Login
Public Health Needs MAHA
Since Robert F. Kennedy Jr. took office, more than a year ago, I’ve been trying to understand the MAHA movement from the inside. I’ve sat in on MAHA Institute roundtables, roamed the conference halls of anti-vaccine gatherings, and talked with grassroots supporters across the country.
They tell me their concerns about toxic chemicals and ultra-processed foods and the worrying rise in childhood chronic conditions. But when I share what I’m hearing with my colleagues in medicine and public health, many chide that engaging with MAHA is completely pointless. For them, the whole movement is nothing more than a subversive anti-vaccine, anti-science syndicate.
That assumption is wrong. MAHA is an opportunity, and one the public-health sector — academics, doctors, and leaders of advocacy groups—cannot afford to squander. Yes, MAHA’s anti-vax wing is very loud and litigious. But for many in the MAHA movement, their top issues lie elsewhere: environmental pollutants, the cost of health care, and a bone-deep conviction that health institutions have been captured by the industries they’re supposed to regulate.
These are not fringe, unscientific concerns. They are concerns that millions of Americans have been angry about for decades, long before the MAHA label even existed. And they are concerns that many in public health share — if only they could see beyond that label, and make common cause.
Vaccine Court: Where Americans Who Suffer Rare Injury After Vaccination Can Take Their Claims
If you’ve never before heard of the national vaccine court, you’re hardly alone. As we first reported in October, it sits inconspicuously, a few hundred yards from the White House; and stands as a model of effective public policy, balancing the societal good of widespread vaccination with rare individual harm. Founded in the 1980s, the court has, with little fanfare, paid out billions of dollars to Americans who have claimed injury after getting a vaccine.
Today, with vaccine skepticism rising and given voice in the highest ranks of government, we wondered: can this singular court block out the noise, withstand the political winds, and stay true to its mission? Jacob Thompson is 13 years old. He loves airplanes, swimming and Chick-fil-A. But Jacob can speak only a handful of words and needs help walking more than a few yards.
Jacob was born in St. Louis on New Year’s Eve, 2011, rounding out a family of four, with sister Meili and parents John and Huali — he, a pilot for FedEx; she, a recent immigrant from China. John Thompson: We had this perfectly normal, happy little baby. He would be able to jump up and down on my wife’s lap, and very alert, recognized who mom and dad was. At his six-month checkup, Jacob received a combination shot that included the recommended childhood vaccinations against diphtheria, tetanus and pertussis, or DTaP, all deemed safe and effective in clinical trials.
Trump Administration Cracks Down on School Districts Secretly ‘Transitioning’ Students and Hiding It From Parents
U.S. Department of Education reported:
Today, the U.S. Department of Education (ED) took significant action against Anne Arundel County Public Schools in Maryland and Ann Arbor Public Schools in Michigan for hiding sensitive information about children’s health and wellbeing from their own parents, in violation of parental rights protected by the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA).
ED’s Student Privacy Policy Office (SPPO) is partnering with the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) to take enforcement action against Anne Arundel County after determining the District improperly classifies information about a student’s so-called “gender identity” as “confidential medical information” that cannot be shared with parents. SPPO received complaints from parents in Anne Arundel County who discovered that the school was secretly helping their daughter pretend to be male at school after the parents received an email that referred to their daughter by male pronouns.
When the parents approached school administrators about the matter, the principal declined to provide details about the student’s “gender transition,” and the assistant principal refused to turn over the child’s relevant records. These policies and practices unlawfully impeded the parents’ ability to exercise their FERPA rights when it mattered most.
As Some Medical Schools Embrace RFK Jr.’s Nutrition Push, They Deftly Sidestep MAHA Priorities
When students return to McGovern Medical School at UT Health Houston this year, they will get to participate in hands-on nutrition experiences, including cooking demonstrations in the teaching kitchen, tours of the campus “holistic garden,” and the opportunity to take a culinary-medicine-focused elective.
These immersive programs are a response to health secretary Robert F. Kennedy’s call for medical schools to teach more nutrition — part of the Trump administration’s push to address the rising rates of chronic diseases in the United States. Kennedy has blamed the problem, in part, on doctors not routinely discussing diet and nutrition with their patients.
Lessons in culinary medicine are part of the 71 nutrition-related topics that the Department of Health and Human Services wants future physicians to be well versed in. Other topics in the department’s Advancing Nutrition Education push include enhancing nutrient bioavailability through soaking, sprouting, and fermenting foods as well as prioritizing food-based medicine as the primary approach to manage chronic diseases driven by metabolic dysfunction.
The vast majority of 163 M.D.-granting and 48 D.O.-granting schools aren’t yet part of Kennedy’s new initiative, including several leading institutions. So far, some 73 medical schools — 54 M.D. programs, 19 D.O. programs — across 36 states have signed on.
U.S. Military Bases Delay Cleanup of Toxic ‘Forever Chemicals’
It’s been almost five years since Brandi and Brad Hyatt found out the well at their home next to an Army base in Washington is contaminated with “forever chemicals.” They started using bottled water for everything from making coffee to rinsing off toothbrushes.
The couple even carted their two small children across town to bathe at a gym so they couldn’t accidentally swallow contaminated bathwater. The Army installed a filter last year, but the well remains contaminated. The kids will be long grown by the time the military provides a permanent fix, now delayed until after 2042.
Hundreds of military bases have been putting off cleanup of toxic PFAS, or perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances, for years, according to a new USA TODAY analysis of military records. The latest round of delays, which the Pentagon posted in an obscure corner of its website in May, has pushed some deadlines out decades, or removed them altogether.
As Trump Boosts Nuclear Power, Regulators Seek to Eliminate a Longstanding Radiation Safety Practice
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is proposing to eliminate a foundational safety principle that has for 50 years minimized the radiation people in the United States are exposed to and that has been adopted around the world.
Currently, facilities such as nuclear plants, hospitals or academic institutions that use radioactive materials must ensure radiation exposures are kept “as low as reasonably achievable” — the ALARA principle. The NRC proposal would abandon that philosophy while keeping a separate standard on maximum radiation exposure.
The two standards have worked together in radiation safety. Dose limits set the maximum amount of radiation the public and radiation workers can be exposed to, while ALARA kept radiation exposure as low as practical under those limits. Research shows radiation exposure increases a person’s chance of getting cancer, a risk that increases as the dose increases.
