Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s “Make America Healthy Again” Program Draws Wellness Influencers to MAGA – Mother Jones

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. speaks at Trump’s Madison Square Garden rally.Mother Jones illustration; Michael M.Santiago/Getty

“Don’t you? You want a president who will make America healthy again?” Robert F. Kennedy Jr. asked the roaring crowd during Sunday’s victory. rally We support Trump at Madison Square Garden.

When Kennedy, the nation’s most famous anti-vaccine activist, suspended his campaign to support Donald Trump, it represented not only the death of his presidential dreams but also the birth of something new: the so-called “Make America Healthy Again” It’s a steady movement of slogans designed to highlight where Trump and Kennedy’s agendas overlap.

The concept aims to persuade skeptical Kennedy supporters to support Trump. But so far it has mainly shown how Kennedy participated in Trump’s agenda of radical deregulation, which would defund agencies responsible for overseeing food, environmental and pharmaceutical safety.

After all, the former president had done this before: Trump took office promised to make big cuts to scientific and medical research. Under his administration, the FDA took fewer enforcement actions Fines and cuts to public health agencies against companies suspected of marketing dangerous, unsafe or ineffective products may have harmed the country’s preparedness To respond to COVID.

There are signs that another Trump administration would be even worse for public health: Project 2025An agenda prepared by his allies for his second administration called for the disbanding of the CDC, calling it “”perhaps the most incompetent and arrogant institution of the federal government.He also demonizes the National Institutes of Health, claiming that the agency has an “incestuous relationship” with vaccine manufacturers and is plagued by “woke gender ideology.”

Trump, despite his record as a manager Adopted some of MAHA’s talking pointsHe promised to end America’s “chronic disease epidemic,” which he, like Kennedy, had done before. partly blamed on vaccines. Trump, who has already named Kennedy to his presidential transition team, also promised to put her on a panel to examine what he called “the decades-long increase in chronic health problems, including autoimmune disorders, autism, obesity, infertility and many more.” .”

The main overlap between Trump and Kennedy (and the driving force behind the MAHA movement) is their shared belief that agencies responsible for ensuring food and drug safety should be defunded, their employees investigated, and possibly imprisoned.

Kennedy on Monday said A group of MAHA supporters for whom Trump “promised me control of public health agencies,” including HHS, CDC, FDA, NIH, USDA, and several others. Kennedy recently tweeted Under a new Trump administration, the FDA’s “war on public health is coming to an end,” he said, before listing a litany of pseudoscientific practices and products: “This includes aggressive suppression of psychedelics, peptides, stem cells, raw milk, hyperbaric therapies, etc. “contains, chelating compounds, ivermectin, hydroxychloroquine, vitamins, clean foods, sunlight, exercise, nutraceuticals, and anything else that improves human health and cannot be patented by Pharma.” “If you work for the FDA and are part of this corrupt system, I have two messages for you: 1. Protect your records and 2. Pack your bags.”

in that Madison Square Garden rallyKennedy accused Democrats of “giving us the sickest children in the world” and called the chronic disease crisis “existential for our country” and said he was focused on “ending corruption” at agencies like the NIH, CDC, and CDC. The FDA lumped itself in with the CIA as being in dire need of top-to-bottom reform.

According to researcher and author Matthew Remski, Kennedy’s recent appearances have shown him to downplay attacks on vaccines and instead focus on a much broader set of purported health-related problems.

“This is probably the most successful rebranding he has overseen since his anti-vax turn in 2005,” says Remski, who co-hosts the show. SpiritA podcast examining the harmony between the New Age and right-wing spheres. “MAHA represents its institutional capacity to bring together all anti-vaccine issues, concerns and complaints under one umbrella.”

And it can be profitable. The brand gave rise to the MAHA Alliance, a new conservative super PAC led by Del Bigtree, an anti-vaccine personality and Kennedy’s former campaign communications director. big tree says the group has already raised nearly $8 million Including Elon Musk’s recent $3 million donation.

Kennedy’s new His role in GOP politics opened doors for him and those around him; including some with a track record of promoting harmful or scientifically unsupported health claims. In September, Kennedy and a number of his close allies and MAHA supporters attended a Capitol Hill event on nutrition Hosted by longtime Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wisc.) friend of the anti-vaccine movement. In his opening speech, billed as a “nonpartisan panel discussion about industries that impact national health,” Kennedy accused the FDA, USDA, and CDC of being “sock puppets for the industry they are supposed to regulate.”

Other panelists include Calley Means, a self-styled “health care reform” advocate who was on Kennedy’s campaign, and men’s rights activist and pop psychologist Jordan Peterson (as well as his daughter Mikhaila, who supports an all-meat regimen that he calls “the best meat”). It was located. Lion Diet”) and healthy living phenomenon Vani Hari, who goes by the nickname Food Babe, has previously accused of making unscientific claims Seeking to pressure food manufacturers to abandon certain ingredients.

During the panel talk, Hari launched a new campaign against Kellogg’s cereals’ use of food coloring as part of a larger agenda against foods containing “synthetic preservatives and pesticides.” Science showing the danger of synthetic food dyes used by Kellogg in the US far from settled; According to a 2014 NPR profile, Hari’s previous campaign against supposedly questionable beer additives actually targeted products derived from algae and fish.

Fighting misinformation about health, immunologist and microbiologist Dr. Andrea Love said: Mother Jones the panel gave participants like Hari a “huge megaphone.” Love pointed out that some of the Kellogg’s ingredients that Hari claimed were legally “banned” in other countries. appears there under different names. When Love later criticized a video gamer, Eva Mendes praised Hari’s campaign and called Kellogg’s dyes “harmful for childrenCalley Means falsely accused Love. “Advertising for Monsanto.” Peterson called him a “liar” as well as “incompetent, deceitful, resentful and arrogant.”

Australian registered dietitian and nutritionist Danielle Shine, who also came under fire from Means and Peterson after commenting on Mendes’ video, says Kennedy is a poor figure for an allegedly health-focused movement given his “distorted views.”

“It is puzzling that someone who appears to lack an understanding of basic science and promotes misinformation about vaccines, food and health is in a position to lead a public health initiative,” he says. “His rhetoric repeatedly reveals a fundamental misunderstanding of the science of food and nutrition.”

Kennedy demonizes public health agencies while spotlighting influencers Love argues that Americans making false claims about science and health show that the efforts of the so-called Make America Healthy Again circle are completely misguided.

“They are moving towards an ecosystem where there is less protection, security, oversight and regulation,” he says. “They’re not talking about important things like getting more Americans insured… They’re saying they’re going to take over a company like Kellogg’s, an organization that has no impact on health outcomes, and at the same time try to take away all the power. , oversight, and funding from the federal agencies that do it.”

“How,” he adds, with a degree of disbelief, “can you claim that this will make people healthy?”