The Megyn Kelly Show
Fighting the Swamp and Conflicts of Interest, Truth About DOGE Cuts, and Finding Autism Cause, with FDA Commissioner Dr. Marty Makary | Ep. 1051
Thu, 17 Apr 2025
Megyn Kelly is joined by FDA Commissioner Dr. Marty Makary for his first interview in his new position to discuss what he's learned since taking over the position 17 days ago, whether there are people in the building who are open to MAHA, what's currently working properly at the agency and what's not, the issues with the VAERS system, recent critiques from Peter Marks who left the agency, the need to ask questions in science and not jump to conclusions, his new policy limiting who can serve as members on FDA advisory committees, his efforts to counter the perception that the FDA has been captured by Big Pharma and other industries, how he learned first-hand about "the swamp," the apolitical work he and RFK are doing, his efforts to get certain drugs approved faster and to limit animal testing, the truth about the DOGE cuts and how no scientists or reviewers were cut, his relationship with RFK, his effort to redo the food pyramid, the efforts by RFK to get to the cause of autism, the need to look at environmental and dietary exposures that could alter the microbiome, and more. Grand Canyon University: https://GCU.eduLean: Visit https://TakeLean.com & use code MK20 for 20% offAncient Nutrition: Enjoy 25% off your first order at https://AncientNutrition.com/MEGYNFollow The Megyn Kelly Show on all social platforms:YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/MegynKellyTwitter: http://Twitter.com/MegynKellyShowInstagram: http://Instagram.com/MegynKellyShowFacebook: http://Facebook.com/MegynKellyShow Find out more information at: https://www.devilmaycaremedia.com/megynkellyshow
Chapter 1: Who is Dr. Marty Makary and why did he join the FDA?
Commissioner. Megan Kelly, great to see you.
I mean, you were just on my set and you were just doctor. And now look at you. You could have stayed in the private sector, kept rolling in pretty good money. And you decided to take this job, which is an amazing thing for America. But why?
Well, welcome to the FDA, Megan. It's great to have you out here. You know, we are not on a good path as a country in terms of the health outcomes of the population. We do great with sophisticated operations and amazing drugs that can treat certain kinds of lymphoma and other types of cures, but
When it comes to the health of the population right now, we have had this massive area that we're not talking about that we need to be talking about, and that is the rise of all these chronic diseases. We've got one in six women now affected with autoimmune diseases. Half the kids are sick. Prediabetes affects about 20% of teens. 70% of kids are not qualifying for the military.
So we've got to start talking about our problems and not just keep throwing medications at them.
Mm hmm.
Causes and not just possible cures, which often don't turn out to be anything of the sort. So let me start here. You've been here 17 days.
Day 17 today.
All right. So what are the biggest things that you've learned so far? What's jumped out at you as a civilian who now suddenly is in government service?
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Chapter 2: What are Dr. Makary's first impressions and goals at the FDA?
So we're trying to bring all of that together now, and people have forgotten that the F in FDA stands for food. And so that is a major focus with Secretary Kennedy in this administration.
Right. We're always so focused on the D, especially on the heels of COVID. And we think of the FDA, most of us, especially on the right, poorly because we feel like we were railroaded and doing things we didn't want to do. And especially, you know, before COVID, there was the opioid crisis and the FDA's role in that. So it has a bad rap, I think, generally with many in the country.
So how do you turn that around?
Well, I mean, we're still reeling back from some of the disastrous health care corruption that the government was involved in. The food pyramid, one of the greatest pieces of misinformation put out there that has informed school lunch programs, that has informed what people define as healthy. And so we now have a group that's reevaluating the nutrition guidance.
We have a Maha commission that is going to be putting out a massive report That doesn't just talk about calories in, calories out. It talks about food ingredients and chemicals that don't appear in nature that are going down the GI tracts of our nation's children every day, nonstop. And it may not be one ingredient that is driving some of these chronic diseases.
It may not be one ingredient involved in attention deficit disorder. It may be a cumulative burden of all of it. So we're now taking a much wider view. And you mentioned the opioid issue. That probably is the quintessential example of what's wrong with a cozy relationship when the regulator agency is captured by the industry.
The person who literally authorized OxyContin then went to work for Purdue Pharma. Curtis Wright. Exactly.
And he worked here. He authorized Oxycontin. He approved a label that suggested it wasn't really that addictive, if at all. And then after he left here, he went to work for Purdue Pharma, the very company he helped.
Sweetheart deal. And that label was illegal, in my opinion. It was it was an indication for chronic pain for around the clock, long term use. And it was based on a 14 day study. And so that kind of mistake can result in a million Americans losing their lives. And when you don't have good post-approval monitoring, as this agency has not had, you discover things decades later.
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Chapter 3: How is the FDA addressing the opioid crisis and drug safety monitoring?
is he has posed questions, but he is not engaging in the details of how rigorous scientific methodology should be conducted. He's posing questions as is most of America right now. Again, I don't think VAERS is a good database because it is self-reported and not rates. On Peter Marks, I can tell you that I never knew the guy, I never met him. He resigned before I came to office.
Some people liked some of the things he did and some people had concerns with some of the things he did. One of the biggest concerns, of course, was that he pushed out the two top scientific vaccine experts here at the FDA. And this all came out in a House Judiciary hearing last summer. The two top vaccine experts at the FDA were pushed out by Peter Marks. It's not an opinion.
It's in the congressional hearing.
And as I recall, they were objecting to certain things that seemed arbitrary, like mandates for children, vaccines for six-year-olds, that kind of thing.
Exactly. They had concerns, according to their testimony, they had concerns over the COVID mRNA booster repeat strategy as a mandate in children. And as you know, some people have said it makes no sense. We don't have good data on the risk-benefit profile.
The two top vaccine career scientists at the FDA, Dr. Gruber and Dr. Krause, head director and deputy director of the Vaccine Research Center here at the FDA, were forced out by Dr. Marks. So, you know, sometimes you have to block out some of the noise where now he's taking, you know, a different view. I never met the guy, but that's... Those are the different ideas people have on people.
There's a lot of talented people who can do that job well. A lot of very smart people who are right now who are applying for that job.
My guess in knowing you is you want people who welcome that kind of questioning. Let's have more questions. Let's... search that up. Let's run that down. Not somebody who, like we've had, shuts down any questioning that doesn't toe the party line.
We are not going to be shutting down ideas, ideas that may be different from my ideas. We should welcome that. Science is based on challenging, deeply held assumptions where there's no good evidence. what we call medical dogma. That is the scientific process. And so we shouldn't be shutting down other ideas. We should be inviting them.
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Chapter 4: What are the issues with VAERS and vaccine safety data reporting?
How do we stop the first problem with all the FDA commissioners and the top head honchos doing their stint in government service and then going out to work for Big Pharma like they did in the Purdue Pharma case with Curtis Wright and making five times more?
I don't know. We live in a free country. I do know some of these individuals, and they are good people. And they're all God's children. They're doing what the market incentivizes. But when it comes to their influence on the operations of the FDA, that is something that we cannot tolerate. We cannot have people who leave as regulators go to the industry. And we've thought about an ethics pledge.
We've thought about all kinds of things. It's non-binding because we live in a free country. You can't control someone after they leave an employer. But what we can do is create a culture here where people want to stay. We can ensure that people who leave don't have undue influence.
I have a suggestion for you. If somebody leaves the FDA and goes to work for one of the drug companies, then you should look back to see whether they were involved in approving any of that company's drugs during their tenure over the previous five years. And it should kick in an automatic review on that drug and the approval.
When I got this nomination for the job, I cannot tell you how many lobbyists, former members of Congress, the swamp reached out to me. This is the swamp. I mean, I was in the operating room and the next day I discovered what the swamp was. You were swampy. Surrounded by the swamp creatures. Surrounded by the swamp creatures. And immediately, this is how it happens.
We want to help you with your confirmation. We want to write a letter on behalf of our company to the senators on your committee. We know these senators. We're going to talk to them if it's okay with you. And you know what I said? Don't talk to the senators. I don't want your letters. They're not for free. Those are obligations that then you feel indebted to return once you're in office.
And I'd rather not get confirmed into this job than have those obligations.
Right on. And you were confirmed. You're the only Trump nominee that's had as many Democrats cross over to support you. You've gotten more than anybody, I think. Was it 56-44?
Yes. It literally should be nothing political about the FDA. We're talking about values. Look, Republican, Democrat, independent moms came out and voted for President Trump, and they believed in Secretary Kennedy's maha mish.
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Chapter 5: How is the FDA reforming conflicts of interest and industry influence?
That is our focus. And so you've heard about consolidation or changes or cuts at the FDA. Those were not cuts to scientists or reviewers or inspectors. Absolutely none. They were cuts to communications staff, FDA's lobbyists to Congress, and to the IT systems here where there's a lot of opportunity for efficiencies.
Yes, there's been definitely there's been pushback on the the number of people who were ousted. I think it was your predecessor who said the FDA, as we know it, is gone, that the experts are gone. People with decades of institutional knowledge have been turfed, suggesting there might now be a safety issue here.
There is a massive growth of FDA employees under the Biden administration. And when the media reports that there were cuts, which many were early retirements, people took early retirement. None were to scientific reviewers or inspectors or law enforcement at the FDA. They were to IT communications, legislative affairs.
And so what you're not hearing in the mainstream media is that there was a 100% increase in the number of FDA employees since 2006.
You have about 18,000 and it's been cut about 3,500 since you and Kennedy got here. So you're saying we had more like 9,000
We had 9,500 employees at the FDA in 2006. Oh, wow. And so when you report that there were cuts and you don't report that there was 100% increase in employees in the preceding years, that the number of employees doubled in the preceding years, that is misleading reporting.
And the people who we've gotten rid of, losing them is not going to slow down drug approval or safety procedures because they were, sounds like, more administrative people.
There were no cuts to scientists, reviewers or inspectors or law enforcement and my goal is to make sure that every one of those people has all the resources they need to do their job well. Now cuts are never perfect and so we have done an assessment and there are some individuals that we have invited back.
There were a couple people who were taking the early retirement, and we were told of their sort of how well they performed here, and we encouraged them to stay. But to not report that the agency has doubled since 2006 before this cut, in my opinion, is not telling the whole story. No, it's dishonest. It's dishonest.
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Chapter 6: What is the 'swamp' culture in the FDA and how is it being challenged?
I've heard you talk many times with me and others about, and this stuck out to me because I had C-sections, but about how vaginal births are in some ways much better for the baby because it will help their microbiome. Like going through the birth canal is very helpful to a baby's microbiome.
But I was thinking about this because what we have now is a scenario in which C-sections are routinely pushed on mothers because it's easier for the OBGYN. They can schedule their life more easily. The nursing staff supports it. They can get a wink or two, whereas the vaginal birth is a different story, natural, whatever. So the kid comes out without that advantage.
Then we're very quick to prescribe antibiotics for young kids. Carpet bombing the microbiome. Over and over, even when they're little. We're not setting them up for success. Then we fill them full of processed foods. Or maybe we give them infant formula that's riddled with processed or seed oils or added sugars that don't need to be there.
And then we, for a long time, didn't expose them to peanuts or other potential allergens, which made them weaker and more susceptible to these allergies. And then, you know, there's all these antibiotics in foods and estrogen-altering chemicals in foods. And now the child is basically hobbled in a lot of ways through absolutely no fault of their own. And really, the parents either.
The parents wouldn't have necessarily known not to do that. Your kid has strep. Your doctor says give him antibiotics. You do it. And then on top of that, we've got all these vaccines and we've got all these processed foods and we've got all this weird stuff and, you know, your cow milk. And it's so much. And so it's almost like the system is set up to get your kids sick.
And then we say, why is everybody getting colon cancer before they turn 25? Right. No one's even taking a hard look at that. Now it seems like for the first time we have a team that's saying, no, we're taking a hard look at all of that.
all of it we have to look at all of it i mean if you look at how much children are suffering they're in pain they're depressed they're dealing with injecting themselves with insulin something you would rarely see a kid have type 2 diabetes in their teenage years a generation ago now you got 20 of kids who have diabetes or pre-diabetes the vast majority are type 2 diabetes right
We have only been talking about treating the rise in colon cancer in young people with new chemotherapy. New chemotherapy is not going to address the root causes. We need to do it, and we want to see new drugs come into market quickly. But we've got to talk about what is insulting the microbiome, driving general body inflammation.
We've got to talk about the two underlying causes of so many chronic diseases, in my opinion, insulin resistance and general body inflammation. And it's all the stuff that we put down. The body's immune system is reacting and causing some inflammation. So we're not just going to be looking at new chemo for colon cancer. We're going to be focused on healthy food at the FDA.
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Chapter 7: Why is nutrition and food safety a priority for the FDA now?
It's sad.
So how do you stop that? Can we as humans stay safe in the drugs we consume and the products we consume without torturing sweet little beagles? And I will throw in a word for the bunnies and even the little lab rats, which, you know, animal torture just seems beneath us at this point in our evolution. But you tell me.
God did not make these animals on planet Earth for us to do cruel things to them and subjugate them. It does not seem right. And so we are doing everything we can, and we're taking a lot of steps to reduce animal testing requirements and to stop unnecessary animal testing. A single monoclonal antibody that was developed for approval used 144 chimpanzees in the animal testing requirement.
What are we doing? And these chimpanzees are not... living with great sunlight and eating bananas.
There is a problem here, and when you realize that the computational models can do as good or better of a job in predicting, when the lab-based organ cells tested, or something called organoids, where you can actually grow an organ in a lab, and it's not a functional organ, but it has the properties of those cells, and you can test liver toxicity or heart toxicity or myocarditis,
Those models should be replacing animal testing. So the first announcement we had when I came in as commissioner was to take steps to reduce unnecessary animal testing.
Reduced by a lot? Like almost entirely? With a goal toward hitting entirely or what?
I'd like to see as much reduction of unnecessary animal testing as humanly possible. As a surgeon, we had pig labs at Johns Hopkins where the students and residents would learn how to do surgery on the pigs. I personally believed it had no impact on learning. They could have learned from simulations, computerized simulations. They can learn from watching us in the operating room.
It provided no edits because they were unnecessary. And every week or so, they would have pigs anesthetized in this big production. It was expensive. And in my opinion, it was unnecessary. We've got to modernize.
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