Tagging along on a recent Target shopping trip, Aisling Van Dyke’s daughter made a familiar plea for a favorite food item: “Mom, look, there’s an organic ketchup!”
For Ms. Van Dyke – a California-based proponent of the Make America Healthy Again movement, or MAHA – weighing the pros and cons of food items like ketchup may soon get easier. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. this week announced plans to remove petroleum-based dyes from the U.S. food supply by 2026. That would include many ketchups that use dyes to achieve a bright red color.
Mr. Kennedy popularized the MAHA label last summer after throwing his support behind President Donald Trump. The former Democratic presidential candidate’s loosely defined movement encompasses a wide range of Americans, from those who support healthier eating to those who are curious about alternative treatments or have concerns with the medical establishment.
Why We Wrote This
The health secretary’s Make America Healthy Again movement has tapped into a postpandemic skepticism of the medical establishment and a desire for more natural solutions. But its early implementation is already sparking controversies.
But MAHA has also been highly polarizing. Many of Mr. Kennedy’s statements, such as advocating for the removal of fluoride from drinking water and pushing for new research on the safety and efficacy of certain vaccines, have raised alarm bells among health experts and ordinary citizens alike. This week, an announced plan to collect private medical records for a comprehensive new study on autism drew sharp criticism.
Larry Gostin, director of the World Health Organization Collaborating Center for National and Global Health Law, believes Mr. Kennedy has demonstrated an irresponsible disregard for facts.
“It’s really the secretary’s job to … filter bad information from good information, bad science from good science, not to just throw everything out there and let people decide,” says Mr. Gostin.
People like Ms. Van Dyke, however, say they want to decide for themselves. She and her sisters operate a health and well-being website called MAHA Momma, inspired by Mr. Kennedy’s policies. They research and answer questions they get via a submission form on their site, and operate a Facebook group by which parents share tips about healthy eating and natural remedies. They say they value doing their own research, and appreciate Mr. Kennedy’s willingness to challenge what they see as industry groupthink.
“Every day I’m learning something new,” says Ms. Van Dyke. “There’s just so much information out there that really we were turning a blind eye to. We just didn’t have the knowledge.”
The MAHA effect
Since becoming secretary of health and human services, Mr. Kennedy has already started to follow through on the MAHA agenda. He’s tightened a rule about the use of food additives and created a search database with a list of contaminant levels for different substances in food.
He’s also garnered criticism for overseeing around 10,000 firings at the Department of Health and Human Services, and for a new research effort into the causes of autism. Earlier in his career, Mr. Kennedy published several books alleging that there may be a connection between vaccines and autism, though multiple studies have since found no link between the two. More recently, he has suggested “environmental toxins” may be to blame.
Confronted with his first big test as health and human services secretary – a measles outbreak in Texas, in which two children died – Mr. Kennedy seemed to satisfy no one with his response. He endorsed the vaccine as “the most effective way to prevent measles,” but also said he did not believe the government should mandate it and raised questions about whether there had been adequate testing around its safety.
People’s views of MAHA divide along partisan lines. A recent Economist/YouGov poll found just 24% of liberals had a favorable opinion of the MAHA movement, compared with 74% of conservatives.
One part of Mr. Kennedy’s platform seems to resonate with a lot of Americans: healthier eating. In 2025, voters ranked obesity as their top health concern. Eighty percent of Americans also say it’s very important for the government to address food safety – including more Democrats than Republicans. And a majority favor banning food dyes and removing processed foods from school lunches.
Yet even on obesity, not everyone may go along with Mr. Kennedy’s approach. Mr. Kennedy wants to get rid of ultraprocessed foods and food additives, and this week raised eyebrows when he declared, “Sugar is poison.” He has expressed skepticism about weight-loss drugs like Ozempic and this month announced that those medications would not be covered by Medicare or Medicaid.
Still, addressing those concerns is likely to be far more popular than efforts to halt medical research or disrupt the childhood vaccine schedule, say experts.
“If it comes to the point where we don’t have access to vaccines … that would be really scary,” says Meghan Womack, a dietician with two young children. “Doctors are not perfect, but they do go to school for a really long time, and they are working within evidence-based practice.”
Mr. Kennedy has repeatedly rebuffed the “anti-vaccine” label, saying he simply wants better testing before approval, better tracking of potential harms, and better evidence of efficacy over time.
But even if the new secretary doesn’t make any changes impacting current vaccines, critics are concerned he could stall the development of new ones. And some charge he has already undermined children’s health simply by encouraging a more skeptical attitude toward vaccination in general. Mr. Gostin, for one, is worried about population immunity in some communities. “Our childhood vaccination rates have dipped to dangerously low levels,” he says.
“It’s because of our kids”
Lori Lunn, a substitute teacher and former school counselor, supports Mr. Kennedy for what she sees as his emphasis on healthy food and commitment to unbiased research. Ms. Lunn chose not to vaccinate her two youngest children, and reading Mr. Kennedy’s book “The Real RFK Jr.” helped solidify her convictions. She feels she doesn’t have enough reliable information about how vaccines could affect her children’s health.
“I would occasionally overhear people talking about how people who don’t vaccinate their kids are so ignorant,” she says, “and I’m like, it’s actually the opposite. I’ve never met somebody who chose not to vaccinate their kids who hadn’t done a ton of research.”
Ms. Van Dyke and her sister, Caroline Guiney, both vaccinated their children. But they also think an overemphasis on medication can cause people to neglect simpler remedies, such as treating obesity with exercise.
“Western medicine and pharmaceuticals and stuff like that are definitely necessary, but they’re not the end-all of everything,” says Ms. Guiney.
Every morning, Ms. Van Dyke walks at a YMCA track. Her daughter has started joining her on weekends, excitedly sharing how many laps she achieved. For Ms. Van Dyke, that’s why her lifestyle matters: to encourage her children to make similar choices.
“What moves us every day and why this is so important to us – it’s because of our kids,” she says.
