goals. He has been as bold as it is possible to be while still keeping his job. If he is to achieve anything significant in such circumstances, he needs the active support of a united movement to bring political pressure to bear on the forces—in Congress, the EPA, the USDA, and even within HHS itself—that stand in his way.
Those of us who have spent decades as dissidents and critics of the system have developed reflexes of opposition that are now counterproductive. We tend to default to suspicion and, because we have been lied to, manipulated, persecuted, and betrayed so many times, and are hypersensitive to any indication that it is about to happen again. But the present moment calls for a different attitude.
Righteous crusaders feel heroic when they refuse to compromise and denounce anyone who does. They are pure. They are “right.” But they will never participate in actual change.
The hysterical reaction to Kennedy’s verbal misstep draws from this reflexive repudiation of those who sacrifice their purity by engaging the messiness of the real world to actually get things done.
Because of his position, Kennedy cannot hold a hard line anymore. Someone still needs to hold it, though. That is the job of the movement. We can hold a vision of a truly transformed healthcare system beyond the horizon of current political practicality, while supporting those like Kennedy who are taking the steps to get there.
After the sound and fury of this latest contretemps subsides, the movement can discuss the legitimately difficult issues that it has stirred. What is the proper role of technology in healing? How can we protect data privacy without compromising the data’s utility? When we focus on measurement, whether of blood sugar or some other health metric, what other information are we missing? Is human progress a matter of dominating and controlling nature? Or is another kind of progress available to us that seeks to participate, not dominate, and that recognizes a source of intelligence beyond ourselves?
Those who uphold a vision of a reunion of nature and civilization are right to be vigilant against the techno-totalitarian and transhumanist potential of medical technology like wearables. But let’s not allow our vigilance to be hijacked by divisive forces seeking to neutralize our movement.
Thank you for the clarification. Now I can breathe!
I distain a technology other than my innate one, yet some do not yet access their innate ones yet, so this is a bridge. The New Medicine can teach how to connect to inner tech. Much more is possible, and the miraculous is at hand.