Happy Friday, and welcome to the 250th edition of Food Fix! I learned some important lessons from last Friday’s newsletter: Y’all loved that I used an expletive (to make a point!) … and also some of your prim and proper spam filters do not tolerate expletives!
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On the pods! In case you missed it: Last month I launched a new podcast with Theodore Ross over at The Food & Environment Reporting Network. It’s called Forked, and we recently put out our second episode all about (what else) MAHA.
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Alright, let’s get to it –
Helena
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Trump’s surgeon general pick sparks backlash, flares rift within MAHA
President Donald Trump doubled down on his “Make America Healthy Again” (MAHA) agenda this week by naming wellness entrepreneur Casey Means to serve as surgeon general — a post sometimes called “the nation’s doctor” that plays a central role in public health communication.
Means was a Stanford-trained ear, nose and throat surgeon who dropped out just before completing her residency after becoming disillusioned with the American health care system. She’s now best known for co-founding Levels, a tech company centered on continuous glucose monitors, and for writing “Good Energy,” a New York Times best-seller about metabolic health that helped fuel the MAHA movement. (The book was co-authored by her brother, Calley Means, who now serves as a White House advisor, special government employee and advisor to RFK Jr. at HHS). Along the way, she’s amassed a sizable social media following and has become one of the most recognizable voices within MAHA, which is not only part of the MAGA base, but is now often credited with helping Trump win in November.
Pushback: Means’ selection was met with serious backlash in the public health world this week. Critics were quick to point out that Means is not a licensed physician — her medical license lapsed in 2019 — and simply isn’t qualified for the job.
This may sound like a compelling argument against Means — and for many, it is! — but this is also why she was chosen for the gig. She isn’t a practicing doctor. She is fighting against the medical system. She’s an anti-institutional pick, through and through.
Kennedy said as much when he posted an unusually lengthy defense of her on X on Thursday, as the critics piled on: “Casey is the perfect choice for Surgeon General precisely because she left the traditional medical system–not in spite of it.” He added: “The goal of MAHA is to reform the largest and most powerful industry in the United States.”
MAGA meets ‘woo woo’: Health experts are not the only ones losing it over this pick, there’s also a few key MAGA figures that are railing against Means for surgeon general. Laura Loomer, a conspiratorial MAGA influencer who has considerable sway with Trump, has been on a torrent against the nomination: “Maybe @marcorubio can be Surgeon General and save us from this WOO WOO WOMAN,” Loomer posted on X on Thursday, along with a screenshot of Means discussing participating in full moon ceremonies and taking psychedelic mushrooms, etc. Secretary of State Marco Rubio is also serving as national security adviser and acting head of (the now dismantled) USAID, so it’s sort of a running joke in Washington that he has too many jobs.
Food policy ideas: That Means holds views outside the bounds of modern medicine (and sometimes scientific evidence, too) is common ground for critics on the left and right. She often talks a lot about spirituality and how humans are one with nature and alleges that there are “dark” forces trying to keep all of us sick. She’s expressed support for raw milk, which the government has long warned against consuming, concern about the CDC’s vaccine schedule, which the government has long recommended following, and deep worry about many commonly used pesticides, which the government has long assured us are safe.
Means is also a big proponent of organic and regenerative foods, which represent a small slice of the U.S. food supply, and is a massive critic of ultra-processed foods, which make up the vast majority of the U.S. food supply. Back in November, after Trump won, Means wrote that she hoped the administration would bring down the hammer on processed foods: “Ultra-processed foods cause serious chronic disease and are highly addictive. Junk food causes more deaths globally than tobacco. We should move to put warning labels on every one of these products, akin to the Surgeon General warning for cigarettes.”
(By the way, her policy wishlist also includes breaking up the highly consolidated meatpacking industry, reforming agricultural subsidies and many other ideas that are not within the scope of surgeon general, per se, but are interesting nonetheless, especially if Means is given a bully pulpit without boundaries.)
Anti-vax revolt: Means’ selection this week has also ripped open a long-simmering rift between the anti-vaccine/health freedom faction and the more food-focused faction within the MAHA movement. I’ve touched on this before: Essentially, many anti-vaccine advocates feel like food issues are now a higher priority than vaccine issues — and they’re furious about it.
Nicole Shanahan, who was RFK Jr.’s running mate during his quixotic presidential bid and who strongly backed Trump for president — largely on the promise that he’d put RFK Jr. in charge of health in the administration — ripped the surgeon general pick this week.
“I was promised that if I supported RFK Jr. in his Senate confirmation that neither of these siblings would be working under HHS or in an appointment (and that people much more qualified would be),” Shanahan wrote on X. “I don’t know if RFK very clearly lied to me, or what is going on.”
Kennedy “is reporting to someone regularly who is controlling his decisions (and it isn’t President Trump),” she wrote. “With regards to the [Means] siblings, there is something very artificial and aggressive about them, almost like they were bred and raised Manchurian assets.”
(I asked HHS to comment on all this, and a spokeswoman pointed me to Kennedy’s post on X: “Casey Means was born to hold this job,” the secretary said. “She will provide our country with ethical guidance, wisdom, and gold-standard medical advice even when it challenges popular orthodoxies.”) Of course, some of these claims are so outlandish that it’s hard to know how to even responsibly engage with them. Relatedly, there are a whole bunch of fringe anti-vax figures who now believe that the Means siblings are part of some sort of deep state and/or Big Pharma plot to distract attention away from vaccines, using food as a distraction (yes, really).
What’s next: Surgeon general is a Senate-confirmed position, so we’re about to hear a lot more about Means. This is likely to be a much more contentious battle than we usually have over this post. I think it’s likely that some of the anger about RFK Jr. and the Trump administration’s cuts to health programs will get wrapped up into this as well (not to mention the admin’s recent moves on studying the causes of autism, which have infuriated parents and autism advocates alike).
Democrats are privately stewing about how all of this is a distraction from serious government cuts happening, not just at HHS, but also across USDA (local food, conservation and many seemingly MAHA-aligned priorities are getting squeezed). USDA alone said it shed 15,000 employees in recent months. Meanwhile, Congress is mulling deep cuts to Medicaid and Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits, which directly impact tens of millions of people.
While there’s no shortage of “WTF is happening” vibes and lobbying pushback behind the scenes, it’s remarkable how little public pushback MAHA and the Trump administration is getting in Washington. Most trade associations, companies, public health groups — and certainly Republican lawmakers — are afraid of the blowback, so they’re largely ducking and hoping this all blows over. I’m not sure that’s going to work. As I keep saying: We’re in a totally new era now. But it may take a while for that to sink in.
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What I’m reading
How RFK Jr. is boosting ‘Food Babe’ and other MAHA acolytes (Wall Street Journal). “Before taking office, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. vowed to avoid conflicts of interest in U.S. health policymaking, and said food companies and drugmakers exerted too much influence. Now that he is President Trump’s secretary of health and human services, some companies run by Kennedy’s allies in the Make America Healthy Again movement are getting a boost from the government,” report Kristina Peterson and Corrie Driebusch. “Kennedy has surrounded himself with MAHA activists and entrepreneurs touting alternative health approaches that stand to benefit from his rhetoric, changes in policy, and being publicly linked with the top public-health official.”
USDA chief says agency is trying to fill key jobs after paying 15,000 to leave (USDA). “In testimony on Capitol Hill on Tuesday and Wednesday, Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins confirmed that the U.S. Department of Agriculture is now looking to fill critical positions, after agreeing to pay more than 15,000 employees’ salaries and benefits through September in exchange for their resignations,” reports Andrea Hsu. “USDA is among the agencies that twice invited employees to quit their jobs through the deferred resignation program — once in late January when the deal was presented to nearly the entire federal workforce, and again for a short window in April. Rollins invited some of those who took the deferred resignation offer to return. ‘If they want to come back, and if they were in a key position, then we would love to have that conversation,’ she told lawmakers. At Tuesday’s hearing, Rollins acknowledged some mistakes may have been made along the way but insisted that people in key positions were not accepted in the second round of the deferred resignation program.”
Harris calls for SNAP ‘Buy America’ provision (The Fence Post). “House Agriculture Appropriations Subcommittee Chairman Andy Harris, R-Md., said that participants in the Special Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program should buy only American-produced foods,” reports Jerry Hagstrom with The Hagstrom Report. “Harris, a longtime supporter of restricting SNAP participants from buying sweetened beverages, said he believes SNAP participants are spending $12 billion per year on those beverages and that the SNAP beneficiaries could spend that money buying healthy food produced by American farmers. Harris told reporters after the hearing he believes that a buy America requirement would be particularly helpful in reducing the U.S. agricultural trade deficit because most of the deficit comes from buying fruits and vegetables that used to be grown in the United States. Rollins did not comment on Harris’ buy America SNAP proposal. She also didn’t comment at the hearing on Republican proposals to shift part of the cost of SNAP to the states. Later, when asked about the proposal at a news conference, Rollins said that ‘there are many ideas on the table’ and every good idea is needed in the discussion.”
In a world of addictive foods, we need GLP-1s (New York Times). “Throughout my life I’ve been fat, thin and various sizes in between. The fact that I’m a doctor, was a dean of two medical schools and ran the Food and Drug Administration for six and a half years was of no help to me,” writes David Kessler, a former FDA commissioner, in an opinion piece. “We may now be at the brink of reclaiming our health. New and highly effective anti-obesity medications known as GLP-1s have revolutionized our understanding of weight loss and of obesity itself. These drugs alone are not a panacea for the obesity crisis that has engulfed the nation, and we should not mistake them for one. But their effectiveness underscores the fact that being overweight or obese was never the result of a lack of willpower. It is the result of biology instead, and that is why these drugs work. These foods typically are called ultraprocessed, but I refer to them as ultraformulated because they have been engineered to manipulate the brain’s reward system. These foods have become the new cigarette and, similarly, have resulted in a health catastrophe.”
Trump administration takes action on SNAP benefit records (Newsweek). “The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) is tightening rules on states reporting SNAP information following an executive order from President Donald Trump,” reports Aliss Higham. “Trump’s March 20 executive order on ‘Stopping Waste, Fraud, and Abuse by Eliminating Information Silos’ means all government agencies are now required to share ‘all unclassified agency records, data, software systems, and information technology systems’ with the federal government. In a letter to state agency directors, the USDA’s senior policy advisor for integrity Gina Brand said states will need to provide the following: Records sufficient to identify individuals as applicants for, or recipients of, SNAP benefits, including but not limited to personally identifiable information in the form of names, dates of birth, personal addresses used, and Social Security numbers, [and] records sufficient to calculate the total dollar value of SNAP benefits received by participants over time, with the ability to filter benefits received by date ranges. No date was given for when the states needed to submit the required information by.”
Ultra-processed foods tied to Parkinson’s disease risk (UPI). “Fast food and ready-made packaged eats could be doing slow damage to people’s brains,” reports Dennis Thompson. “Ultra-processed foods like breakfast cereals, soft drinks, hot dogs and ketchup appear to increase a person’s risk of developing Parkinson’s disease, a new study says. People who ate about 11 servings of ultra-processed foods per day had a 2 1/2-times higher risk of developing three or more early symptoms of Parkinson’s than those who ate the least amount, researchers reported Wednesday in the journal Neurology. For this study, researchers tracked the health of nearly 43,000 U.S. health professionals participating in two ongoing large-scale medical studies. None had Parkinson’s at the start of the study. The research team looked for early symptoms of Parkinson’s among the participants, including problems with rapid eye movement sleep, constipation, depression, body pain, impaired color vision, excessive daytime sleepiness and reduced ability to smell.”
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