Despite their initial claims, MAHA (RFK’s Make America Health Again initiative) has not put up much of a fight yet, though that may be about to change. The movement has sometimes seemed complicit with toxic industries or sabotaged by Republican overlords – no surprise there. The foundational May report accurately identified high levels of chronic disease caused by cumulative exposure to toxic chemicals and appropriately condemned bias in industry-funded research. Yet the September Strategy Report showed evident influence of the pesticide industry, pulling back on obvious ways to limit exposures.
However, one very important recent success for children’s environmental health indicates the possibility of positive cooperation with the MAHA movement, which I have previously written might be an ally in protecting children. In the minority, Democrats and environmentalists alone cannot accomplish much, but if they team up with MAHA moms who pressure Republican legislators, there seems a smidgen of hope.
As reported in The Guardian and elsewhere, the petrochemical industry had succeeded in inserting a provision into a congressional appropriations bill that protected pesticide manufacturers from being sued and kept states from warning against the risks. This occurred just as it is becoming apparent how pesticides have ruined health for so many Americans – including children, including my daughter Katherine, who died at age eight of leukemia we have every reason was caused by chlorpyrifos, a toxic pesticide activists have tried to ban for years. My next book, Poisoning Our Children, under development with Johns Hopkins UP, tells that story and the story of how environmental chemicals are harming so many.
The preemption measure “would have impeded states and local governments from warning about risks of pesticides even in the face of new scientific findings about health harms if such warnings were not consistent with outdated EPA assessments. The EPA itself would not be able to update warnings without finalizing a new assessment….” I have seen how this plays out at the EPA. One wrong or limited assessment scaffolds up to an inability to regulate almost any chemical, no matter how toxic, no matter how robust the subsequent research.
The main players in opposing the preemption rider were Democratic legislators, including Chellie Pingree (D-Maine), but according to The Guardian, the MAHA movement worked behind the scenes to persuade key Republicans to vote to remove the disastrous measure. Zen Honeycutt, a MAHA leader and founder of Moms Across America whose name I have seen everywhere, asked members to help “Stop the Pesticide Immunity Shield.”
It was Bayer Crop Sciences that led the effort to protect industry over people’s health.
It is no secret that the industry representative on our CHPAC committee who is employed by Bayer, which has also acquired Monsanto, insisted on a completely different letter on the health hazards of plastics and opposed foundational principles that some of the best experts on children’s environmental health insist are essential to protecting it. I have seen first-hand how industry seeks to undermine protections for children in favor of bloody lucre, and anyone who cares to can read between the lines in this first-ever dual letter from the CHPAC.
MAHA’s founding document stated that “the chemical-manufacturing industry spent roughly $77 million on federal lobbying activities in 2024, while 60% of their lobbyists previously held federal posts.” But then many of those appointed to leadership positions in the EPA since are chin-deep in the industry cesspool, their pockets bulging with industry money. Reporters have written about the industry ties of Deputy Administrator David Fotouhi, Principal Deputy Administrator of the Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention (OCSPP) Nancy Beck, Deputy Assistant Administrators of the OCSPP Lynn Dekleva and Kyle Lunkler, and Associate Deputy Administrator Travis Voyles, some of whom spoke at our August CHPAC meeting. At the same time, EPA has fired trusted science advisors to the EPA.
We expect that new appointments to the CHPAC, called for by January 16 here will be packed with the worst industry representatives that can be found. If you know professionals in this space who are willing to fight the good fight on behalf of children while we still can, I hope you will share this invitation with them.
Finally, given a nuanced understanding of how organizations like MAHA work, I expect there are both good-faith and bad-faith actors involved, factions who are earnest about protecting children from the fossil-fuel, chemical, tobacco, and big food industries and those who are covertly in league with them. My money is on the moms. A battle is being fought. At stake? Nothing less than our children’s lives.
A September article in the New York Times quoted Zen Honeycutt as saying, “We mothers are not beholden to political parties…. We are going to support those or vote for those who put the health and safety of our children and our families first…. Right now, it appears that the Democrats are being more supportive of holding pesticide companies accountable for the safety of their products." I concur.
I call upon everyone of good faith, including, especially, the MAHA moms – who are likely motivated by some of the same reasons I am – to insist that those they have helped to put in power adhere to at least some of the promises they have made and a few of the principles they claim to support.
