MAHA is taking a step backward, not forward
- Matilda Ziegler
- 5 minutes ago
- 2 min read
Robert F. Kennedy Jr, commonly known as RFK, the head of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), is the face of the Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) movement.
MAHA aims to, according to the White House’s website, eradicate childhood disease while “pursuing truth, embracing science, and enacting pro-growth policies and innovations to restore children’s health.”
In addition to a focus on the eradication of childhood disease, MAHA aims to conduct a host of other health reforms, some of which are sorely needed in society, such as more transparent allergy labeling, and improving the quality of food served to veterans or served in hospitals.
While many tenets of the MAHA movement, if carried out by the Trump administration, will have a positive impact on society, it appears as though MAHA is more focused on being “crunchy” or “natural” than it is on science and data.
While many tenets of the “crunchy” movement, such as attempting to consume fewer pesticides and microplastics, or buying secondhand clothing, are beneficial to human health and to the environment, others, such as consuming unpasteurized milk, or eschewing vaccinations, are not rooted in scientific evidence, and are harmful to human health.
While promoting the MAHA movement, the Trump administration has, in many ways, taken steps backwards in terms of the health of Americans. It is hypocritical to both champion the removal of food dyes and other additives to food in the name of American health while simultaneously allowing pollution of the water that Americans drink and the environment in which Americans live. For example, according to the EPA, the EPA extended the groundwater monitoring requirements for owners or operators of coal combustion residual management units until August 8, 2029. This means that, until August 8, 2029, companies that are responsible for coal ash pits are allowed to allow the coal ash to leech into groundwater and drinking water of the disproportionately low-income people who live near coal ash pits.
Coal ash pits can leak toxic chemicals such as arsenic, chromium, cobalt, hexavalent chromium, thallium and vanadium into the groundwater. There are many examples of such pollution occurring in America near power plants that burn coal. For example, In Cliffside, North Carolina, a small, low-income (according to the Census Bureau, Cliffside’s per capita income in 2022 was a mere $23,826, about a third of the national average of $65,423) Appalachian town, high levels of toxic metals are present in the drinking water due to the presence of three leaking coal ash pits in the town, including arsenic at over 468 times the state’s safety standard, vanadium at 690 times the standard, hexavalent chromium at 185 times the standard and cobalt at 119 times the standard, according to Mountaintrue.
It is disingenuous for the Trump administration to claim to promote the health of Americans via the MAHA movement while simultaneously allowing companies to pollute the drinking water of Americans with arsenic, chromium, cobalt, hexavalent chromium, thallium and vanadium from coal ash.