Written by Lyle Weems, Staff Writer
Is Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) a distracting slogan presented by the current presidencies’ campaign to encapsulate the changes planned for American health or a genuine attempt at improving people’s well-being?
Under Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the current Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS), a new movement called MAHA has arisen to shift the focus of health regulations in America. RFK Jr. is a well-known anti-vaccine activist who has publicly indulged in conspiracy theory and pseudoscience, making his detrimental position as the chief of such a scientific agency one of questionable merit.
The HHS dominates the organization of all aspects of citizens’ health in the United States by managing agencies such as the CDC, FDA, Medicare, and Medicaid. This is to ultimately control not only the safety of the daily manufactured goods but also the healthcare programs so many Americans rely on. Healthcare in specific has been increasingly targeted during Trump’s administration, so the question falls to whether the best interest of the American is even considered. The HHS also carries responsibility for dealing with public health crises and overlooking the focus of scientific work and policy.
In response to the overwhelming shift in which RFK has brought to HHS, many scientists there have expressed concerns about their work being destroyed and disinformation becoming commonality. It seems that he has begun to discredit the federal health research programs and sow divides within the health community, forcing many scientists to step down. Should this harmful procedure continue, major changes will soon become clear in America. First there will be a decreased trust in science and public health programs, which are already very fragile, and without support cannot provide the scientific research needed to advance medicine. Second, the reduced credibility of public health agencies will be threatened which will then stall their ability to help people in a timely manner with proven solutions. Finally, RFK presents a policy shift that will act as a step backward in time and allow health to become a matter of politics and not public benefit.
MAHA acts as a distraction of misinformation and policy change to allow for the distrust in science to take root and ultimately give Trump more absolute control over the people of this nation. The basis of MAHA halts investigation into infectious diseases, an increasingly prevalent issue that has boomed with innovation in the past years, with a shift to a focus on chronic diseases. The solutions being pushed forth are aimed at issues with a less scientifically innovative focus, such as: stress, physical inactivity, poor nutrition, environmental exposure, and the overprescribing of medicine. In other words, MAHA attempts to convince the public that medical science and advancement are misleading and unnecessary despite the fact that statistically world health has been on the rise because of modernization. That is not to say those issues are not still prevalent but rather that it is an active step back in scientific complexity and a purposeful measure to weaken government health programs. Nutrition has long been an accepted factor in public health, but the suppressed research into disease is indispensable. And all of this to siphon the money and resources elsewhere far from the American citizens in need of the support previously provided.