Woo-woo or common sense? Inside RFK Jr’s plan to Make America Healthy Again

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Robert F Kennedy Jr has promised to Make America Healthy Again. If all goes to plan, he will become President Donald Trump’s health secretary and oversee the world’s biggest public health agency. Kennedy is facing some roadblocks, however. The President’s cabinet nominations must receive majority approval from the Senate, but Republicans and Democrats alike have expressed concern over Kennedy’s history of pushing vaccine conspiracies and flip-flopping on abortion rights. More than 15,000 US doctors signed an open letter opposing his nomination. While the Senate has waved through most of Trump’s cabinet nominees, Kennedy’s hearing has not yet been scheduled.

Kennedy has promised to “ignite a health revolution in America” and, with the 80,000 staffers and $1.7 trillion budget of the Department of Health and Human Services at his disposal, his firepower would be huge. He is difficult to pigeonhole. Until 2023 he was a Democrat, like his uncle John F Kennedy. He then ran as an independent in the 2024 presidential campaign before dropping out and backing Trump. He had a long career as an environmental lawyer but is more notable nowadays as a conspiracy theorist. Many would see the ideas he promotes around health and eating as woo-woo: he backs “alternative and holistic approaches”, rails against vaccines, and wants to increase access to weed and psychedelics. Yet many of his policies seem common sense, from encouraging sustainable, organic farming to fighting corporate greed.

As health secretary, Kennedy would oversee 11 smaller agencies. One of his main interests is in reforming the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), which is responsible for regulating medication and ensuring food safety. Just before the election, Kennedy wrote on X that “FDA’s war on public health is about to end”. He believes its ties to the pharmaceutical industry are too close, prompting the “aggressive suppression” of some of his wellness hacks, including psychedelics, peptides, raw milk and hyperbaric therapies.

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Scientific studies have found a link between excessive consumption of ultra-processed food and an increased risk of obesity and chronic disease. Two of Kennedy’s pet hates are staple ingredients in processed foods: high fructose corn syrup, a cheaper alternative to cane sugar, and seed oils such as sunflower and rapeseed oil, which he has claimed Americans are being “unknowingly poisoned” by. Kennedy prefers animal fats. On Thanksgiving he posted a video where he deep fried a turkey in a vat of bubbling beef tallow. “This is how we cook the MAHA (Make America Healthy Again) way,” he said. He believes seed oils increase inflammation, which can cause health issues from diabetes to colon cancer. However, the latest research suggests there is no issue with them.

One of MAHA’s policies is to promote regenerative agriculture, which includes improving soil health and reducing chemical usage. While Trump has had an adversarial relationship with the EU, Kennedy wants to take a leaf out of its book. “As of 2019, the US allowed 72 pesticides that the European Union bans. We also allow chemicals in food and skincare that the bloc doesn’t,” he wrote in an article for the Wall Street Journal article last September, where he promised to reassess US policy.

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