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By Puyaan Singh
(Reuters) -U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said on Tuesday that the Department of Health and Human Services plans to launch an advertising campaign to encourage Americans to adopt wearable devices, such as those that measure heart rate or blood glucose levels.
Shares of continuous glucose-monitoring device makers Abbott and Dexcom (NASDAQ:DXCM) were up 3.6% and 10%, respectively, in afternoon trading.
"We think that wearables are a key to the MAHA agenda, Making America Healthy Again ... my vision is that every American is wearing a wearable within four years," Kennedy said, speaking before the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Energy and Commerce’s Subcommittee on Health during a hearing on his department’s 2026 budget request.
"It’s a way of people can take control over their own health ... they can see what food is doing to their glucose levels, their heart rates and a number of other metrics as they eat it," he added.
Kennedy also described the campaign as "one of the biggest" in the agency’s history.
Kennedy, who has long promoted healthy eating over medicine as a way to combat obesity and has been a prominent critic of vaccine safety, has also been critical about Novo Nordisk (NYSE:NVO)’s diabetes drug Ozempic, which is often prescribed for weight loss.
However, he has expressed support for prescription of such weight-loss drugs for adults with morbid obesity and diabetes, provided it is accompanied by exercise.
"You know the Ozempic is costing $1300 a month, if you can achieve the same thing with an $80 wearable, it’s a lot better for the American people," Kennedy said, adding, "We’re exploring ways of making sure that those costs can be paid for."
J.P.Morgan analyst Robbie Marcus commented, "We think it’s premature to interpret this as a direct comment on whether Medicare and other commercial payors will move towards covering non-intensive Type II diabetes patients or other areas of proactive monitoring."