Robert F. Kennedy Jr.© Bloomberg
(Bloomberg) — “Make America Great Again” has long been a signature phrase at Donald Trump’s rally speeches. Its recent offshoot, “Make America Healthy Again” or MAHA, is now spreading on social media as fitness influencers and parents embrace a push by Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to clean up US food production.
Kennedy, who has been promised a role in health and food safety by the incoming Trump administration, has long drawn scorn among public health experts who oppose his recommendations to require vaccines and remove fluoride from drinking water, cornerstone public health strategies. He has also advocated for drinking raw milk, which the US Food and Drug Administration warns can cause serious health risks.
But there’s one area that has brought in new supporters: His vows to “dismantle the corporate stranglehold” on the American food supply, a push to remove dyes, pesticides and other toxins from the industry.
“There are a lot of things about Kennedy’s views about health I’m not very comfortable with – I certainly don’t share his position on vaccination, I don’t share his position on fluoride,” said Marion Nestle, a retired New York University nutrition professor who also writes the Food Politics newsletter. “But he’s absolutely right that chronic disease is a huge problem and conflicts of interest between people in government and food companies are rampant.”
One place Kennedy has promised to start: The artificial dyes used in American kids’ cereals and banned in other parts of the world.
“The first thing I’d do isn’t going to cost you anything because I’m just gonna tell the cereal companies, take all the dyes out of their food,” Kennedy said days before Trump’s presidential election victory. One way to do that is to expand a ban on the dyes that passed in California earlier this year, a measure that has support from a bipartisan group of senators.
Vani Hari, known to her two million Instagram followers as @thefoodbabe, who has long been vocal about the dangers of artificial dyes in foods, now sees momentum to get these issues addressed.
“I am so thrilled that finally, with Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s leadership, someone in Washington will start to hold these companies accountable,” Hari said in an interview.
RFK Jr.’s Path
Kennedy’s leadership of the anti-vaccine movement prompted many experts to raise concerns about his statements, saying they are misleading and dangerous to public health.
But earlier in his career, he was better known for heading Waterkeeper Alliance, which worked to protect New York’s Hudson River and its tributaries from industrial pollution. He was one of the lawyers who won a 2018 lawsuit against Monsanto saying its Roundup weed killer caused cancer. And when he ran for president, agricultural reform was one of his big issues.
When Kennedy suspended his presidential campaign in August, he backed Trump instead and redirected searches of kennedy2024.com to his MAHA site. Fitness guru Jillian Michaels, comedian Nicole Arbour and other influencers jumped on board.
After Kennedy endorsed Trump, it “activated me to be all-in for ‘Team Trump’ and get my audience all-in for him as well,” Arbour said in an interview. Following Trump’s win, she posted “We did it!!!! Trump and MAHA won!”
Alex Clark, host of the Culture Apothecary wellness podcast, said that when she first posted a link on her Instagram account to get people to register to vote for Trump, it had fewer than a hundred clicks. When she posted the same link after Kennedy endorsed Trump, “thousands and thousands of people” clicked it, she said.
“I knew immediately that this was a needle-mover for these voters,” she said in an interview. “They see the food and the environmental toxins and poisons affecting their own personal families.”
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