MAHA Moms: Why RFK Jr's health agenda resonates with Americans

by Issam AHMED

He has been pilloried for his vaccine skepticism, but Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s push to reduce America's reliance on processed foods and pharmaceuticals has also struck a chord.

As RFK Jr. faced hostile questions from Senate Democrats during his confirmation hearing, the corridors were filled with supporters eager to catch a glimpse of their hero -- now bidding to become President Donald Trump's health secretary.

"He was a huge factor in my vote for Trump," said Chana Walker, a 37-year-old hairstylist and former Democratic voter, as she waited outside an overflow room with fellow fans of Kennedy's "Make America Healthy Again" movement.

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For these "Moms for RFK," concerns about food additives, water pollution and rising autism rates -- issues that resonate with scientists and elements of the political left -- intertwine with a mistrust of the medical system and skepticism toward vaccine safety that can drift from established facts.

Sporting matching purple shirts, they came from varied political backgrounds, defying easy categorization.

"If you look over in Europe, you can probably name and recognize most of the ingredients," said Emily Stack, the 30-year-old political director of Moms for America.

"But here, you look at the same product and can't even pronounce half of them."

Priscilla Lyons, a 35-year-old who works in sales, said she opposes Ozempic-like drugs as a quick fix for America's obesity epidemic.

She's inspired by Kennedy's emphasis on organic foods and exercise to address root causes rather than enriching pharmaceutical companies.

When the subject turns to how the US health care system manages depression, the group sighs in agreement.

"It's always, 'take pills,'" said Rachel Truhlar, a 52-year-old military spouse.

- Growing movement -

Kennedy, 71, was once a celebrated environmental lawyer who accused climate change deniers of treason.

By the mid-2000s, he began shifting his focus toward public health, taking on obesity and criticizing harmful practices by Big Agriculture.

However, he also took a hard turn toward conspiracy theories, chairing Children's Health Defense -- a nonprofit widely regarded as a source of vaccine misinformation.

In a recent book, he went so far as to question whether germs truly cause disease and cast doubt on whether HIV causes AIDS, positions thoroughly at odds with scientific consensus.

Epidemiologist Syra Madad, a fellow at Harvard's Belfer Center, believes Kennedy has succeeded in exploiting a void left by successive governments' failure to address persistent public health problems.

"They're highlighting statistics that are true -- like the obesity crisis -- and as a mom of three, that resonates with me," she told AFP.

"I'm very conscious about what my children eat and what they put into their bodies."

Yet she faults Kennedy for "bumper sticker" slogans that lack deeper substance, coupled with his harmful anti-science positions.

"That's where the rubber meets the road: when you look at RFK -- his experience, his line of thinking, and who he surrounds himself with -- it's concerning because he doesn't support science-based evidence."

Madad also found it troubling that Kennedy, during his hearing, seriously downplayed his history of hostility toward vaccines -- from falsely linking the measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) shot to autism, to calling Covid-19 vaccines the "deadliest ever made."

On the question of vaccines, the Moms for RFK generally take a dim view.

Walker noted that while her son received his early-childhood shots, she eventually sought a religious exemption so he would not need any further ones.

Another member, 49-year-old business owner Shari Nielsen, blamed Johnson & Johnson's Covid-19 vaccine for her husband's heart problems.