Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has pledged to transform America’s food system, vowing to crack down on the foods and ingredients he blames for many of America’s ills, including ultra-processed foods and food additives.
President-elect Donald Trump has selected Kennedy as his nominee for Secretary of Health and Human Services. If confirmed, he will control a vast department that includes 13 agencies that play a key role in the health of Americans. These agencies include the Food and Drug Administration.
Kennedy holds a number of controversial views on public health, including anti-vaccination activities. But experts generally agree that his stance on food and nutrition is admirable.
Still, he will likely face a major hurdle: money.
The FDA’s food division is set to play a key role in President Kennedy’s ambitions, but it operates on a tight budget. Jerrold Munde, a former FDA senior adviser and deputy assistant secretary for food, said the agency’s drug division makes its living primarily from user fees charged to drug companies when they apply for drug approval, while the food division relies heavily on fees from Congress. It is said to be highly dependent on funding. Department of Agriculture Safety. (Separately, President Kennedy has indicated he wants to abolish user fees, arguing that the system poses a conflict of interest.)
Mande said Congress has historically been reluctant to fund agency food and nutrition programs.
“The FDA’s food program has a $1 billion budget, of which food nutrition and chronic Only $25 million will be spent on disease.” “There’s very little funding for that. That’s the biggest barrier. They don’t have the budget or the staff to do anything.”
In comparison, the food industry spends about $14 billion a year on advertising, the bulk of which is promoting fast food, sugary drinks, candy and other unhealthy snacks, says Duke Diet of Durham, North Carolina. said Elisabetta Politi, Nutrition Director at & Fitness Center. .
He said the industry is likely to spend millions more lobbying Congress.
“I think this is a striking comparison that shows how difficult it is for consumers to make healthy choices when the food industry is so powerful,” Politi said.
President Kennedy’s ideas on food are “great,” she says, but “I don’t really know how he’s going to make them happen.”
difficult but not impossible
Marion Nestle, a professor emeritus of nutrition, food research and public health at New York University, said Kennedy is not the only public figure to tackle unhealthy foods, and that even with limited funding, there is no way to challenge the food industry. He said it’s not impossible.
Former First Lady Michelle Obama, an advocate of healthy eating, started “Let’s Move!” The campaign focuses on fighting childhood obesity through healthy eating and more. She also championed the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act of 2010, which set new nutritional standards for school meals that included more fruits and vegetables.
Sen. Bernie Sanders, R-Vermont, has called for more thorough scrutiny of food imported from abroad, and recently compared the processed food industry to the tobacco industry.
Mande said current FDA Commissioner Robert Califf has made food a priority during his second term in office. Khalif led the reorganization of the FDA’s food division in response to the 2022 infant formula shortage crisis. The crisis arose after the facility was closed due to bacterial contamination, and the agency announced that the crisis may be linked to the deaths of two infants.
Still, it is clear that the sector is moving slowly. Mr. Mande said Mr. Khalif probably wanted to do more, but was unable to “work his way through the bureaucracy to get it done” or get the resources he needed.
“So everything that RFK has been saying about chronic disease and our food and the need to do something about it, Caliph has been saying that throughout his tenure,” Mande said.
In July, the FDA finally banned brominated vegetable oils. Brominated vegetable oils are food additives used primarily in fruit-flavored sports drinks and carbonated beverages that carry potential health risks, including damage to the liver, heart, and brain. But the ban was only proposed last year, decades after government agencies concluded it was unsafe for use in food.
The agency is also working on updating its definition of “healthy,” with plans to propose new front-of-pack nutrition labels in the coming weeks, but it’s unclear whether it will be able to do so before the new administration takes office. The FDA is also reevaluating the potential cancer risks of Red Dye No. 3, a synthetic food coloring already banned in California and Europe.
An FDA spokesperson said in a statement that the agency “intends to make a decision on Red Dye No. 3 soon.”
Other additives allowed in the United States but prohibited in many European countries include yellow dyes No. 5 and No. 6, potassium bromate and azodicarbonamide. Both of these are used in flour for making bread.
need allies
Of course, much of what President Kennedy can accomplish will depend on how he decides to shake up public health institutions, including the FDA, Nestlé said. President Kennedy threatened to eliminate “entire departments” of the agency, including the nutrition division. We will need people with knowledge of how to move food policy forward.
Mr. Munde said Mr. Kennedy would likely need allies in the administration, especially at the FDA and Agriculture Department, who can push Congress to take further action to achieve his goals. President Trump has not yet announced who will fill these roles.
Mr. Politi said Mr. Kennedy may also have to work with the food industry to some degree. Nestlé agreed, noting that the industry has remained largely silent with Trump in the White House.
“It’s been very quiet and I haven’t heard any grain companies making big statements about artificial colors, saying there’s no evidence they’re harmful,” Nestlé said. “I don’t hear the fast food industry saying anything. It’s inexplicable that the fast food industry didn’t waste a single millisecond when Michelle Obama tried to do something.”
It remains to be seen whether Kennedy will face any backlash if confirmed.
All experts agree that President Kennedy’s best opportunity to make the biggest impact is to develop the 2025 Dietary Guidelines for Americans, which will provide nutritional guidance for the next five years and which the Department of Health and Human Services will be responsible for overseeing. I agreed that I owed it. Nestlé said its Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee is currently finalizing a scientific report that will help inform the guidelines. However, she added that both HHS and USDA are responsible for setting new guidelines.
“The government agency will develop guidelines and the government agency will have a new secretary,” Nestlé said. “Dietary guidelines could very easily mirror Kennedy’s policies.”
Mande said dietary guidelines are a “political process”.
“As I said, what kind of budget do they need to educate the public about food advertising? They don’t have the budget, right?” he said. But President Kennedy “will be able to write almost anything he wants into these guidelines,” he said.
“It’s powerful,” he said.
