卫生部长小罗伯特·F·肯尼迪说，他计划告诉美国医学院，他们必须向学生提供营养课程，否则就有可能失去卫生与公众服务部的联邦资金。
肯尼迪4月份在北卡罗来纳州的一次活动上发表讲话时感叹道，“几乎没有医学院开设营养学课程，因此[有抱负的医生]被教导如何用药物治疗疾病，而不是如何用食物治疗疾病，或者如何保持人们健康，使他们不需要药物。”
他补充说，“我们明年要做的事情之一是宣布，没有这些项目的医学院将没有资格获得我们的资助，我们将扣留那些没有实施这些课程的医学院的资金。”
肯尼迪在一次关注环境中的塑料的活动中顺便提到了这个想法，虽然缺乏细节，但引起了一些营养专家的乐观情绪，这些专家多年来一直在寻求让医学院教授更多营养内容的方法。
一名HHS官员告诉ABC新闻，肯尼迪“致力于了解并大幅降低慢性病发病率，结束儿童慢性病，包括对营养的新思考和对药物和治疗的过度依赖。”
该官员没有回应关于肯尼迪计划的更多信息的请求，比如他是否会要求医学院遵循特定的课程。这位官员也没有说肯尼迪是否已经开始和医学院讨论这个问题。
发表在《生物医学教育杂志》上的一项研究2015年在2012-2013年调查了121所美国医学院，发现医科学生在四年中平均只花19个小时进行必要的营养教育。
这不包括在医学院毕业后的住院医师培训或伙伴培训期间的教育，也不包括在医生职业生涯中为保持医师执照或委员会认证所需的继续医学教育。
这些数字让一些营养专家感到沮丧，他们认为医生应该更多地关注预防肥胖和糖尿病等由饮食引起的疾病，而不是开出治疗这些问题的药物。
“我认为有一种强烈的紧迫感，我们必须对此采取行动，”哈佛大学陈公共卫生学院教授大卫·艾森伯格博士说，他告诉美国广播公司新闻，要求所有医学院进行营养教育“早就应该了”
艾森伯格补充道:“我认为公众认为，医生需要知道的比他们接受的营养知识和给病人提供实用的食物建议要多得多。”
当肯尼迪威胁要停止拨款时，美国广播公司采访的一些医学院表示，他们已经提供了足够的营养教育。
“作为我们医学院培训的一部分，我们有广泛的营养课程，”威尔康奈尔医学院的发言人莎拉·史密斯在一封电子邮件中说。
北卡罗来纳大学医学院的一名发言人吹捧该校的营养系，该发言人说，该系“被公认为研究和培训领域的全球领导者，是独一无二的，因为它是美国唯一一个同时位于公共卫生学院和医学院的营养系。”
美国医学院协会(Association of American Medical Colleges)的一名代表拒绝置评，但告诉美国广播公司新闻(ABC News)，该组织去年对医学院进行的一项电子调查发现，每所做出回应的学校都报告“以某种形式涵盖了营养内容”。
尽管如此，2015年由北卡罗来纳大学(University of North Carolina)和哈佛大学(Harvard)的两名研究人员进行的研究，描绘了一幅美国医学院营养教育状况的糟糕画面。
“许多美国医学院仍然没有为未来的医生在临床实践中的日常营养挑战做好准备，”作者写道。
南加州大学凯克医学院教授Jo Marie Reilly博士告诉ABC新闻，自2015年的研究(她说，这是最近一次对医学院营养课程的“范围审查”)以来，医学院逐渐开始提供更多的营养教育。
然而，Reilly认为，问题在于缺乏一套供医学院遵守的统一标准。
“每个学校都有自己的东西，”她说。
这种情况可能会改变:赖利和艾森伯格是去年发表建议的医学和营养专家小组的成员在JAMA网络公开赛上对于国家课程，这将涉及36个“营养能力”的医学学生来说，以满足。
“在此之前没有人说过，这是我们希望(医学生)知道的，这是我们认为应该教授的。现在我们有了这些，”雷利告诉美国广播公司新闻。
“我们正朝着正确的方向前进，但我们还有很长的路要走，”她说。
肯尼迪长期以来一直表示，需要通过改变美国人的饮食来解决慢性病问题。
如果HHS要这样做，扣留或撤回医学院的联邦资金，将遵循特朗普新政府各部门的类似举措。
今年春天，HHS大学和其他几个院系一起取消了对哥伦比亚大学的拨款，以抗议该校“面对犹太学生的持续骚扰继续无所作为”该大学表示，它计划与联邦政府合作，以恢复其资金。
RFK Jr. to tell medical schools to teach nutrition or lose federal funding
Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said he plans to tell American medical schools they must offer nutrition courses to students or risk losing federal funding from the Department of Health and Human Services.
Speaking at an event in North Carolina in April, Kennedy lamented, "There's almost no medical schools that have nutrition courses, and so [aspiring physicians] are taught how to treat illnesses with drugs but not how to treat them with food or to keep people healthy so they don't need the drugs."
He added, "One of the things that we'll do over the next year is to announce that medical schools that don't have those programs are not going to be eligible for our funding, and that we will withhold funds from those who don't implement those kinds of courses."
The idea, which Kennedy mentioned in passing at an event focused on plastics in the environment, lacks details but has drawn optimism from some nutrition experts who have for years sought ways for medical schools to teach more nutrition content.
An HHS official told ABC News that Kennedy "is committed to understanding and drastically lowering chronic disease rates and ending childhood chronic disease, which includes fresh thinking on nutrition and over-reliance on medication and treatments."
The official did not respond to requests for more information about Kennedy's plan, like whether he would require medical schools to follow a specific curriculum. Nor did the official say whether Kennedy has begun speaking with medical schools about the issue.
A study published in the Journal of Biomedical Educationin 2015 surveyed 121 American medical schools in 2012-2013 and found that medical students spend, on average, only 19 hours on required nutrition education over their four years.
This does not account for education during residency or fellowship training after medical school, or continuing medical education required throughout a doctor’s career to maintain a medical license or board certification.
Those numbers have frustrated some nutrition experts, who argue doctors should focus more on preventing diet-driven conditions like obesity and diabetes and less on prescribing drugs that treat the problems.
"I think there's a great sense of urgency that we have to do something about this," said Dr. David Eisenberg, a professor at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, who told ABC News that requiring nutrition education at all medical schools is "long overdue."
"I think the public imagines that physicians are required to know a lot more than they are trained to know about nutrition and giving practical advice about food to patients," added Eisenberg.
When presented with Kennedy's threats to withhold funding, some medical schools reached by ABC News said they already offer sufficient nutrition education.
"We have an extensive nutrition curriculum as part of our medical school training," Sarah Smith, a spokeswoman for Weill Cornell Medicine, said in an email.
A spokesperson for the University of North Carolina School of Medicine touted the school's Department of Nutrition, which the spokesperson said is "recognized as a global leader in research and training, and is unique in that it is the only nutrition department in the U.S. that is situated in both a school of public health and a school of medicine."
A representative for the Association of American Medical Colleges, which counts more than 170 medical schools among its members, declined to comment but told ABC News that an e-survey of medical schools the group conducted last year found that every school that responded reported "covering nutrition content in some form."
Still, the 2015 study, conducted by two researchers from the University of North Carolina and one from Harvard, painted a damning picture of the state of nutrition education at America's medical schools.
"Many US medical schools still fail to prepare future physicians for everyday nutrition challenges in clinical practice," the authors wrote.
Dr. Jo Marie Reilly, a professor at the University of Southern California's Keck School of Medicine, told ABC News that since the 2015 study (the most recent "scoping review" of medical schools' nutrition offerings, she said), medical schools have gradually begun offering more nutrition education.
The problem, though, according to Reilly, is the absence of a consistent set of standards for medical schools to abide by.
"Every school has got their own thing," she said.
That could be changing: Reilly and Eisenberg are among a group of medical and nutrition experts who last year published proposed recommendationsin JAMA Network Openfor a national curriculum, which would involve 36 "nutritional competencies" for medical students to meet.
"Nothing before this had said, well here's what we want [medical students] to know, this is what we think we should teach. Now we have those," Reilly told ABC News.
"We're moving in the right direction, but we have quite a ways to go," she said.
Kennedy has long spoken of the need to address chronic disease through changes to what Americans eat.
Withholding or withdrawing federal funding from medical schools, if HHS were to do so, would follow similar moves from departments across the new Trump administration.
This spring, HHS was among several departments which canceled grants to Columbia University in protest of what it called the school's "continued inaction in the face of persistent harassment of Jewish students." The university said it planned to work with the federal government to restore its funding.
