AYESHA RASCOE, HOST:
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Donald Trump joined forces just over two years ago, promising to make America healthy again, or MAHA. They had a grand agenda - bring down the rates of chronic disease, reform the food system, clean up harmful chemicals. To see how they've delivered on this agenda, NPR health correspondent Will Stone joins us now. Good morning, Will.
WILL STONE, BYLINE: Hey, Ayesha. Good to be here.
RASCOE: How do folks who support the MAHA platform feel about the last two years? Can you run us through some of their promises?
STONE: Yeah. It's mixed. One obvious victory were the new dietary guidelines. These were a real departure from the previous ones, and they reflect the MAHA philosophy - encouraging people to eat more saturated fat, though they didn't actually change the limits, and to avoid processed foods. They did raise the daily goals for protein. But when you look at how this administration has handled other issues around food and, more broadly, our water, our air, which all gets bundled under concerns around toxic chemicals, some say the track record is not great if you grade them by their own MAHA rubric.
RASCOE: Well, what happened?
STONE: Yeah. Well, here's what I heard from Kelly Ryerson. She's a MAHA activist, mostly focused on pesticides, and runs a nonprofit called American Regeneration.
KELLY RYERSON: I cannot think of a single good thing that the EPA has done during this administration. Instead, they've rolled back protections - drinking water from forever chemicals. They've approved pesticides that have no business being approved.
RASCOE: It sounds like they've really upset some people.
STONE: You bet. And you can hear Ryerson is focusing on the EPA - the Environmental Protection Agency - because that agency shapes a lot of this policy. And what's striking is that some of the chemicals identified in the Trump administration's own MAHA report as possibly harmful for children's health are the same ones EPA has moved to weaken protections around.
RASCOE: What chemicals are we talking about here?
STONE: So a big example here is the pesticide glyphosate, the main ingredient in the weed killer Roundup. Now, in this case, many in this movement have wanted to see meaningful action on glyphosate because of cancer concerns. Instead, the Trump administration backed the company that makes Roundup in a high-profile Supreme Court case, which the company ultimately won. And Trump signed an executive order encouraging domestic production of the pesticide, and that's disenchanted a lot of MAHA supporters.
RASCOE: The goal of changing our food supply and reducing chemicals was to help reduce chronic diseases. Is that what they're hoping for?
STONE: Yeah. Actually, Kennedy came on NPR in November, right after the 2024 election. And he said Trump expected measurable progress in reducing chronic diseases in two years. So I called up an expert on this, Barry Popkin. He's a professor of nutrition at the University of North Carolina Gillings School of Public Health. He said he doesn't see any evidence that this has happened. Here's his assessment of how they've done.
BARRY POPKIN: They've raised a lot of important issues - pesticides, about ultra-processed foods. They've also done a number of things which are terribly dangerous. They've really unleashed a group of people in this country that will not get vaccinated. We've seen major measles outbreaks.
STONE: Popkin also pointed to some of the large foodborne illness outbreaks that have affected thousands of Americans in the last year or two.
RASCOE: Well, what's MAHA hoping for next?
STONE: Well, there's real tension here around who speaks for this movement beyond Kennedy. For example, there was recently a high-profile MAHA summit in D.C., and it was stacked with figures from corporate America. Kelly Ryerson told me she was mortified.
RYERSON: I don't even recognize this iteration of MAHA. It was so confusing to see all these corporate interests when, very specifically, the grassrooters want out of the MAHA movement - is to get corporations out of the way.
STONE: And she says the MAHA brand may need to evolve in 2027 depending on how things shake out in the midterms.
RASCOE: That's NPR health correspondent Will Stone. Thank you so much.
STONE: Thank you. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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