Our entire public health complex is being challenged, examined, and upended like never before under President Trump and HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Junior. A key component of this transformation is the Food and Drug Administration or FDA. Today, we speak with FDA Commissioner Dr. Marty Makary about how he’s navigating changes amid an entrenched and recalcitrant bureaucracy and a public that’s grown mistrustful of government health advice.

The following is a transcript of a report from “Full Measure with Sharyl Attkisson.”
Watch the video by clicking the link at the end of the page.

Dr. Marty Makary: “The FDA has a history of being a broken agency that – at times – has been captured by the same industry it’s supposed to regulate. And so, that ended the day we came into office.”

FDA Commissioner Makary is foreshadowing radical change to America’s drug advertising landscape, promising to enforce laws that he says the old FDA ignored for decades.

Sharyl: “I think you noted recently that FDA’s issuance of enforcement letters for false advertising – or claims by drug companies – has fallen from 130 a year – that was in the late nineties – to three in 2023.”

Makary: “And zero last year. I mean, it’s like no one’s paying attention and if, but if you actually watch what’s happening, you watch these TV programs now, it’s like one nonstop running drug ad, and they’re always singing and dancing. And so, we have a law that says you cannot create a misleading impression. So we are gonna enforce that regulation. And so, with the charge of the FDA: We are in charge of making sure that claims by pharmaceutical companies match the data, that you’re not misleading Americans with these ads. And so, we’re gonna crack down. And so, we have got thousands of letters that are going out. We have enforcement letters that are going out after the entire world of enforcing these ads had dwindled to no enforcement”

Sharyl: “So someone’s been studying all the ads on TV since you came in office?”

Makary: “We’ve been gearing up for this and studying the problem, making sure we’re not violating the First Amendment and doing everything we can to address this epidemic of direct to consumer ads that are misleading to everyday Americans. And we’re also cracking down on social media ads. There are social media influencers paid to promote drugs, and they’re not talking about side effects. We’re cracking down on the online pharmacies that are talking about these drugs. Like ‘they’re wonderful’ with no mention of side effects, not one.”

Sharyl: “Does this mean the FDA has made a policy decision not to move to ban drug advertising?”

Makary: “We are cracking down on drug ads to the maximum extent of our regulation while preserving First Amendment rights, ’cause we do believe in the First Amendment. So I wouldn’t call it a ban. I would say that we’re taking on drug ads, and we are gonna do our part by saying you cannot create a misleading impression. That is the language in the reg [regulation] and that’s the language we’re gonna enforce.”

Sharyl: “How soon before you think we see a different picture of advertising?”

Makary: “Look, very soon. Because we are going at this hard. We don’t do things for small little incremental changes in this administration. We’re not interested in small, little tweaks to our broken healthcare system. We’re going big, and we’re going bold, and that charge comes from President Trump who has said, ‘Do what’s right, and don’t worry about what the lobbyists and the corporations might tell you.'”

Sharyl: “Do you think the impact will be, some drugs will not be advertised if they have to fully disclose their risks?”

Makary: “Yes.”

Sharyl: “There is an angle we’ve been covering on Full Measure, which is a loophole under which some drugs – and particularly vaccines – seem to take advantage of this with government’s help, advertise a vaccine without any mention of potential risks or side effects and they call it educational. Maybe they don’t mention the brand name, so therefore, they escape or they think they escape the obligation to talk about risks. Are you closing that loophole?”

Makary: “The FDA is gonna close the ‘adequate provision loophole’ that you’re referring to that says as long as you list the complications and the downside somewhere on a website, you don’t have to talk about ’em. You can just talk about the pros. You can call it education. Well, when you’re advertising directly to consumers, we think that loophole violates the spirit and the letter of the regulation that says you cannot create a misleading impression. We’re initiating action this week to change that regulation to close the loophole.”

Sharyl: “On the Covid vaccine in kids, what are you working on in terms of trying to track what’s really happened in the population?”

Makary: “So, it’s amazing that here in 2025, we don’t have the full story on the Covid vaccine in children. For example, how many kids have died from the Covid vaccine? Show me a doctor in the United States who can definitively tell you what that number is.”

Sharyl: “I think they would just say none.”

Makary: “I think there’s this feeling that in the absence of data that they can, you can fill that void with whatever political claims or narrative that somebody wants to make. But we have to bring back gold standard science, and that’s our charge from Secretary Kennedy. We are reaching out to the doctors. We are reviewing autopsy reports, we’re making our own conclusions from our own investigation to find out whether or not the association was causal and what the degree of certainty is. And so, you’re gonna see a report coming out in the coming weeks that is going to make transparent the investigation that we conducted from families who have said, ‘We lost our child from the Covid vaccine.’ And when you’re trying to decide whether or not your healthy 12-year-old girl needs an eighth Covid shot this year, which to be clear, I don’t recommend – I don’t think the data supports it – don’t you think it would be helpful to have the data on Covid vaccine deaths in that public academic discourse? I think so.”

Sharyl: “You probably already have some inkling. Is there any chance the number of Covid vaccine related deaths in kids is zero? Or you know there are some?”

Makary: “Kids have died from the Covid vaccine, and you’re gonna see a full report coming out in the coming weeks on that. We’re starting to see a movement now to healthier food. We are rewriting the food pyramid, which was broken misinformation from the corrupt industry that had its fingers in the government, and we are gonna end the 50-year war on natural saturated fat. We’re gonna talk about ultra-processed foods in that report, and yes, we’re gonna talk about the types of grains that somebody eats. We have stripped fiber from grains, chopped them up, and they function like sugar. It has a high glycemic index, and so we are poisoning our nation’s kids at scale and then drugging them. And so, we’ve gotta stop and ask what are we doing? And what we hope to do is to not use the heavy-handed government to start banning things but to raise awareness. You win more bees with honey than fire. And we, so we’re starting with a friendly approach, bringing companies to the table. They see the writing on the wall, they see the tremendous movement that Bobby Kennedy and others have been spearheading to say we’ve gotta get to healthier foods. And so, they just don’t want an unfair playing field with their competitor or food companies. And so, we’re getting to the table to agree on a timeline that’s mutually agreeable to, and then we’ll use every regulation we have in the toolbox if we need to. So it’s an exciting time at the FDA. We’re streamlining the process, modernizing the agency, and trying to bring more cures and meaningful treatments to the American public and healthier food for children.”

Watch video here.