Currently browsing posts about: MAHA

I have no inside information about what the new Dietary Guidelines will say beyond what I’ve read and what RFK Jr has said: They will be coming out soon and will be short and to the point.

But according to Twitter (X), the source of much leaked information, the new administration “plans to introduce partial bans on alcohol advertising, to bring it ‘closer in line with advertising of unhealthy food.'”

And we now have a Reuters’ Exclusive: US to drop guidance to limit alcohol to one or two drinks per day, sources say

Its summary:

• Americans have long been told to drink two or fewer drinks per day
• New guidelines due as soon as this month
• Expected to include brief statement on limiting drinking
• Alcohol industry faces growing scrutiny of health risks

Reuters’ anonymous sources say “The new guidelines are set to move away from suggesting consumers limit alcohol consumption to a specific number of daily servings, according to the three sources, who asked not to be named to speak freely.”

Reuters also reports:

Major industry players, including Diageo (DGE.L) and Anheuser-Busch InBev (ABI.BR) have lobbied lawmakers throughout the review process. Senate records show the companies spent millions on lobbying efforts related to the guidelines and a range of other issues such as tax and trade in 2024 and 2025. Both companies declined to comment.

What is at stake here?

As I explained in January (Alcohol in the Dietary Guidelines: What the Fuss is About), everyone agrees that too much alcohol is bad for you.  The question is whether any alcohol is bad.

The dietary guidelines have advised since 1990 that women have no more than one drink a day and men no more than two, suggesting that such levels are safe.  But are they?

I discuss the recent reports arguing one way or the other on January 7 (The big fight over alcohol recommendations: not over yet) and January 22 (The Alcohol Saga continues).

Neither RFK Jr nor President Trump drink alochol.

And we have evidence that the Majority of Americans Unaware of Cancer Risks Linked to Alcohol Consumption.

Recent research conducted by The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center unveiled that only approximately 40% of American adults recognize alcohol as a cancer risk factor. This stark gap in knowledge persists despite alcohol’s status as a leading preventable cause of cancer, highlighting the urgent need for enhanced public health communication and policy reforms.

Dietary guidelines are a key component of federal nutrition policy.

I can’t wait to see what they say about alcohol consumption (and everything else), in the light of the MAHA (Make America Healthy Again) agenda.

I would be remiss not to comment on congressional passage of the “Big Beautiful Bill” which takes money from the poor and gives it to the rich (see Paul Krugman’s Attack of the Sadistic Zombies).

For what all this has to do with food, take a look at Kevin Klatt’s “6 Months of MAHA: A Reflection and Call to Action.”

My summary of his summary of what MAHA and MAGA have done so far:

• Cut $1 billion from USDA for local food purchases for school lunch and food bank
• Proposed a 40% cut to the NIH budget (which pays for nutrition research)
• Made huge cuts to SNAP.
• Cut WIC fruit and vegetable benefits.
• Allowed obesity researcher Kevin Hall to resign
• Cut landmark nutrition trials such as the Diabetes Prevention Program.
• Defunded major nutrition departments, like Harvard’s.
• Cut several molecular & community nutrition grants at Cornell.
• Eliminated USAID, a major funder of global nutrition research and intervention.
• Disrupted lead exposure programs.
• Cut FDA and CDC, including the human foods program HFP and food safety lab funding and staff (some reinstated).

Klatt’s point:

At 6 months in, I think it’s time for food and nutrition advocates, scientists and professionals to call out the MAHA agenda for what it is – it’s a movement with the right vibes, the wrong priorities and solutions, headed up by someone with dangerous thoughts on public health who is not going to improve the health of Americans, nutritional or otherwise.

By wrong priorities, I’m thinking color additives (yes, let’s get rid of them, but other things matter more) and seed oils (really, they are healthier than animal fats, especially in large amounts).

There are still real questions about what MAHA will actually do.  I’m waiting for the dietary guidelines and second MAHA report.  Those should reveal the real agenda.

I was delighted to see this opinion piece in Forbes by Hank Cardello, who writes very much from the food industry’s point of view: The One Big Beautiful Bill To MAHA: Drop Dead.

The so-called “One Big Beautiful Bill” now moving through the Senate proposes sharp cuts to SNAP (food stamps), WIC (Women, Infants, and Children) and Medicaid—programs that are lifelines for low-income families. The contradiction is glaring: How can one branch of government promote healthier eating while another branch strips away the supports that make that possible?

“The bill handicaps MAHA’s goals,” he says, pointing out that reducing benefits for these programs can only “increase food insecurity, making it more difficult for people to afford nutritious food and sustain their health.”

This, he says, is

a political blunder…affordable food has more power to sway voters than tariffs or slogans. Cut these programs, and we widen the gap between what families should eat and what they can eat….Medicaid and SNAP aren’t just social programs—they’re long-term investments in public health and economic stability.

He suggests three ways to make MAHA a reality:

• Expand SNAP eligibility to include struggling working families just above the poverty line.
• Recognize food policy as a voter issue, not just a health issue.
• Lawmakers should stop pretending nutrition policy can succeed without social policy alignment.

COMMENT

Wow.  I could not have said this better myself.  What this tells me is that at least some segments of the food industry fully understand that making people too poor to buy their products is not good for business, let alone for society.  Cardullo always has intelligent things to say about food issues, even when I don’t always agree with them.  On this one, we are completely aligned.  Thanks Hank.

Politico reports: White House invites 46 farm, food groups to discuss MAHA report

The MAHA report, as I’ve written, could have enormous implications for food system businesses.  The problems it describes with the health of America’s children call for policies that could reduce profits for companies that, for example, produce seed oils, food products with color additives, and ultra-processed foods in general.

The secretaries of HHS and USDA have promised to soon issue dietary guidelines to reduce intake of such foods.

Food companies making products targeted by such views are unlikely to be happy with the report.  If past history is any indication, they will lobby for exceptions, exemptions, and delays, and will insist that the proposed measures have no scientific basis (which some indeed do not), violate the First Amendment, and will cost jobs—the playbook that worked for such a long time for the tobacco industry.

The Politico report is behind a paywall, but Helena Bottemiller Evich obtained a list of who has been invited and writes the details in FoodFix: White House holds flurry of industry meetings in wake of MAHA drama. 

Her list shows separate meetings for fruit and vegetable producers and trade groups, and those for meat and dairy, restaurants, grocers, beverage companies (Big Soda), commodity groups, and Big Ag.

Oh to be a fly on those walls.

It’s hard for me to believe that this administration will do anything to reduce business interests, and early indications are that RFK Jr is merely calling for companies to take voluntary actions, and individuals to take personal responsibility—neither of which is likely to have any chance of Making America Healthy Again.

I look forward to seeing what they do with the dietary guidelines and the next MAHA Commission report on policy—both expected by the end of the summer, apparently.  Stay tuned.

 

FDA has announced a joint research initiative with NIH

Under the new Nutrition Regulatory Science Program, the FDA and NIH will implement and accelerate a comprehensive nutrition research agenda that will provide critical information to inform effective food and nutrition policy actions to help make Americans’ food and diets healthier. The initiative will aim to answer questions such as:

• How and why can ultra-processed foods harm people’s health?
• How might certain food additives affect metabolic health and possibly contribute to chronic disease?
• What is the role of maternal and infant dietary exposures on health outcomes across the lifespan, including autoimmune diseases?

This sounds terrific —and I’m all for all of this.

An article about it in JAMA, of all places, raises some concerns.  It quotes Jerry Mande,

The bad news, he noted, is that the announcement may follow a recent pattern within the federal government of unveiling an initiative but providing few details on how it will be executed. The April press conference held by the HHS and the FDA on eliminating synthetic food dyes is one such example, in his view.

It also quotes me as noting that the announcement is short on detail and even shorter on timeline.

The food industry is in a difficult position…Ultraprocessed foods are among their most profitable, and food companies consider the ability to market to children to be essential to their business models. They could voluntarily start making and marketing healthier products and reducing unhealthy ingredients, but experience tells us that they won’t do this unless forced.

MAHA has now issued requests for proposals on two initiatives.

I.  A Research Study of Contaminants in School Meals

This pilot study supports a comprehensive, FDA-led initiative aimed at evaluating the toxicological safety and nutritional quality of meals served in all schools that actively participate in the National School Lunch Program (NSLP), including both public and nonprofit private schools…Schools must be equipped to engage in structure intervention activities and collaborate with a partner to support the transition to minimize the use of foods commonly considered ultra-processed.

The goals of this funding opportunity

1. Identify contaminants (e.g., heavy metals) present in school meals.
2. Promote whole food offerings and minimize the use of foods commonly considered ultra-processed,
3. Measure potential changes in contaminant levels and nutritional content pre- and post-intervention.

Yes, let’s give kids real foods in school, preferably and whenever possible cooked from scratch.  But,

• Are heavy metals a problem in school meals?  What other contaminants are of concern?  Why?
• How are schools to increase whole food offerings when the administration has cancelled the farm-to-school program?
• Will schools be given the additional funds needed to pay for whole foods and the staff to cook them?

The offer is for grants of about $2 million each.  The timeline for submission is short (check the links for how to submit and by when).

The FDA sent further information to applicants.

It also sent an FAQ.

Comment: I have a nagging suspicion that what this is really about is a push to substitute “cleaner” products for current products used in schools.  This is a concern because so many of the people now associated with HHS sell “clean” products and, no doubt, would love to sell them in schools.  Substituting one product for another will not solve the single major problem faced by school meal programs: lack of adequate funding for personnel, equipment, and fresh food.

II.  Take Back Your Health Campaign

Purpose:  The purpose of this requirement is to alert Americans to the role of processed foods in fueling the diabetes epidemic and other chronic diseases, inspire people to take personal responsibility for their diets, and drive measurable improvements in diabetes prevention and national health outcomes.

Scope: The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) will launch a series of bold, edgy national campaigns with innovative messaging to inspire and empower Americans to reclaim control over their health. This initiative will challenge individuals to adopt disciplined, lifelong habits—centered on eating real food, physical fitness, and spiritual growth—to build a healthier, stronger nation.

As Stat News puts it, HHS plans ‘bold, edgy’ campaign on ultra-processed foods and diabetes. 

The campaign, estimated to cost between $10-20 million, will urge Americans to shift their behaviors and see health wearables as ‘cool’.  The call for pitches was posted on the evening of June 12, with a swift deadline of June 26. It asks not only for “daring, viral messaging to motivate behavior change” but for campaigns that specifically “popularize technology like wearables as cool, modern tools for measuring diet impact and taking control of your health.” Surgeon general nominee Casey Means’ health tech company, Levels, uses continuous glucose monitors and lab testing to help people track their health.

Comment: Oh dear.  Personal responsibility.  Never mind that the MAHA Commission report clearly identified environmental factors as responsible for epidemic chronic disease.  Neither of these initiatives gets at changing the “toxic” food environment.  To really do that, MAHA would need to stop food industry marketing of ultra-processed foods, especially to children.  And to get at other environmental causes of poor health, especially for children, it would need to take on the cigarette industry, the gun lobby (guns are a leading cause of kids’ deaths), and the industries that dump chemicals into the water and food supplies.

I’m totally for educating people about healthy diets, eating real food, and physical fitness.  But education is not enough to change behavior.  Education has to be backed up by policy.

Where’s the policy?  For that, we must wait for the next MAHA Commission report, due out in August.  Stay tuned.

 

 

The Chef Ann [Cooper] Foundation has issued This report.

The report, while recognizing obstacles, explains why scratch cooking matters so much.

To protect and improve children’s health — and to access cascading academic, environmental, and economic benefits — schools must serve students more minimally processed meals cooked from scratch. While most schools want to serve their students more scratch-made meals, their ability to do so is significantly limited by systemic labor, financial, and infrastructure barriers, as well as public perceptions that devalue the critical role school food professionals play in suppporting the well-being of our nation’s children.

Its food policy priorities are well worth attention, especially now when the Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) movement is focusing on schools.

Let’s hope the MAHA leadership takes a good look at this report.  Thanks Chef Ann!

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Published this week!  Information is here.  Get 15% off with this code: FSGPIC15

[Sorry for my error: This post did not get sent out yesterday to subscribers so I am re-posting it.  Apologies if you are getting it twice.]

Let me start by confessing that I did not review the references in the MAHA Comission report I wrote about last week—except for mine.

The reference to my book, Food Politics, is a bit garbled (In Food Politics?  No.  This is Food Politics), but these are basically OK.  It’s easy to make mistakes like that one and I rely on the help of many proofreaders and factcheckers to try to avoid such errors in my published books and articles.  I checked a couple of the other references related to food topics and they seemed basically OK too.

So I was surprised by the report from NOTUS that The MAHA Report Cites Studies That Don’t Exist,

This finding was immediately attributed by the New York Times and other sources to the report’s having been referenced by Artificial Intelligence (AI), a tool well known to be scientifically inaccurate and to make things up.

To immediately plagiarize (well, quote) Ted Kyle at ConscienHealth: The MAHA Report: Make America Hallucinate Again.

I was also surprised—no, dismayed—by the administration’s response to these discoveries.

According to FoodFix,

White House Press Secretary, Karoline Leavitt told reporters…“I understand there were some formatting issues with the MAHA report that are being addressed,” Leavitt said. “But it does not negate the substance of the report, which, as you know, is one of the most transformative health reports that’s ever been released by the federal government, and is backed on good science that has never been recognized by the federal government.”

FoodFix also quotes the HHS Press Secretary:

Minor citation and formatting errors have been corrected, but the substance of the MAHA report remains the same — a historic and transformative assessment by the federal government to understand the chronic disease epidemic afflicting our nation’s children…“It’s time for the media to also focus on what matters.”

Formatting issues?  Oh come on.

Calley Means, the top advisor to RFK Jr, posted “The least surprising thing about the MAHA Report is that the media and failed medical leaders are talking about footnotes instead of its actual content.”

Sorry.  Footnotes matter.  Everything in a report making policy recommendations depends on where its information comes from.  Hallucinating references implies hallucinating data.

The MAHA Report is now being continually updated to fix the citation problem.

Some of the updates are introducing other errors. 

Yikes.

The Washington Post has published details: The MAHA Report’s AI fingerprints, annotated.

I was interviewed by Reuters about all this:

Nobody has ever accused RFK Jr. of academic rigor…The speed (of the MAHA report) suggests that it could not have been vetted carefully and must have been whisked through standard clearance procedures. The citation problem suggests a reliance on AI.”

Science magazine headlined the downplaying of the fake citations and pointed out the irony:

Problems with the MAHA report’s integrity came to light even as Kennedy has threatened to prevent government scientists from publishing in leading medical journals like The Lancet, The New England Journal of Medicine, and JAMA, which he claims are “corrupt” and controlled by pharmaceutical companies. Kennedy has instead proposed a state-run alternative.

Discovery of the fake citations also came just days after President Donald Trump unveiled an executive order that called for “Restoring Gold Science Standards” to government activities…One goal, Trump wrote, is to ensure that “Federal decisions are informed by the most credible, reliable, and impartial scientific evidence available.”

Yeah, right.  The MAHA report cites articles—26—from those “corrupt” journals as sources for its statements.

All of this has led cartoonists like Clay Bennett to ridicule the report.

Here’s another good one from Carlos Muñoz.

Ridicule—or lack of credibility if you prefer—is one reason why this matters.

What I had drilled into me as a graduate student in molecular biology was the importance of reading references, and never under any circumstances citing a reference I hadn’t read.

Why?  Because the credibility of my work depends on where I got my information—how I know what I claim to know.

When I managed the editorial process for the 1988 Surgeon General’s Report on Nutrition and Health, checking references was crucial to supporting the report’s recommendations.  It took years to get the report out, not least because of the enormous amount of vetting involved—from scientists, but also government agencies.

This report, unfortunately, was a rush job.  It astonished me that it got done in only three months (I really want to know who wrote it).

It’s one thing to make editorial errors in citing references (try as hard as I can to get them right, errors invariably get overlooked).

But this report had references that were made up.  Hallucinated.  This means nobody looked at them.

If its references are not reliable, nothing else in the report can be trusted either.

And that’s a shame.  It said a lot of things that badly needed to be said.

Too many corners were cut in throwing this together at the last minute.  I know this was a rush job because I have four versions of the report.

• Version 1: May 22 early morning.  It has no references at all.  My first reaction: What?  No references?
• Version 2: Also May 22, but later in the morning. It has references but not much in the way of formatting.
• Version 3: May 22. This is the one released to the public.
• Version 4: This is the one online on May 31.  Other versions, perhaps multiple, came in between and may come after.

None of this bodes well for the future of MAHA initiatiatives.  Sad.

 

Let me start by confessing that I did not review the references in the MAHA Comission report I wrote about last week—except for mine.

The reference to my book, Food Politics, is a bit garbled (In Food Politics?  No.  This is Food Politics), but these are basically OK.  It’s easy to make mistakes like that one and I rely on the help of many proofreaders and factcheckers to try to avoid such errors in my published work.  I checked a couple of the other references related to food topics and they seemed basically OK too.

So I was surprised by the report from NOTUS that The MAHA Report Cites Studies That Don’t Exist,

This finding was immediately attributed by the New York Times and other sources to the report’s having been referenced by Artificial Intelligence (AI), a tool well known to be scientifically inaccurate and to make things up.

To immediately plagiarize (well, quote) Ted Kyle at ConscienHealth: The MAHA Report: Make America Hallucinate Again.

I was also surprised—no, dismayed—by the administration’s response to these discoveries.

According to FoodFix,

White House Press Secretary, Karoline Leavitt told reporters…“I understand there were some formatting issues with the MAHA report that are being addressed,” Leavitt said. “But it does not negate the substance of the report, which, as you know, is one of the most transformative health reports that’s ever been released by the federal government, and is backed on good science that has never been recognized by the federal government.”

FoodFix also quotes the HHS Press Secretary:

Minor citation and formatting errors have been corrected, but the substance of the MAHA report remains the same — a historic and transformative assessment by the federal government to understand the chronic disease epidemic afflicting our nation’s children…“It’s time for the media to also focus on what matters.”

Formatting issues?  Oh come on.

Calley Means, the top advisor to RFK Jr, posted “The least surprising thing about the MAHA Report is that the media and failed medical leaders are talking about footnotes instead of its actual content.”

Sorry.  Footnotes matter.  Everything in a report making policy recommendations depends on where its information comes from.  Hallucinating references implies hallucinating data.

The MAHA Report is now being continually updated to fix the citation problem.

Some of the updates are introducing other errors. 

Yikes.

The Washington Post has published details: The MAHA Report’s AI fingerprints, annotated.

I was interviewed by Reuters about all this:

Nobody has ever accused RFK Jr. of academic rigor…The speed (of the MAHA report) suggests that it could not have been vetted carefully and must have been whisked through standard clearance procedures. The citation problem suggests a reliance on AI.”

Science magazine headlined the downplaying of the fake citations and pointed out the irony:

Problems with the MAHA report’s integrity came to light even as Kennedy has threatened to prevent government scientists from publishing in leading medical journals like The Lancet, The New England Journal of Medicine, and JAMA, which he claims are “corrupt” and controlled by pharmaceutical companies. Kennedy has instead proposed a state-run alternative.

Discovery of the fake citations also came just days after President Donald Trump unveiled an executive order that called for “Restoring Gold Science Standards” to government activities…One goal, Trump wrote, is to ensure that “Federal decisions are informed by the most credible, reliable, and impartial scientific evidence available.”

Yeah, right.

All of this has led cartoonists like Clay Bennett to ridicule the report.

Here’s another good one from Carlos Muñoz.

Ridicule—or lack of credibility if you prefer—is one reason why this matters.

What I had drilled into me as a graduate student in molecular biology was the importance of reading references, and never under any circumstances citing a reference I hadn’t read.

Why?  Because the credibility of my work depends on where I got my information—how I know what I claim to know.

When I managed the editorial process for the 1988 Surgeon General’s Report on Nutrition and Health, checking references was crucial to supporting the report’s recommendations.  It took years to get the report out, not least because of the enormous amount of vetting involved—from scientists, but also government agencies.

This report, unfortunately, was a rush job.  It astonished me that it got done in only three months (I really want to know who wrote it).

It’s one thing to make editorial errors in citing references (try as hard as I can to get them right, errors invariably get overlooked).

But this report had references that were made up.  Hallucinated.  This means nobody looked at them.

If its references are not reliable, nothing else in the report can be trusted either.

And that’s a shame.  It said a lot of things that badly needed to be said.

Too many corners were cut in throwing this together at the last minute.  I know this was a rush job because I have four versions of the report.

• Version 1: May 22 early morning.  It has no references at all.  My first reaction: What?  No references?
• Version 2: Also May 22, but later in the morning. It has references but not much in the way of formatting.
• Version 3: May 22. This is the one released to the public.
• Version 4: This is the one online on May 31.  Other versions, perhaps multiple, came in between and may come after.

None of this bodes well for the future of MAHA initiatiatives.  Sad.