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And RFK Jr. named HHS secretary, he may have an opportunity to push forward the agenda of his ‘Make American Healthy Again’ movement.
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Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images
With Robert F. Kennedy Jr. now in line to head the Department of Health and Human Services, it looks like his Make America Healthy Again movement is on the verge of real power.
Its core mandate: Reversing the chronic disease epidemic, which is the leading cause of death in the US and drives enormous health care costs.
MAHA has its sights set on big food and big pharma, arguing that these industries use lobbying 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 raised concerns about ultra-processed foods and poor nutrition, food additives, pesticides and toxic chemicals, and the harms of industrial agriculture, among other issues.
He put together an unlikely coalition — some from the left and some MAGA supporters — eager to take on the establishment.
“Bobby Kennedy and Trump have connected over the core of MAGA – which is distrust of institutions and removing corruption from institutions – with our health care industries,” says Calley Means, an adviser to Kennedy and the Trump transition team, who speak. with NPR before the Kennedy nomination.
The rise of MAHA is a devastating moment for scientists who have long pushed for more attention to lifestyle diseases – and who agree that reforms are urgently needed. At the same time, they are deeply concerned about Kennedy’s history of questioning scientific consensus about vaccines and his opposition to mainstream medicine more broadly.
Barry Popkin, professor of nutrition at the UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health, says he would welcome substantive policy changes that address diet-related illnesses such as obesity and diabetes.
“If it comes, they will have plenty of support,” he says. “But I don’t see that – I fear the worst.”
Kennedy’s baseless claims included that Wi-Fi causes cancer and a “leaky brain”; that school shootings are attributable to anti-depressants; that chemicals in children’s water can be transgenic; and that HIV cannot lead to AIDS. He has also long argued that vaccines cause autism and fail to protect people from disease.
Popkin fears that if Kennedy is confirmed as head of HHS, “thousands of children could die from measles and many other infectious diseases that children have been vaccinated against for years.” (Kennedy recently told NPR that he won’t take vaccines from anyone.”)
And yet it cannot be denied that there are areas of substantial overlap between MAHA’s goals and those of scientists who have long advocated addressing the root causes of chronic illness.
“There are some things that RFK Jr. gets right,” says former CDC director Dr. Tom Frieden. “We have a chronic disease crisis in this country, but we need to avoid simple solutions and stick to the science.”
Public health researchers note that what Kennedy is trying to do — even wielding the power of a major federal agency — is a tall order. And many question how realistic or actionable the mission will be in a Republican-controlled, regulation-friendly federal government.
An ambitious to-do list
If appointed, Kennedy would have broad influence on health policy—from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to the Food and Drug Administration. And he has promised seismic changes, from day one, including letting go of hundreds of staff and scientists.
Kennedy’s influence could have profound effects on health care, infectious disease prevention, drug pricing and approvals, and more. But his vision for the prevention of chronic diseases is one he had a particular voice about before this appointment.
And the MAHA’s to-do list is ambitious, to say the least.
Overhauling nutritional guidelines, reforming federal programs that pay for ultra-processed foods, taking crop subsidies, banning pesticides and chemicals are just some of the priorities Kennedy set out during the campaign.
“Despite the media’s attempt to put this movement in fringe areas like vaccines or fluoride or things like that, the voters clearly saw that big ideas were being talked about,” says Means. “I think a spiritual connection was struck.”
Means – himself a former lobbyist for the food and drug industry – has emerged as one of the most progressive voices in the MAHA orbit. He and his sister, Dr. Casey Means, entered the political arena after publishing a bestseller on metabolic health. Both have business ventures in the health and wellness industry.
Resources helped create a political alliance between Trump and Kennedy.
“The public health expert class has given us a public health failure,” he says. “We are on the verge of, at best, a health crisis and, at worst, a societal collapse with 20% of GDP going to health spending . [We’re] getting sicker, fatter, more depressed, more infertile for every dollar we spend.”
Means says eliminating conflicts of interest is key to their plan.
He cites the revolving door between industry and government, the fees pharmaceutical companies pay to the FDA, and experts who sit on advisory panels or conduct government-funded research while receiving industry dollars.
Dr. Mark Hyman, a prominent author and long-time friend of Kennedy, says he is against “enormous” odds over the years in advocating many of these reforms to the food supply and nutrition.
“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 Functional Health. “Because Trump is a burned-out man. Bobby is not looking for incremental change.”
Political contradictions
The outpouring of attention on lifestyle-related diseases — and the promise of a crackdown on industry influence — is surprising enough that longtime researchers in the field are still trying to align themselves with Trump’s broader agenda.
“I’m definitely excited about this idea of addressing the root causes of chronic disease,” says Dr. Randall Stafford, a professor at the Stanford School of Medicine. “But I’m not sure those goals are consistent with other goals to deregulate the economy.”
He worries that “anything that contradicts other Trump policies would be discarded.”
The first Trump administration upset industry insiders and made decisions that violate some of MAHA’s priorities, such as allowing dangerous pesticide products and loosening nutrition rules for school lunches.
Now Kennedy wants to do more to rein in food and medicines. He wants to put restrictions on many food additives and dyes. He wants to reduce the dominance of ultra-processed foods; he called for reform of the SNAP food assistance program — formerly known as food stamps.
And it calls for an end to direct-to-consumer advertising for prescription drugs.
“The real litmus test is whether or not they’re serious about whether they accept 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.
Popkin says the Republican Party doesn’t like regulation — and if you push through reforms that go against the industry’s interests, Congress will have a lot to overcome.
“Because of the desire to cut the government, they will want to cut regulations as a huge component. They did under Trump’s first term, they will be more systematic about it even now,” says Popkin.
Calley Means pushes back, insisting that MAHA’s approach is not “overregulation,” but getting rid of the system of corporate influence.
“I would say to anyone who is skeptical about this, look at the positives here,” he says. “This MAHA agenda is one of the golden areas for true bipartisan reform.”
He says Kennedy’s approach will be to insist on what he calls an “exact science” and says that “the job of Congress is to allocate money. The job of Congress is to figure out how to break the subsidy systems This poisoning came to fix the American consumer.”
Edited by Jane Greenhalgh and Carmel Wroth.
