The Health and Human Services secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., took aim at what he claims is a myopic preoccupation by the media and policymakers on measles and Covid, rather than on more costly and insidious chronic maladies such as autism and diabetes. Mr. Kennedy was speaking Monday evening to the TV personality Dr. Phil and a studio audience to mark President Trump’s first 100 days in office.

In his conversation with an admiring Dr. Phil, Mr. Kennedy  also discussed his concerns over vaccines, the dangers of petroleum-based food dyes  and what he said was the United States’ high rate of chronic diseases. 

Dr. Phil, whose real name is Philip C. McGraw,  introduced Mr. Kennedy as a “fearless challenger of norms and a relentless advocate for what he believes is right.” Dr. Phil, who until recently hosted the top-rated daytime talk show, spoke extensively about how much he agreed with many of Mr. Kennedy’s unconventional views on public health and medicine.

Mr. Kennedy took Dr. Phil and the audience into a deep dive into autism, vaccines, Covid, and everything else that he said ails the United States health care system.

“We’re literally the sickest people in the world,” said Mr. Kennedy.  He opened up the town hall discussing the United States’ handling of the Covid pandemic, taking a subtle swipe at Dr. Anthony Fauci and other health policy leaders from the Biden era for “getting awards and kudos and applause for managing COVID-19 in this country” despite having 1.2 million of the 7.1 million COVID-19-related deaths to date, according to World Health Organization data. 

“We literally did worse than any country in the world. Now, if you ask the CDC, you know, why did we do so poorly, they say, ‘well, it’s not our fault. It’s because Americans are so sick,’ which, by the way, is their fault,” said Mr. Kennedy, to loud applause from the crowd.

Mr. Kennedy discussed the recent surge in measles cases in the United States, of which there are now 884 confirmed cases across 29 states, mostly children, according to the Centers for Disease Control. Mr. Kennedy’s critics have seized on the measles outbreak to criticize Mr. Kennedy, who has expressed skepticism about vaccines. An effective vaccine for measles has been available for decades, and outbreaks now occur in communities where parents choose not to have their children vaccinated.

“I mean, I would say that we’re doing well,” said Mr. Kennedy, comparing the United States to Canada and Europe’s current handling of their respective measles outbreaks. 

And while saying that the efficacy of the MMR vaccination, which is used to protect against measles, is ultimately “going to wane,” Mr. Kennedy stopped himself to say that “the HHS continues to recommend that vaccine.” Since he was nominated for health secretary, Mr. Kennedy has moderated his rhetoric on vaccines. 

But later in the conversation, Mr. Kennedy criticized news coverage of the measles outbreak, which he said overshadowed the rise in new juvenile autism and diabetes cases. 

“Every kid who has got a diabetes diagnosis, that should be a headline. Every kid who gets an autism diagnosis, that should be a headline. But you never read about them, and the media is obsessed with infectious disease,” said Mr. Kennedy. 

On the subject of vaccines, Mr. Kennedy,  the former chairman of the non-profit Children’s Health Defense that is known for its staunch criticism of vaccine mandates, chided the CDC’s perceived handling of its safety testing.

Mr. Kennedy then segued into the “tribal political issue” of autism, which he characterized as being “1,000 times more costly than COVID.” Earlier this month, Kennedy and the National Institutes of Health director, Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, raised concerns when they announced plans to create “national disease registries, including a new one for autism” as part of their investigation into the root causes of autism. (A Health and Human Services official later clarified that the agency was not creating “an autism registry” but rather a “real-world data platform that will link existing datasets to support research into causes of autism”).

“Epidemics are not caused by genes. The genes can provide a vulnerability, but you need an environmental exposure, and we need to identify what that exposure is. What is doing this to our kids? And it’s probably an accumulation,” said Mr. Kennedy to applause.

A top concern of Mr. Kennedy’s is the national diet. Last week, Mr. Kennedy announced a new effort to phase out petroleum-based food dyes from the national food supply. Some Washington observers call the effort aspirational, since the food industry has not agreed to phase out the dyes, and likely can’t be compelled to without Congressional action.

“We have 10,000 ingredients in our food, and in Europe, they only have 400. Most of the stuff we put in our food is bad,” said Mr. Kennedy.  “These kinds of chemicals are designed to make us insatiable, continually eating all day, never full, never satisfied, and getting less and less healthy,” he added.

Mr. Kennedy fielded questions from an agreeable audience, including a woman who referenced the controversial movie “Vaxxed”, based on a notorious study by Andrew Wakefield – since retracted by the prestigious medical journal Lancet – that linked autism to vaccines. 

In response, Mr. Kennedy said that the HSS is “in the process of researching all those questions” by replicating studies. “We’re doing gold standard science,” he added. He has promised to reveal the reason behind the surge in autism diagnoses later this year.

Mr. Kennedy said he was considering attempting to place restrictions on direct-to-consumer pharmaceutical advertising and prohibiting government health officials from working with pharmaceutical companies as their next job.

When asked by a mother of three what he would advise an expecting mother to do about vaccinating her newborn, Mr. Kennedy advised to “do your own research.”

“You research the baby stroller, you research the foods that they’re getting, and you need to research the medicines that they’re taking as well,” he said.

While he is still new to the job, Mr. Kennedy said his personal life is still paying the price for his decision to join up with Mr. Trump during the campaign, and later to take one of the most powerful roles in the administration.

“This was literally the worst career choice that I could have made.. You know, I lost friends immediately. I lost a lot of family members, I lost a lot of my allies in the environmental movement, relationships that I built up, political allies that I built up for my whole life,” said Mr. Kennedy.