Food safety, the childhood chronic disease epidemic and vaccine safety were among the topics discussed during a meeting Tuesday of the “Make America Healthy Again” (MAHA) Commission with health freedom influencers and activists.
The meeting directly followed the MAHA Commission’s first meeting since President Donald Trump established the commission via a Feb. 13 executive order.
Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., appointed by Trump to lead the commission, attended both meetings. Other Trump administration and cabinet members also attended, including Education Secretary Linda McMahon, Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt and Counselor to the President Alina Habba.
What @SecKennedy has done this week:
✅Held such a forceful meeting with food companies that their lobbyist group sent a warning to the industry that the admin is moving with or without them.
✅Directed the FDA to ABOLISH GRAS standards, which has enabled the industry to put… pic.twitter.com/cGtZvneen7
— Calley Means (@calleymeans) March 12, 2025
The commission’s members include leaders and representatives of several federal agencies, including the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA).
Kendall Mackintosh, a board-certified nutrition specialist and member of the “MAHA Moms” movement, attended the meeting with health freedom influencers. She described it as an “opportunity for MAHA Moms to come together and listen to an update of the first 50 days” of the commission.
Mackintosh said Kennedy “really opened it up to us, saying that he really wanted it to be an interactive meeting and he wanted to hear from people.”
Great day yesterday at The White House for the first MAHA Commission roundtable with MAHA Moms 💚 @CitizensMAHA @MAHAalliance @RFKJr_Official @SecKennedy #MAHA pic.twitter.com/ctLO6oLBQB
— Kendall Mackintosh, MS, CNS, LDN, INHC (@healthy_kendall) March 12, 2025
Big Food ‘afraid’ of MAHA Moms and state-level activism
Food safety topped the list of topics discussed with health freedom influencers and activists, with Kennedy discussing takeaways from his Monday meeting with Big Food representatives, Mackintosh said.
“Kennedy said that, actually, the Big Food companies are more afraid of the MAHA Moms than they are of him,” Mackintosh said. “At a state level, they’re very intimidated by the amount of MAHA Moms that have really just led this movement.”
Kennedy’s remarks came as a growing number of U.S. states are considering laws to ban artificial food dyes. On Monday, Kennedy directed the FDA to work on eliminating its “generally regarded as safe” (GRAS) loophole that allows the use of food ingredients based on food companies’ claims that the ingredients are safe.
Kennedy said he is working with Rollins to introduce a new and “more rational” set of dietary guidelines, “that basically say eat whole foods and don’t eat processed foods and get them locally and leave people to use common sense.”
A USDA press release issued Tuesday stated that the new guidelines are set to be finalized by Dec. 31. The press release quoted Kennedy, who said, “We are going to make sure the dietary guidelines will reflect the public interest and serve public health, rather than special interests.”
“We will make certain the 2025-2030 Guidelines are based on sound science, not political science,” Rollins said in the press release.
During Tuesday’s meeting with health freedom influencers and activists, Kennedy said MAHA will focus on the safety of products such as baby formula.
“One of the first priorities is to make good, healthy formula available to American children,” Kennedy said, noting that many baby formulas sold in the U.S. contain potentially harmful seed oils. “We’re looking at ways to make European formulas available to American children.”
He added:
“One of the problems … is that the nutrition standards for baby formula from the FDA had required the seed oils. The seed oils contain Omega-6s, too many Omega-6s, and the way they’re pasteurized and homogenized … is in a form that we think may be problematic too.”
In an appearance on Fox News’ “Hannity” Tuesday, Kennedy said, “Seed oil is one of the components of processed foods. All the science indicates that ultraprocessed foods are … the principal culprit, and it’s an extraordinary explosion — the epidemic we have of chronic disease.”
In a March 7 letter to Kennedy, Rollins, EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin and over 300 food companies urged these officials to “use sound science” and expressed “significant concerns” that the MAHA commission has placed modern agricultural tools like pesticides and biotechnology under fire.
The EPA and several U.S. states are advancing proposals that would block states from requiring warning labels on pesticides, herbicides and other commonly used agricultural products and grant agrochemical companies immunity from liability for harms caused by any EPA-licensed products they use.
Social media addiction fueling sedentary lifestyle, chronic disease epidemic
The commission’s meeting with health freedom influencers and activists also included a discussion of addiction to technology and a sedentary lifestyle.
“I think all of us are recognizing that social media … algorithms are designed to be addictive, particularly for children, and that we’re raising a generation of children that is not only being poisoned by their food and rendered diabetic and obese, but also has this temptation of never getting any physical activity,” Kennedy said.
“I have a 9, 11 and a 17-year-old,” Habba said. “Anybody who has kids in that age range knows our biggest challenge sometimes is not necessarily food. While that is a challenge, so is social media, internet, gaming and sedentary activities.”
Kennedy also addressed the potential harms of electromagnetic radiation on children’s health.
“We allow levels of electromagnetic radiation in our devices, in our homes, in our schools that are illegal in many countries, and a lot of countries now are limiting the amount of exposure that children could get — forbidding cell phones, for example, in schools,” Kennedy said.
Kennedy also announced that the Trump administration will renew the President’s Council on Sports, Fitness & Nutrition, which is currently set to expire on Sept. 30.
Study on possible vaccines-autism link ‘well overdue’
Vaccine safety was also a topic of discussion at Tuesday’s meeting — on the heels of the CDC’s announcement last week that it will proceed with a study of the possible link between vaccines and autism — a study that Leavitt said “is well overdue.”
“The American people are demanding it, and we want to lean in on that messaging and own it. We are unafraid here at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue,” Leavitt said.
Kennedy said such studies are part of his policy of “radical transparency.” “We’re going to do radical transparency. We’re going to do informed choice. We’re going to respect mothers. We’re going to respect Americans,” Kennedy said.
Kennedy said Trump “wants to return to evidence-based medicine instead of propaganda and gaslighting and lying and bullying. That’s what we’ve seen from the medical establishment in the past, and that regime is now over,” Kennedy said.
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Dr. Dorothy Fink, director of the HHS Office on Women’s Health, said such changes will include a review of standards of care and “the medical training system.”
“The indoctrination matrix that we all went through does not teach physicians to identify the root causes of illness or address them or even discuss them,” Fink said. “The statistics have been going in the wrong direction for my entire life, for four decades … and it won’t stop if we don’t change the incentive structures. It won’t stop if there isn’t a cultural movement like the one that you were all a part of.”
Kennedy credited groups like the “MAHA Moms” for advancing the MAHA agenda.
“I want to thank the audience, all the MAHA Moms … who showed up today,” Kennedy said. “I’m here because of you. President Trump is in the White House because of you. We need you out there winning these battles state by state.”
Mackintosh said Kennedy told attendees the commission plans to soon organize roundtable discussions across the U.S. to speak directly with the public.
“I thought that was really incredible, to take this mission on the road and have these roundtables and really get to know the moms,” Mackintosh said.
According to Trump’s executive order, the commission is required to complete an initial assessment of the factors potentially contributing to the chronic disease epidemic within 100 days and develop a national Make Our Children Healthy Again Strategy within 180 days.
Related articles in The Defender- ‘We Will Do That Right Away’: RFK Jr. Promises Better Vaccine Injury Tracking, as White House Launches MAHA Commission
- Kennedy Takes Aim at FDA Loophole That Allows Unsafe Ingredients in Food
- At Least a Dozen States Pushing Laws to Ban Food Dyes
- Industry-friendly Laws Could Mean More Chemicals in Food Production — and Trouble for the MAHA Agenda
- CDC Will Study Possible Link Between Vaccines and Autism, Pledges to ‘Leave No Stone Unturned’
- ‘True Corruption’: Agency Capture Responsible for Chronic Disease Epidemic in U.S.
