Deregulate raw milk. Take fluoride out of water. Challenge vaccine safety. Create a registry of autistic people. US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr, promotes many ideas that much of the scientific community finds concerning.
Unlike other positions held by Kennedy — most notably, unsubstantiated concerns about vaccine safety, fluoride, or the plan to deregulate raw milk — his focus on food safety and nutrition enjoys the support of many physicians and experts. Among the preferred targets of his proposed interventions are food dyes, additives, and ultra-processed foods, which he blames for the dramatic rise in chronic childhood conditions.
Whether health experts agree with the way he’s getting there, however, is a different story.
“[Kennedy] has the right diagnosis but the wrong prescription,” said Robert Lustig, a professor emeritus of pediatrics at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF).
A Welcome Focus on Nutrition
Some credit Kennedy for shining a brighter spotlight on some food and nutrition issues that have long been recognized by experts in the field. Jerold Mande, an adjunct professor of nutrition at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, Boston, and a former federal policy official, said interest in nutrition issues has gone from nearly “nonexistent” to a very high level since Kennedy took over at HHS. At this point in Kennedy’s tenure, he sees an important focus on the priorities he shares.
“It’s extraordinary that MAHA [Make America Healthy Again] is here, that Kennedy is on these food, nutrition, chronic disease issues and has made it a political priority because it hasn’t been,” Mande said, referring to Kennedy’s MAHA plan.
Longtime nutrition advocates see this as an encouraging step toward valuing the role of food in health, an idea that is not always embraced by physicians. “There’s really good evidence that the medical training that we’re giving to doctors includes very little on diet,” said Emily Broad Leib, director of the Center for Health Law and Policy Innovation and the Food Law and Policy Clinic at Harvard Law School, Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Anna Herby, a nutrition education specialist at the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, a nonprofit research and advocacy organization based in Washington, DC, agreed that diet is overlooked in medical training and noted that “it sometimes gets ignored[infavor[infavor