Health groups prepare to work with RFK Jr.
WASHINGTON (AP) — When President Donald Trump tapped Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to become the nation’s top health official, his administration inherited a sprawling list of ideas to “Make America Healthy Again,” from banning TV drug advertisements to dropping restrictions on raw milk.
WASHINGTON (AP) — When President Donald Trump tapped Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to become the nation’s top health official, his administration inherited a sprawling list of ideas to “Make America Healthy Again,” from banning TV drug advertisements to dropping restrictions on raw milk.
While those unorthodox proposals — and Kennedy’s discredited views on vaccines — have dominated recent headlines, a slate of more familiar ideas have attracted interest on Capitol Hill and across the U.S.: making school lunches healthier, banning certain food additives and cracking down on ultraprocessed foods linked to obesity and diabetes.
For decades, public health groups have called for similar steps, lobbying federal leaders and mounting public campaigns about the risks of American diets loaded with salt, sugar and fat.
As Kennedy faces Senate confirmation hearings Wednesday and Thursday, health advocates find themselves in an uncomfortable position: voicing cautious support for some of Kennedy’s ideas while warning of the catastrophic consequences of others.
“If there’s an opportunity to advance the public health, you have to seize it,” said Dr. Peter Lurie, a former FDA official who now leads the nonprofit Center for Science in the Public Interest. “So you can’t ignore the guy on everything because you oppose him on some things.”
Like many experts, Lurie says Kennedy’s record on vaccines should disqualify him from becoming health secretary. And he’s deeply skeptical Kennedy can deliver on his ideas for food and nutrition.
Kennedy’s confirmation is far from certain in the Senate, where he is expected to face pointed questioning from both Republicans and Democrats on the chamber’s health and finance committees. Kennedy has been downplaying his long history in the anti-vaccine movement, but experts say that’s where lawmakers should focus.
“The elephant in the room is vaccine policy,” said Dr. Tom Frieden, former director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention under Barack Obama. “In medicine we say: ‘Above all, do no harm.’ I’m certainly not convinced that RFK Jr. wouldn’t do a lot of harm to our vaccine policy and to our kids.”
Still, such worries haven’t stopped some Democrats from finding shared interests.
Former Ohio congressman Tim Ryan penned an op-ed last month titled: “Hey Democrats: We should work with RFK Jr. on fixing America’s food system.”
Sen. Cory Booker, a vegan, told reporters that he and Kennedy are “talking out of the same playbook” when it comes to food reforms.
Booker’s office did not respond to a request for comment.
Trump and Kennedy are an unlikely alliance Trump’s unlikely alliance with Kennedy, a lifelong Democrat until 2023, reflects a diverse segment of Americans who increasingly worry about chemicals in their food and water and distrust medical experts, government officials, and big food and drugmakers.
Supporters of Kennedy’s longshot presidential campaign included California parents concerned about food dyes in cereal and Midwestern factory workers resentful of COVID-19 vaccine mandates.
But the clash between Trump’s antiregulatory approach and Kennedy’s anticorporate stance has many observers skeptical that much of the so-called MAHA agenda will ever happen.
Requiring healthier foods in school lunches, for example, has long been opposed by food and agriculture companies that overwhelmingly backed Trump in the last election, donating to his campaign by a nearly 4-to-1 margin over Kamala Harris, according to records compiled by Opensecrets.org.
During Trump’s first term, political appointees weakened school nutrition guidelines introduced as part of Michelle Obama’s “Let’s Move” campaign. The rules required schools to offer more fruit and vegetable options.
Making major changes to the federal program involves coordination between the Agriculture Department, the Department of Health and Human Services and dozens of state educational programs.
“They don’t have the policy coherence to make that happen,” said Dr. Georges Benjamin of the American Public Health Association. “People have been talking about improving the quality of school lunches for many years, but it takes a lot of money and collaboration to do it at a national level.”
Even seemingly smaller goals like banning potentially harmful food additives would require new regulations and staffers at FDA — which Kennedy has vowed to “clear out.”
U.S. foods contain hundreds of ingredients that aren’t permitted in Europe because American companies aren’t required to seek FDA approval before introducing them. Companies can self-certify that new colors or chemicals are “generally recognized as safe.”
