RADICAL TRANSPARENCY

Where is Kennedy's 'publicly available calendar'?

Heather Diehl/Getty Images

Health secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said on Wednesday that his “publicly available calendar” is an example of his commitment to transparency and to beat back unfavorable reporting. If this calendar exists, we’d love to see it.

STAT has been asking the Department of Health and Human Services for Kennedy’s calendar for more than a year, including multiple requests for the calendars of Kennedy and his principal deputy chief of staff, Stefanie Spear.

Kennedy, who started his secretarial tenure promising “radical transparency,” has overseen a department facing lawsuits over failures to release information, cut staffers who handle FOIA requests, and drawn anger from lawmakers who can’t get responses to their queries, either. Kennedy has even acknowledged that HHS blacklists certain journalists because leaders disagree with their work. Read more from STAT’s Chelsea Cirruzzo and Daniel Payne.

POLITICS

Speaking of unmet promises …

Kennedy has had 16 months as health secretary to tackle various public health challenges, and he’s made numerous promises about how he’ll make Americans healthier.

STAT’s Isabella Cueto and Emory Parker have been tracking these plans, including Kennedy’s progress on hospital price transparency, bringing new sunscreens to the U.S., getting more nutrition education in medical training and healthier food in hospitals, and repurposing approved drugs to treat different conditions.

But of the 80 pledges Isa and Emory are tracking, roughly two dozen have been kept or are in progress. The rest have either been abandoned, broken, not started, or their status is unclear based on publicly available information. If you want a full breakdown, check out the latest update to our RFK Jr. promises tracker.

NUTRITION

Chile offers new data on food warning label efficacy

Chile's restrictions on food packaging, labeling, and marketing have been called "the world's most ambitious attempt to remake a country's food culture" and lower childhood obesity rates. A new analysis published in The Lancet offers promising data about the impact of the first wave of regulations, which rolled out in 2016 and required black octagonal warning labels on packaged foods high in ingredients like sugar, salt, calories, and saturated fat.

Just 18 months after the labels were introduced, girls ages 4 to 6 had a 2.9% lower risk of being classified as overweight or obese. Boys had a 2.4% lower risk. To put that in context: Recent data shows that about one-quarter of Chilean children qualify as obese and more than 50% as overweight. The study looked at national data on more than 300,000 children and was funded by Bloomberg Philanthropies. (STAT also accepts funding from Bloomberg Philanthropies, which is not involved in our editorial decisions.)

"Even a small weight reduction for children who have overweight or obesity is likely to bring meaningful long-term health benefits," economics researcher and study co-author Nieves Valdes said in a press release. The researchers also say they expect to see even stronger results after 2018 and 2019, when Chile enacted stricter requirements around warning labels. — Sarah Todd