RFK Jr. hopes to make America healthy again
Implications of the MAHA Agenda for President-Elect John F. Kennedy and the Future of the American Heart Attack And Tuberculosis
“A real litmus test about whether or not they’re serious is whether they take on some of the economic interests that are causing our chronic disease epidemic,” says former CDC director Frieden, who is now president and CEO of Resolve to Save Lives.
The Republican Party doesn’t like regulation, and pushing through reforms that go against industry interests will be a problem for Congress.
“Given the desire to cut government, they’re going to want to cut regulations as a huge component. They did under Trump’s first term, they’re going to be more systematic about it even now,” says Popkin.
He says that anyone who is skeptical should look at the positives. One of the best areas for bipartisan reform is the MAHA agenda.
He says Kennedy will insist on accurate science and it is Congress’ job to allocate money. Congress needs to figure out how to fix the broken subsidy systems that led to poisoning the American consumer.
Overhauling dietary guidelines, reforming federal programs that pay for ultra-processed foods, taking on crop subsidies, potentially banning pesticides and chemicals are just some of the priorities Kennedy outlined during the campaign.
The first administration made decisions that were against some MAHA priorities, like approving pesticides and easing nutrition rules for school lunches.
Source: RFK Jr. wants to ‘Make America Healthy Again.’ He could face a lot of pushback
The Ruling Out of the Affordable Care Act: Dr. Mark Hyman, a longtime colleague of Bobby Trump, and his desire to ‘Make America Healthy Again,’
Dr. Randall Stafford is a professor at the school of medicine. I am not sure if those goals are consistent with other goals to deregulate the economy.
The outpouring of attention on lifestyle-related diseases — and the promise to crackdown on industry influence — is a surprising twist that longtime researchers in the field are still trying to square with the broader Trump agenda.
“I think this is a unique opportunity,” says Hyman, who is the founder of the Cleveland Clinic Center for Functional Medicine and co-founder of Function Health. Trump is a kind of guy. Bobby is not interested in small changes.
Dr. Mark Hyman, a bestselling author and longtime friend of Kennedy, says he’s faced “massive” resistance over the years when he’s advocated for many of these reforms on the food supply and nutrition.
He cites the revolving door between industry and government, the fees paid by pharmaceutical companies to the FDA, and experts who sit on advisory panels or carry out government-funded research while receiving industry dollars.
He said that the public health expert class has led to a public health collapse. At worst, we are on the verge of a societal collapse and at best a health crisis with 20% of GDP going to health expenditures. We are getting sicker, fatter, more depressed and infertile for every dollar we spend.
Source: RFK Jr. wants to ‘Make America Healthy Again.’ He could face a lot of pushback
Make America Healthy Again: A Spiritual Connection Between Robust Science and the MAHA Movement of the 1960s and the Post-Trump Era
Means is a former MAHA lobbyist who has become one of the most prominent voices in the organization. He and his sister, Dr. Casey Means, catapulted into the political sphere after publishing a bestseller on metabolic health. Both of them have businesses in the health and wellness industry.
The voters saw that the big ideas were being talked about, despite the media’s efforts to silo the movement into fringe areas. “I think a spiritual connection was hit.”
Kennedy’s influence could reach deep into health care, infectious disease prevention, drug pricing and approvals and more. But his vision for preventing chronic disease is one that he’s been particularly vocal about in the lead up to this appointment.
There are areas in which MAHA and scientists who have long advocated for addressing the root causes of chronic illness overlap.
The scion of the wealthy political family, Kennedy rose to prominence as an anti-vaccine activist. Around 2015, he joined the board of the nonprofit Children’s Health Defense, which alleges that conditions like autism and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder are caused by environmental factors, including harmful agents in vaccines. Kennedy has repeatedly spread misinformation about vaccines and in 2021 was named by the Center for Countering Digital Hate as one of the “disinformation dozen,” spreading misinformation about the Covid-19 pandemic across Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook.
With Robert F. Kennedy Jr. now lined up to lead the Department of Health and Human Services, it appears his Make America Healthy Again movement is poised for real power.
MAHA thinks that big food and pharma use power to maximize profits at the expense of the country’s health.
This message served as an animating force in the final stretch of the election, as Kennedy elevated concerns about ultra-processed foods and poor nutrition, food additives, pesticides and toxic chemicals, and the harms of industrial agriculture, among other issues.
“Bobby Kennedy and Trump have bonded over tying the core of MAGA — which is a distrust of institutions and getting corruption out of institutions — to our health care industries,” says Calley Means, an adviser to Kennedy and the Trump transition team, who spoke with NPR before Kennedy’s nomination.
A Counterexample to “Make America Healthier Again”: President John Kennedy’s Support of the Clinton-Bill Clinton Vaccine Campaign
Professor Barry Popkin at the UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health is in favor of policy changes to tackle diet-related illnesses.
HHS oversees 13 federal agencies—which Kennedy has indicated he would gut—including the National Institutes of Health, the Food and Drug Administration, and the Centers for Disease Control.
Kennedy supported Trump in August, saying the country would be better off if the president were elected and honored his word. He had a slogan that was a close match to Trump’s “Make America Healthier Again”: “prioritizing regeneration agriculture, protecting natural habitats, and eliminating toxins from our food, water, and air.”
Kennedy’s account was deleted from the photo sharing website for spreading vaccine misinformation. His account was restored in 2023, when he announced his run for office.
He has suggested, in contradiction to all reputable scientific research, that Covid-19 may have been “ethnically targeted” to spare Ashkenazi Jews and Chinese people and that HIV does not cause AIDS, and has implied that vaccine mandates are worse than the Holocaust. In a 2012 deposition he said that a worm ate part of his brain and then died.
