From Diet to Drugs: Inside HHS’s Push for Bold Reforms

Dr.

Marty McCurry has entered the FDA as its new commissioner amid sweeping changes and groundbreaking findings.

In this episode, Dr.

McCurry explains the science behind the administration's announcement earlier this week about a potential cause for autism.

I'm Georgia Howe with Daily Wire executive editor John Bickley, and this is a weekend edition of Morningwire.

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Joining us now to discuss is FDA Commissioner and longtime Morning Wire contributor, Dr.

Marty McCary.

Dr.

McCary, thanks so much for coming on.

Good to be with you, Georgia.

So we had a very significant announcement this week regarding autism research.

Tell us first, what was that announcement and then what's the FDA's role going to be?

So we're taking autism very seriously and identified a potential cause that we're letting the public know about and a potential treatment that hundreds of thousands of kids with severe autism would likely qualify for.

And that is we are letting people know about the potential risks of acetaminophen in pregnancy.

There have been large studies linking that medication to autism in children subsequently.

And so we are going to start the process to change the label.

And I've sent a dear doctor letter to all U.S.

physicians letting them know about the association because we now have good data from large studies and the Harvard School of Public Health dean has made a very conclusive statement that he believes the association is causal.

So when you have that weight of evidence, you have to take it seriously and err on the side of safety, especially since the vast majority of low-grade fevers do not need to be treated as we reflexively did in medical school and in training.

Does it matter when in the pregnancy it was?

Is it dose-dependent?

Is it like long-term use?

What are they seeing in the data?

Well, there are associations between the duration of acetaminophen use and the risk of autism in children subsequently, as well as the proximity to the time of birth.

There's been acetaminophen that's shown up in the cord blood of newborn babies, and that cord blood level has been associated with the degree of risk.

So there's enough evidence here for us to say, hey, we don't need a 10-year randomized control trial.

We have an epidemic of autism that has increased 400% in the recent decades, and we don't have a known cause.

Now, this may be a cause, but when you have enough evidence to suggest an association, and you have no other plausible cause, we have a duty to notify parents and doctors.

Now, you mentioned there's also a new treatment being discussed.

Tell us about that new treatment, who it could work for,

and what the mechanism is, just in a broad general way.

The treatment is called leukavorin or vitamin B6.

It's been around for nearly a century, but only recently have we recognized that some kids with autism actually have an autoimmune disease.

The mechanism may be that the body is creating antibodies that block the folate receptors on their brain, restricting the ability of folate to get into the cerebrum.

And so what that does is it actually creates a situation where you could have high levels of folate in your diet or in your blood, but it's not getting in the brain.

And some doctors have actually started to test for this folate antibody, and they will then move on to treat some kids with this folinic acid or vitamin B12 that bypasses the receptor.

Now, there's been a lot of controversy about HHS, in particular taking on autism.

They'll talk about how vaccines are completely safe, et cetera, et cetera.

What do you make of the controversies?

And can you separate some of the fact from fiction with regards to what the public believes about how you guys are approaching this?

Look, Secretary Kennedy is asking questions that the American people are asking.

And so we have this odd new political landscape that's penetrated science where you're supposedly not allowed to ask certain questions.

It's created a tremendous amount of distrust.

But I can tell you the purpose of science itself is to investigate questions.

We've got blind spots.

There are sacred cow topics we're not supposed to talk about.

Well, Dr.

Jay Bhattacharya, Dr.

Oz, and myself, we come from very respected institutions, Stanford, Columbia, and Johns Hopkins.

We're using the scientific method to try to tackle the big questions that are put in front of us.

We're using gold standard science and common sense.

And we have a direct charge from President Trump to go bold, do what's right scientifically, and not worry about the lobbyists and the corporations.

Zooming out a little bit, you just took a helm at the FDA.

What are your, say, top three goals there and what could we see change under your leadership?

Well, look, George, I want to see more cures for the American people and I want to see healthier food for children.

We've taken huge steps in both of those areas.

We have streamlined the approval process at the FDA so we can get a decision out in weeks instead of a year.

We're going to prioritize drugs that reduce downstream health care utilization,

where the drug is made in the the United States for a national security issue, and anything that meets a large unmet public health need.

We are also seeing tremendous cooperation now from the food industry on our goals, not just to remove the nine petroleum-based food dyes, but the next tier of chemicals.

We've seen companies remove titanium dioxide.

We've seen just last week, Tyson, one of the largest food manufacturers in the United States, agree to remove all high fructose corn syrup titanium dioxide and BHT, a preservative where there are health concerns.

So we're seeing tremendous strides in healthier food for children.

We've seen the first ever SNAP program waiver so that states don't have to use taxpayer dollars for junk food and sugary drinks.

And we're going to keep going.

We've also launched a series of initiatives to eliminate animal testing requirements at the FDA, to use more AI and computational modeling, and to deliver more cures.

I'd like to see a cure for type 1 diabetes or a meaningful treatment in the next couple of years.

And I think you're going to see it for neurodegenerative diseases that are otherwise hopeless and disabling.

For

certain types of cancer, stage one and two GI cancers.

You're going to see a powerful treatment, in my opinion, likely come out soon in those areas.

And for PTSD, we still lose 8,000 veterans a year to suicide.

We lose more veterans a year to suicide than we did the entire Afghan and Iraq wars.

We owe it to them to get a decision out quickly from the FDA on potentially promising therapies for PTSD, and we're going to do that.

Other countries have all these SPF, or have all these sun protective chemicals that we're not allowed to have.

Other comparable countries have like 54 chemicals they're allowed to use.

They have much more elegant formulas, but we have a very limited amount of chemicals that we're allowed to have here.

Do you see that opening up anytime soon?

Yeah, we are going to open that up, Georgia, because what we see at the FDA when we walked in there, first of all, it was a mess.

They were approving drugs where the cells of Americans were sent to China for gene editing and then sent back to the U.S.

for infusion in American patients.

We found a lot of broken processes, and it's going to take some time.

But one of those is the remnant paternalistic approach to medicine.

That is, we can't allow you to try certain sunscreens used in Europe because we have to decide first that they're safe for you.

And many of those processes are deep in regulation.

They create these cookbooks or recipes at the FDA and say if you don't follow this exact recipe, then you can't have a product on the U.S.

market.

And so we're taking that head-on.

All right.

Well, thank you so much for coming on today.

Good to be with you, Georgia.

That was FDA Commissioner Dr.

Marty McCary, and this has been a weekend edition of Morningwire.