FDA Commissioner Makary backs hospital price transparency, rare disease research | FULL INTERVIEW
What this video covers
The morning after the State of the Union, 7News reporter Nick Minock sits down with FDA Commissioner Marty Makary for a full interview on the administration’s health agenda: TrumpRx drug pricing, hospital price transparency, rare-disease drug pathways, hormone therapy, youth gender medicine, over-the-counter switches, and the MAHA food program.
Key points
- On drug pricing, Makary calls it “the great American ripoff” and says the highest-spend drugs have fallen from $1,300 a month to $149 a month on TrumpRx under most-favored-nation pricing, with new drugs added weekly; he points to the IVF medication featured in the president’s address as one example of the savings, and says some insurers now reimburse TrumpRx purchases.
- On rare diseases, Makary notes about 30 million Americans — roughly one in ten — have a rare disease. He says the administration has renewed the pediatric priority review voucher program and announced a “plausible mechanism pathway” so ultra-rare conditions do not require randomized trials, citing a gene therapy for a congenital-deafness mutation in which three of twelve children gained normal hearing and seven more improved.
- On the Affordable Care Act, Makary argues health care became less affordable after the law, whose promised $2,500 premium reduction was followed by the opposite; he backs the president’s position that money should go to people rather than enrich insurance companies.
- On price transparency, Makary recounts his role as a Johns Hopkins academic in the first Trump administration’s hospital price-transparency work, and says the State of the Union announced “maximum” transparency extending to urgent care centers and emergency rooms, so patients quoted a price for a non-emergent service have a right to that price.
- On women’s health, Makary says the FDA “told women the truth” about hormone replacement therapy after what he calls 22 years of dogma perpetuated by the agency, and that demand is now “sky-high” following the labeling change.
- On youth gender medicine, Makary praises the American Society of Plastic Surgeons for publicly questioning gender surgeries for patients under 19, and asserts that the claim such surgery reduces suicide risk is a medical dogma with no supporting data.
- On access and food, Makary says the FDA wants more safe, non-addictive medicines that need no lab monitoring moved over the counter, where visible shelf prices discipline costs; he also says 60 to 70% of children’s calories now come from ultra-processed, fiber-stripped foods, and that the rewritten food pyramid distinguishes real food from ultra-processed food.