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Government United States Technology

Health Secretary Wants Every American To Be Sporting a Wearable Within Four Years (gizmodo.com) 371

Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced a major federal campaign to promote wearable health tech, aiming for every American to adopt a device within four years as part of a broader effort to "Make America Healthy Again." Gizmodo reports: 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 representative 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.

Health Secretary Wants Every American To Be Sporting a Wearable Within Four Years

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  • You know what... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by YuppieScum ( 1096 ) on Wednesday June 25, 2025 @06:05AM (#65474446) Journal

    ...would make Americans healthy?

    Vaccinations.

    • When you're dead, you don't have to worry about getting sick.

    • by indytx ( 825419 ) on Wednesday June 25, 2025 @07:56AM (#65474602)

      ...would make Americans healthy?

      Single payer healthcare.

    • by mjwx ( 966435 ) on Wednesday June 25, 2025 @07:59AM (#65474608)

      ...would make Americans healthy?

      Vaccinations.

      Weren't these the same nutbars who said we should take horse de-wormer instead of proven COVID vaccinations because the vaccinations had 5G chips in them?

      Now they want us all to get 5G chips on our wrists that are tied to some of the most morally ambiguous companies on the planet.

      Riiiiiiiight.

    • Yep and we have those. What is the leading cause of non-trauma death in the USA? Heart disease. That's what the wearables for for - gaining vast amounts of data for use by doctors for screening to catch trends much earlier, before some major acute event happens.

      • Yep and we have those. What is the leading cause of non-trauma death in the USA? Heart disease. That's what the wearables for for - gaining vast amounts of data for use by doctors for screening to catch trends much earlier, before some major acute event happens.

        Wait, these wearable devices are for surveillance so that doctors can collect data from the masses for the good of the masses? I'm sure that type of data gathering wouldn't go over well in slashdotland.

        As for individual monitoring, my doctor told me to quit the continuous glucose monitoring because it just induces stress and detracts from the controllable good health habits that I should be concentrating on instead.

      • by Jeremi ( 14640 )

        Seems like everyone is already carrying a wearable in the form of their cell phone. If there's something to be gained here (which is debatable), they should provide it in the form of a free app, and/or add any necessary hardware to future cell phones, rather than trying to get everybody to remember to keep a second device charged and on their person 24/7 for the rest of their lives.

        • If my cell phone was designed to track HR, glucose, whatever without my consent, I'd stick an icepick through whatever sensor did that. I refuse.
      • There is some evidence that wearables have individual benefits in producing additional steps and physical activity (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/35868813/). Some wearables might have data that are clinically valuable, but that would be something to discuss directly with your physician. At the population level, we already have pretty good data on health behaviors - people in the U.S. tend to live very unhealthy lifestyles - and solving that is much more complicated than telling people to buy more wearable
    • by dskoll ( 99328 )

      Also: Universal single-payer healthcare so Americans don't need to choose between death and bankruptcy.

    • ...would make Americans healthy?

      Vaccinations.

      Monitoring our health, isn't what is up for debate.

      Having to sacrifice our financial health while trying to believe those out to heal us aren't out to harm us for profit, is.

      One could sell the idea of mass wearables. You just can't sell that kind of idea in America and expect people to believe you're doing it for health reasons.

    • The only reason people oppose vaccinations is because they hurt.

      You give one to your kid, and the kid gets REALLY sad. Maybe the saddest you've ever seen them. You start to wonder if that painful moment is the moment they got autism. It wasn't, it just hurt.

      Whereas hardly anyone worries about the problems of multigenerational uses of antibiotics.
      • by jp10558 ( 748604 )

        Whereas hardly anyone worries about the problems of multigenerational uses of antibiotics.

        I'm not really sure what you mean here - the "problem" of multiple human generations taking antibiotics? I'm pretty sure it's commonly thought that antibiotics have saved probably countless lives and likely improved just about everyone's life since they've been discovered and developed.

        And they're needed more now than they used to be with the increase across at least the eastern US of tick borne bacterial diseases like

    • "Make America Healthy Again" -> "Monitor Americans' Health Always".

  • by Mr. Dollar Ton ( 5495648 ) on Wednesday June 25, 2025 @06:07AM (#65474448)

    So y'all will oblige and subscribe to the service.

    You'll be free to share it with all other "AI" providers available, except DeepSeek, because China uses it to spy on you.

  • Cost? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by fluffernutter ( 1411889 ) on Wednesday June 25, 2025 @06:10AM (#65474452)
    Will several hundred dollar wrist watches be bought for everyone? My wife has a galaxy watch and it only took four years for the battery to wear out and hold less than a day of charge Not only is the battery replacement part $150 on its own, but there is no one within hours of me that can replace it.
  • by gweihir ( 88907 ) on Wednesday June 25, 2025 @06:13AM (#65474458)

    Now there is a good core fascist idea! Hitler and Göring (founder of the GeStaPo) would be so proud of this guy! Now put in a microphone and network the things with speech recognition, and finally, nobody can say anything "bad" anymore without being found out. Oh, and foreign hackers can listen to everything too!

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Ol Olsoc ( 1175323 )

      Now there is a good core fascist idea! Hitler and Göring (founder of the GeStaPo) would be so proud of this guy! Now put in a microphone and network the things with speech recognition, and finally, nobody can say anything "bad" anymore without being found out. Oh, and foreign hackers can listen to everything too!

      What I find interesting is the party of people who believed that the Covid vaccine had tracking chips in it has now become the party of "Here this tracking device will that makes all your data belong to us and makes you really healthy!" is now the path forward.

    • by Inglix the Mad ( 576601 ) on Wednesday June 25, 2025 @08:44AM (#65474704)
      You know, the irony is that I'm less worried about the tracking portion than the fact companies will use it to jack up insurance rates on people... or try to track whether or not women are pregnant in Gilead states. You can likely toss in a dozen or so other invasions of privacy that such data would allow, including tracking.
      • You know, the irony is that I'm less worried about the tracking portion than the fact companies will use it to jack up insurance rates on people... or try to track whether or not women are pregnant in Gilead states.

        You're less worried about the tracking than the tracking?

      • Bingo ... the endgame is for the insura-vermin to create a pregnancy database.
        • That's one goal for theocrat fascists. The insurance leeches will play along because they get to profile everyone to "personalize" insurance rates.
  • by Dragonslicer ( 991472 ) on Wednesday June 25, 2025 @06:16AM (#65474464)
    He doesn't think that the radio waves will give everyone cancer?
  • by SeaFox ( 739806 ) on Wednesday June 25, 2025 @06:24AM (#65474478)

    "Health Secretary Wants Every American Wearing a Tracking Device Within Four Years"

    • Most people already have a tracking device. This one reports sleep, orgasm and general motion, possibly including, sudden falls.

      Being connected is getting expensive: $600 for a mid-range phone, $400 for mid-range wearable, plus $50-100/month to actually use the phone. Software obsolescence means general-purpose phones have to be replaced every three years. It's difficult to imagine a wearable being software incompatible but will a wearable have that problem too?

      • "Most people already ..." is not a reason

      • by jp10558 ( 748604 )

        It's pretty easy to get that to $15-$25 a month by doing pre-paid via a number of options for 5g service. Phones got more expensive because tariffs and inflation, but I know 2 years ago I got a OnePlus for $250 at Best Buy near christmas time - IDK if you'd call it mid range or not, but it does pretty much everything if you're OK with Android.

      • $50-100 to use the phone? I have a perfectly good T-Mobile pre-paid plan that's $15/month. Generally have access to WiFi, so I don't need more than 5GB of data.

        The phone? Android device (dual SIM with micro SD card so that cloud storage isn't needed) bought for $120 in Europe.

  • by quonset ( 4839537 ) on Wednesday June 25, 2025 @06:25AM (#65474480)

    First, wearables don't do shit unless the person acts on the readings. How many decades have people been told about the dangers of obesity yet America keeps getting fatter?

    Second, we've already seen attempts by Republicans to have girls submit a record of their periods to the government. So far, all have failed, but imagine the bonanza of data which could be gleaned to penalize women for one excuse or another if they wore a wearable.

    Third, it will be interesting to see what, if any, mental machinations supporters of this quack perform to justify daily tracking of Americans for "health" reasons.

    Fourth, who's going to pay for it? Does he expect everyone to shell out money for these along with the monthly subscription fees? Many people are struggling just to get by, but now he wants to burden people even further?

    That worm definitely did damage to his brain.

    • .First, wearables don't do shit unless the person acts on the readings. How many decades have people been told about the dangers of obesity yet America keeps getting fatter?

      You underestimate the gamification elements in these devices. Many, many people say things like "I need to get my steps in for today".
      People go out of their way to reach all kinds of meaningless targets in games, gambling, etc. Using the underlying biological weaknesses to get people to do reasonably healthy things is something positive.

      Having said that, health data and associated location data should be treated with much more care than it is today. Shoving all that data into some badly secured 'cloud' ser

    • You ... might want to get a second opinion, for your next meds check.
    • by Ol Olsoc ( 1175323 ) on Wednesday June 25, 2025 @07:45AM (#65474584)

      First, wearables don't do shit unless the person acts on the readings. How many decades have people been told about the dangers of obesity yet America keeps getting fatter?

      Your post is pretty insightful but for one glaring thing. Obesity is not just an American thing. From Eurostat https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/... [europa.eu].

      Second, we've already seen attempts by Republicans to have girls submit a record of their periods to the government. So far, all have failed, but imagine the bonanza of data which could be gleaned to penalize women for one excuse or another if they wore a wearable.

      Third, it will be interesting to see what, if any, mental machinations supporters of this quack perform to justify daily tracking of Americans for "health" reasons.

      Fourth, who's going to pay for it? Does he expect everyone to shell out money for these along with the monthly subscription fees? Many people are struggling just to get by, but now he wants to burden people even further?

      That worm definitely did damage to his brain.

      He's unhinged, straight out of the INGSOC playbook.

      • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

        Obesity is probably going to become rare in the next 10 years, now we have really effective medication for it. The biggest step change will be when the patents expire and generic versions become available for a small fraction of the price they want today.

        • A U.S. university researcher can order 1g of Tirzepatide from China or India for $1 which is enough to make 66 to 400 dose equivalents of Zepbound depending on the prescription. Zepbound is sold "monthly" for $499 which I believe translates to 14 doses in single-use vials for two injections a week. For a 7.5 mg prescription, this is a shocking markup of 476,100% -- ridiculous to write a number this large as a percentage but markups are normally documented as a percentage.

          The problem isn't patents, th
        • by jp10558 ( 748604 )

          We don't have "really effective medication", we have "somewhat effective" at reducing body weight by ~15% (depending on which medication you use). I hate to break it to you, but many people need to be more like 50% less weight to be considered not obese. These medications are amazing but not cures for obesity - just makes it better.

        • by skam240 ( 789197 ) on Wednesday June 25, 2025 @11:47AM (#65475172)

          There's something dark to me about a future where people are medicating themselves against what are largely lifestyle diseases so they can continue with the lifestyle that causes the disease.

          Don't get me wrong, I'm incredibly happy these drugs exist for those who legitimately need them but this future you talk of sounds kind of dystopian to me.

          • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

            I know what you mean. It would be great if we could make food better quality for everyone. Maybe these medications will help force that. If people stop consuming the really bad stuff because it makes them feel too full, there will be less incentive to make it and more to concentrate on high nutrition stuff.

      • First, wearables don't do shit unless the person acts on the readings. How many decades have people been told about the dangers of obesity yet America keeps getting fatter?

        Your post is pretty insightful but for one glaring thing. Obesity is not just an American thing. From Eurostat https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/... [europa.eu].

        Second, we've already seen attempts by Republicans to have girls submit a record of their periods to the government. So far, all have failed, but imagine the bonanza of data which could be gleaned to penalize women for one excuse or another if they wore a wearable.

        Third, it will be interesting to see what, if any, mental machinations supporters of this quack perform to justify daily tracking of Americans for "health" reasons.

        Fourth, who's going to pay for it? Does he expect everyone to shell out money for these along with the monthly subscription fees? Many people are struggling just to get by, but now he wants to burden people even further?

        That worm definitely did damage to his brain.

        He's unhinged, straight out of the INGSOC playbook.

        While he is unhinged, I think this particular story is more about him following the corporate mandate. The tech companies want *ALL* the data, and they've cozied up to this administration tightly enough that the current cabinet is happy to pass along the recommendation that we all bow to this demand for all the data in ever imaginable way. Add in that certain segments of this administration want nothing more than to completely control bioreproductive health, and the best way to go about that is to have a di

    • How many decades have people been told about the dangers of obesity yet America keeps getting fatter?

      Despite the incredibly obvious fact that Americans, as a whole, are more lazy and less self disciplined than everywhere else in the world, they are getting fatter than everyone else for an entirely different reason. It is their food. 30 years ago in Dubai, almost everyone was skinny. American food chains started opening up and lo and behold, the Arabs starting getting fatter. I watched it happen in the Middle East and started noticing the same types of fat in Europeans as I traveled through. There is someth

  • so these devices... Where are they made?

    lunacy get your supply chains in order

  • by thesjaakspoiler ( 4782965 ) on Wednesday June 25, 2025 @07:06AM (#65474540)

    How generous of them!
    You even get a discount!

    https://moneywise.com/insuranc... [moneywise.com]

  • Monitor everyone, and if anyone says anything critical of the government, have them picked up by the secret police. ICE doesn't wear a uniform and wears masks, so they are effectively kidnapping people they don't like. It doesn't even matter if someone is a citizen, they will be moved to some place in another state or country without giving them their rights. RFK Jr. is such an idiot, no one should do ANYTHING he suggests anyway.

  • I thought there was a study on wearables (like the fitbit) a few years ago that says they don't seem to have any significant impact on a person's health. Are you sure JFK Jr. doesn't own shares of fitbit?
  • by serafean ( 4896143 ) on Wednesday June 25, 2025 @07:42AM (#65474580)

    Funny how much a difference there is between putting it on one's wrist and one's ankle...

    • by necro81 ( 917438 )
      I have a walking treadmill at my desk. Naturally, with my forearms on the desk and typing at the keyboard, the steps aren't automatically counted. But putting it on my ankle, things track just fine.
  • MAHA: the same crowd that claimed that COVID vaccinations had 5G nanotech so that Bill Gates could track you.
  • You know, the Nazis had pieces of flair that they made the Jews wear.

  • you mean wearing people trackers?
  • Beneficial (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Dan East ( 318230 ) on Wednesday June 25, 2025 @08:25AM (#65474656) Journal

    It's kind of crazy every comment to this point is so politically motivated that no one will even talk about the technical merits of wearables. I wear an Apple watch, and make a point to wear it when sleeping as well, because of the vast amounts of health data it captures. Quality of sleep, resting heart rate, heart rate recovery time, blood oxygen levels, respiratory rate, heart rate variability, etc. Heck, I even give myself an EKG from time to time.

    One day I had some rare heart palpitations, so I did an EKG on the spot and caught a couple. Super useful for my doctor. The only other option in the past was to wear an expensive Holter monitor 24/7 to try and capture an event like that, but now it can be done at any time on-demand.

    Sorry, but wearables are pretty amazing technology - almost like a dream come true. You may not like Trump or RFK, but to be ignorant enough to say this is an awful idea shows just how biased and politically motivated people are, especially on what is supposed to be a community that discusses technology.

    This is simply a campaign to raise awareness and encourage people to use wearables in general - in whatever form factor or brand they may choose. This has nothing to do with government tracking, government control, government access to data, or anything like that. This has nothing to do with vaccines, or if a person's skin is orange, or what political party is in control.

    If Obama went out and said the same thing it would be the most wonderful idea ever to the other set of individuals, while the right-leaning folks would then smash their wearables. Grow up people.

    • Re:Beneficial (Score:5, Insightful)

      by nonsenseponsense ( 10297685 ) on Wednesday June 25, 2025 @08:44AM (#65474702)
      "If Obama went out and said the same thing it would be the most wonderful idea ever to the other set of individuals," Well that's absolutely delusional thinking. Many of us on the left would be just as against it if it was Obama suggesting it. It's always funny when people accuse others of making something political and then revealing that, in fact, it is they who view everything through the right/left lens and not a "is this a good idea" lens.
    • Moot point. Obama would never say something this fucking stupid.
    • All the people in this thread that are complaining already have cell phones, and the government can (and does) already access that data.

      They're reflexively mad over nothing. It is a good idea.

  • Make Americans Think They Are Achieving Something Even Though They Aren't.

    MATTAASETTA really sums up the administration in general I think...

    https://www.theguardian.com/so... [theguardian.com]

    https://www.sciencedaily.com/r... [sciencedaily.com]

    https://www.wired.com/story/sc... [wired.com]

  • by JustAnotherOldGuy ( 4145623 ) on Wednesday June 25, 2025 @08:38AM (#65474684) Journal

    Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced a major federal campaign to promote wearable health tech, aiming for every American to adopt a device within four years as part of a broader effort to "Make America Healthy Again.

    Go fuck yourself, you delusional, lying psychopath. Even the worm died from eating your toxic brain.

  • by maiden_taiwan ( 516943 ) on Wednesday June 25, 2025 @08:45AM (#65474708)

    Never mind that wearables are notoriously inaccurate. Try wearing several brands simultaneously. (We have.) They give wildly different results for how many steps you've walked, how much sleep you've had, etc.

    The manufacturers also push pseudoscience, like claiming to detect your stress level from your heart rate. Duh. Hearts beat at various rates for all kinds of reasons.

  • GFY you weirdo, your father and uncle would lock you up in an insane asylum
  • Although, you never know with such creatures: if this is going to piss off the liberals they will adopt it enthusiastically.
  • Just 41 years later than predicted.

  • Everything RFK Jr does is related in some way to his network of scam companies making money. Trying to figure out how this seeming nonsense fits into that MO.

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