Robert Califf, a cardiologist and commissioner of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, has been deeply involved in cardiovascular research: investigating health outcomes, health care quality, and clinical research in large, complex studies. In a recent conversation with STAT, though, he invoked his role as a grandfather, challenged in a grocery store checkout line to resist the ultra-processed foods marketed to American children and adults.
“What do they have right as you’re trying to check out? All of the junk food,” he said. “The last thing I want is my grandkids pitching a fit in front of everybody in the store. So you buy it.”
This led him to muse on a future without such a scene.
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