Public health leaders are horrified by Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s approach to fighting measles, but government and industry are responding.
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Cheryl Gay Stolberg
Cheryl Gay Stolberg covers health care policy from Washington.
- March 25, 2025 Updated 6:32 PM ET
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Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the health secretary, offers a new interpretation of President Trump’s “Make America Great Again” slogan that affects a wide range of food industries. Photo by Kayana Szymczak, Adam Friedlander, Scott Semler for The New York Times; Joe Raedle/Getty Images
Babies are not usually a topic of discussion in closed White House meetings.
But when Surgeon General Robert F. Kennedy Jr. gathered a group of women this month to discuss nutrition and other topics, a self-described “Food Girl” was stunned to see President Trump's press secretary with an 8-month-old baby on her lap.
As several female cabinet secretaries looked on, spokeswoman Caroline Leavitt lamented that infant formula in Europe appeared healthier than in the United States, where a recent study found many varieties were loaded with added sugar. Mr Kennedy met with formula makers last week and announced a push to expand the options for “safe, secure and nutritious infant formula”.
Activist Vani Hari was delighted. “It was such a fantastic opportunity to see some solidification of the MAHA agenda in different rooms,” she said, using the acronym for Mr. Kennedy’s Make America Healthy Again movement. She called it “a dream come true.”
The gathering of “MAHA Moms,” as Mr. Kennedy calls the corps of influencers and activists who follow him, was one of a series of orchestrated events held in recent weeks by Mr. Kennedy, who occupies an unusual position in Washington. The scion of a prominent Democratic family, his support for Mr. Trump, his penchant for spinning wild theories out of grains of truth and his promotion of what critics call quackery have made him one of the most controversial figures in the Cabinet, even as he has developed a devoted following of his own.
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Vani Hari, who attended Mr Kennedy's White House summit on nutrition, called the event “a dream come true.” Photo by Mike Belleme for The New York Times
But even some of Mr. Kennedy’s critics applaud his focus on obesity and healthy eating. He makes powerful industries and government officials uncomfortable by pontificating from his new perch as head of the Department of Health and Human Services on a varied menu of topics — offering alternative treatment ideas one day and criticizing industrial food companies the next.
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