Rob Califf will likely make his final appearance as FDA commissioner on Capitol Hill today to talk about the nation’s obesity and diabetes epidemics—issues Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said he’ll prioritize if he’s confirmed as Donald Trump’s health secretary.

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), chair of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee, convened today’s hearing to address the Food and Drug Administration’s role in curbing these epidemics and what he described as the “greed of the food and beverage industry.”

• “In America today, we have an obesity epidemic and a diabetes epidemic that we must address,” Sanders said in a statement.

Concerns over the role of diet and food in the nation’s chronic disease epidemic offer potential for bipartisan health polices—if they can agree on how to tackle the problem.

• “Chronic illness is sapping our nation’s viability,” RFK Jr, wrote in a post on X.
• Likewise, Califf said at the Food is Medicine summit last year, “With the stunning prevalence of diet-related chronic disease, politicians need to understand the devastating impact of chronic disease and support the means for better prevention and management.”

But RFK Jr. has vowed to purge the FDA. He’s also not a fan of Ozempic and other anti-obesity drugs known as GLP-1s, which the Biden administration recently proposed covering under Medicare and Medicaid.

Califf defended the FDA’s food center while declining to comment on RFK Jr. directly.

• “They’re hardworking and they want what’s best for the American public. I have no question,” he said at the Friends of Cancer Research meeting last month.

The “vast majority” of the FDA’s food budget doesn’t go toward nutrition as Congress allocated most of it for inspections, Califf said at the Milken Institute health summit last month.

Sanders introduced a bill in April that would ban junk food advertising toward children. It would also require the FDA put warning labels high in added sugar, salt, and saturated fat, akin to tobacco warning labels.

Califf wants to be able to put a “healthy” label on the front of certain nutritious food packaging—something they can’t do now.

• “Let’s face it, most people are busy,” and don’t have the time to study each nutrition label, he said at the Friends meeting. “So if we could just label things that are basically healthy as healthy that would make a big difference.”
• Hearing website
• Sanders’ bill text