In August 2024, Robert F.
Kennedy Jr. publicly endorsed President Donald Trump, citing the opportunity to contribute to the "Make America Healthy Again" (MAHA) initiative in a potential future Trump administration.
Kennedy, in his endorsement speech, asked, "Don't you want healthy children? And don't you want the chemicals out of our food? And don't you want the regulatory agencies to be free from corporate corruption? And that's what President Trump told me that he wanted."
As reported by The Blaze, since his controversial confirmation as Trump's Health and Human Services secretary in February, Kennedy has been diligently working to fulfill the promise of MAHA. His tenure at the HHS has seen numerous health-related victories, with three particular achievements standing out.
The first significant action was the dismissal of all 17 members of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) in June. The ACIP is a federal panel whose vaccine recommendations become official policy at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and apply to the entire American population once adopted by the agency's director. Kennedy's primary concern was not the panelists' political affiliations but their close ties with some of the organizations they were supposed to scrutinize.
For instance, Edwin Jose Asturias, one of the ACIP members dismissed by Kennedy, reportedly received around $54,000 from pharmaceutical companies, including $20,705 in what appear to be consulting fees, according to data provided on OpenPaymentData.CMS.gov. Asturias also allegedly received millions in research support from Big Pharma, including over $3.1 million from Pfizer and over $730,000 from the British pharmaceutical company GlaxoSmithKline LLC. Kennedy noted that "most of ACIP's members have received substantial funding from pharmaceutical companies, including those marketing vaccines."
Kennedy's new appointees to the panel are "highly credentialed physicians and scientists who will make extremely consequential public health determinations by applying evidence-based decision-making with objectivity and common sense" and had "each committed to demanding definitive safety and efficacy data before making any new vaccine recommendations."
The second significant achievement of the HHS under Kennedy's leadership was the implementation of President Donald Trump's Executive Order 14168, which effectively dismantled gender ideology. The department released guidance that sex is an immutable biological classification and that there are only two sexes, male and female. This standard has been applied to civil rights enforcement, health care policy, and sports eligibility. The HHS also launched federal civil rights investigations into states that violated Title IX by allowing men in women's sports and terminated funding for related programs and activities.
The third major accomplishment was the HHS's plan, outlined in April, to phase out all petroleum-based synthetic dyes from America's food supply. Vani Hari, a critic of the food industry who founded Food Babe, told The Blaze in November that these artificial colors, which are attractive to children and boost sales, are harmful to their health. "The science shows that these dyes cause hyperactivity in children, can disrupt the immune system, and are contaminated with carcinogens," said Hari.
The U.S Food and Drug Administration (FDA) initiated the process of revoking authorization for certain synthetic dyes and requested that companies expedite the removal of others. Kennedy stated, "These poisonous compounds offer no nutritional benefit and pose real, measurable dangers to our childrens health and development. That era is coming to an end. We're restoring gold-standard science, applying common sense, and beginning to earn back the public's trust."
Several food manufacturers and fast-food chains have complied or made significant progress, including General Mills; Kraft Heinz; Starbucks; PepsiCo; Danone North America; TreeHouse Foods; Tyson Foods; and In-N-Out Burger. The HHS has also promoted the use of food coloring from natural sources, with the FDA granting new color additive petitions for galdieria extract blue, butterfly pea flower extract, and calcium phosphate in May.
Kennedy's tenure as Health and Human Services secretary under the Trump administration has seen significant strides in the MAHA initiative. His actions have demonstrated a commitment to health, transparency, and the removal of corporate influence from regulatory agencies, reflecting the conservative values of limited government and individual freedom. His efforts to remove synthetic dyes from the food supply and dismantle gender ideology have been particularly noteworthy, indicating a return to traditional values and a focus on the health and well-being of the American population.
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