Happy Friday, and welcome to Food Fix. It was fun to run into so many newsletter readers on the sidelines of Climate Week NYC and the U.N. General Assembly this week. I’m always blown away by how this audience has grown in just three years. Thanks for being here!
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Alright, let’s get to it –
Helena
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‘Too much and too little’: U.S. rejects U.N. declaration on non-communicable diseases
The United States on Thursday announced its opposition to a United Nations political declaration urging more government action to combat non-communicable diseases (NCDs).
The declaration — which is largely symbolic and not binding — was supposed to be adopted by consensus, but U.S. opposition has become a sticking point, causing plenty of grumbling from other countries.
Why tho? At first blush, this is a bit confusing: Why would the Trump administration with its “Make America Healthy Again” agenda snub the U.N. for focusing more on NCDs, something health advocates have argued is long overdue?
The international community has long invested much more time and resources toward combatting infectious diseases, even as the toll of NCDs rose dramatically. The U.N. estimates that non-communicable diseases account for 43 million deaths each year, 18 million of which occur prematurely (before the age of 70). This includes cardiovascular diseases, cancers, diabetes and chronic respiratory diseases, etc.
Too much, too little: HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on Thursday called the declaration “misdirected.”
“It attempts both too much and too little,” Kennedy said in a video posted online, without elaborating on what parts he objects to. “It exceeds the UN’s proper role while ignoring some of the most pressing health issues, and that’s why the United States rejects it.”
(I asked HHS for clarification on what the U.S. opposed in the declaration, but did not hear back.)
During remarks at a high-level U.N. meeting Thursday, Kennedy seemed to hint that U.S. opposition had something to do with taxes. The secretary “charged that the UN draft went too far recommending measures like taxes on unhealthy products – while not going far enough on other chronic disease related issues,” per reporting from Health Policy Watch.
It’s a strange argument to make because the declaration had already shed most of its language on taxing unhealthy products (like sugary drinks) after a deluge of industry lobbying. The final version barely mentions taxes, but says: countries should “consider introducing or increasing taxes on tobacco and alcohol to support health objectives, in line with national circumstances.”
“You can see the industry finger prints all over the final text,” said Paula Johns, executive director of ACT Health Promotion, a group in Brazil that tracks multilateral action on NCDs closely. Johns told me it’s notable that the pharmaceutical industry has been successful in securing more focus on ensuring access to NCD treatments, but there’s been less momentum around policies that might actually prevent these conditions in the first place.
Interestingly, some of the policies listed in the declaration are already supported by the Trump administration, including promoting exercise and front-of-pack nutrition labeling and even addressing food marketing to kids (well, guidelines for food marketing to kids was listed as something to explore in the MAHA strategy, but jury is still out on that one).
Gender politics: Kennedy, for his part, alleged that the declaration “pushes destructive gender ideology,” and promotes a “right to abortion,” among other concerns.
“The draft declaration should not have been included in today’s agenda,” Kennedy said, adding it was “filled with controversy with provisions about everything from taxes to … management by international bodies of communicable diseases.”
This was also a confusing rationale. As Health Policy Watch noted Thursday: “The final draft text makes no reference to abortion, stating only that NCDs need to be mainstreamed into ‘sexual and reproductive health programmes.’ A single reference to gender calls for mainstreaming ‘a gender perspective’ into NCD prevention and control as critical to understanding and addressing the health risks of women and men ‘of all ages.’”
In his remarks at the U.N. meeting, Kennedy emphasized the U.S. is still committed to addressing chronic diseases globally, but didn’t say how.
“The United States will walk away from the declaration,” Kennedy said. “But we will never walk away from the world or our commitment to end chronic disease. We stand ready to lead, to partner, to innovate with every nation committed to a healthier future.”
“President Trump wants to lead the effort globally against ultra-processed foods and the medical and physical illness associated with it,” Kennedy added. “We’re calling on the international community to come together to combat this scourge.”
Zooming out: On paper, it looks like the U.N. is doing what Kennedy wants: Focusing more on non-communicable diseases vs. infectious diseases, but the more important factor here may be this administration’s antipathy toward not just the U.N. but also the World Health Organization, which the U.S. is formally leaving in January over concerns about the health body’s handling of Covid-19.
New advisor alert: While all of this was unfolding in New York, the Trump administration this week named a new nutrition advisor over at USDA: Ben Carson, a physician and former presidential candidate who served as the housing and urban development secretary during the first Trump administration.
Per USDA: As National Advisor for Nutrition, Health, and Housing, Carson will advise both President Donald Trump and Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins “on policies related to nutrition, rural healthcare quality, and housing accessibility. He will serve as the Department’s chief voice on these matters, join Secretary Rollins for her work on the President’s Make America Healthy Again Commission, and partner closely with leadership in USDA’s Rural Development Mission Area.”
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What I’m reading
USDA’s SNAP stocking overhaul is a ‘mixed bag’ for retailers and shoppers (Food Navigator). “USDA’s proposal to increase the variety and nutritional value of staple foods that retailers must continuously offer to participate in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program falls short of ensuring sufficient availability of healthy items in authorized stores and could hinder small, independent players’ ability to comply, stakeholders warn,” Elizabeth Crawford reports. “USDA Secretary Brooke Rollins countered that the proposed changes published in today’s Federal Register would more than double the food choices available to SNAP participants and close ‘loopholes that allow certain snack foods to count as staple foods.’ If finalized, the proposed rule would require SNAP retailers to offer at least seven qualifying varieties of food in each of four staple food groups – protein, dairy, grains and fruits and vegetables. This is up from the current requirement that retailers offer at least three varieties of food in each of the categories.”
New FDA programs designed to enhance transparency of outbreak investigations (Food Safety News). “The Food and Drug Administration has launched a new transparency policy for the reporting of foodborne illness outbreak investigations,” reports Coral Beach. “As part of the initiative the public, industry stakeholders and other entities will have access to two new resources once an outbreak investigation has ended: Executive Incident Summary (EIS) Abstracts for Closed Foodborne Illness Investigations and Foodborne Outbreak Overview of Data (FOOD) Reports. The agency says EIS abstracts reflect an effort to complement the FDA’s existing tools and are intended to share as much information as possible about foodborne illness investigations as soon as possible. However, the FDA did not say what constitutes ‘as soon as possible.’ The FOOD reports will provide information for industry and consumers on pathogen-commodity pairs that have been linked to repeated outbreaks of foodborne illness. The reports will include highlights of historical epidemiologic data, laboratory analyses, traceback and investigational findings, and post-response prevention activities taken by the FDA, industry, academic and other federal, state, local, tribal, and territorial stakeholders.”
With rural America starting to see huge financial losses from tariff policies, Trump offers vague aid package to farmers in the heartland (Fortune). “President Donald Trump is pledging to use tariff revenue to bail out farmers reeling from the impact of the ongoing trade war,” Sasha Rogelberg reports. “‘We’re going to take some of that tariff money that we made, we’re going to give it to our farmers, who are, for a little while, going to be hurt until the tariffs kick into their benefit,’ Trump told reporters. ‘So we’re going to make sure that our farmers are in great shape, because we’re taking in a lot of money.’ Farmers—a historically loyal constituency of Trump’s—have sounded the alarms about how the administration’s tariffs exacerbated trade disputes that have endangered U.S. export markets as production costs remain stubbornly high or even increase. ‘The frustration is overwhelming,’ the American Soybean Association (ASA) President Caleb Ragland said in a statement on Wednesday. The National Corn Growers Association has been similarly distraught, with corn prices plunging more than 50% from their 2022 peak. Corn and soybeans accounted for 45% of the U.S.’s cash crop receipts in 2024, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Meanwhile, input costs for production continue to eke up.”
How farmers and industry groups slowed MAHA’s roll (Wall Street Journal). “The Trump administration’s ‘Make America Healthy Again’ commission criticized lobbying efforts by American corporations to shape policy. Then it invited them to the table,” report Jesse Newman, Liz Essley Whyte, and Josh Dawsey. “In meeting after meeting at the White House this summer, administration officials held talks with scores of leaders from the food and agriculture industries. Farm officials accompanied Calley Means, a top adviser to Health Secretary and MAHA Commission leader Robert F. Kennedy Jr., on a visit to U.S. farm fields. Companies and industry groups representing every link in the nation’s food supply chain moved with urgency. An initial assessment report released by the commission in May criticized products from pesticides to processed food, setting off alarm bells at big food and agriculture companies. The commission unveiled a follow-up strategy report…Many MAHA allies, nutrition experts and consumer advocacy and watchdog groups, lamented its lack of emphasis on regulatory action, worrying that the administration had capitulated to corporate interests.”
57 percent not confident in medical information cited by RFK Jr.: Survey (The Hill). “More than half of registered voters are not confident in medical information cited by Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.,” Tara Suter reports. “When asked in the Quinnipiac University poll about their level of confidence, 57 percent of respondents said they are ‘not so confident’ or ‘not confident at all.’ Republican senators have become increasingly uncomfortable over President Trump’s unusual steps into health policy, notably the president’s backing of Kennedy and his efforts to change up the children’s vaccination schedule in spite of strong skepticism from the medical community. The president gave Kennedy, who has a history of vaccine skepticism, a notable boost via advising mothers not to give newborns several vaccines at once and warning against Tylenol use when pregnant.”
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