MAHA’s Evidence-Free Health Policy

No matter how good your intentions, ignoring the evidence is a recipe for disaster.

Key health agencies are now in the hands of earnest, well-meaning people who, unfortunately, don’t know what they’re talking about.  For example, the CDC’s advisory committee on vaccines is largely composed of vaccine skeptics. When the committee decided to eliminate a recommendation for Hepatitis B vaccine for newborns, none of the speakers who addressed the committee, and no one on the task force assigned to investigate the question, was an expert on the disease.  An OB-GYN doctor from a Louisiana hospital instructed the committee about the use of aluminum in vaccines, failing to cite a Danish study of more than a million children that found no problems.

The mastermind behind all this, RFK Jr., has some zany ideas of his own. As I wrote in an earlier post, Kennedy thinks he can diagnose kids’ biochemistry by walking past them in an airport. No, I’m not joking.  Here’s what he said:

“I’m looking at kids as I walk through the airports today, as I walk down the street, and I see these kids that are just overburdened with mitochondrial challenges, with inflammation—you can tell from their faces, from their body movements, and from their lack of social connection. And I know that’s not how our children are supposed to look.”

Just in case you think he couldn’t really have said anything that bizarre, here’s the video. It’s only a half minute and well worth watching, if only to confirm he’s serious.

Kennedy is not alone in his eccentric ideas about health. Chiropractors are one pillar of MAHA. I had always thought of them as people with practical skill in  fixing bad backs.  It turns out that there’s a strong mystical element, going back to their founder, about the spine as the wellspring of spiritual harmony and wellness. MAHA has been an opportunity for chiropractors to elevate “natural” solutions (and their own professional status) at the expense of their medical rivals.  Chiropractors were key RFK Jr. supporters in his presidential campaign and remain central now.

Another key Kennedy supporter is MAHA Institute co-founder and co-president Mark Gorton. He views the healthcare system as “a fear machine to market pharmaceutical products.” In his view, the public health system “has a long history of overhyping fake pandemics,” and Americans would be healthier if they stopped drinking fluoridated water and getting vaccinated.

MAHA has adherents who are even further out of the mainstream. There’s the Free Birth Society for one.  According to an in-depth news report, “In F.B.S., to take radical responsibility means that a free birthing mother assumes complete responsibility for all the outcomes of her birth, including her own death or that of her child. No one is coming to save her, nor does she want them to. She is fully autonomous or, in F.B.S. parlance, sovereign.”  They oppose resuscitation of newborns that “deprived babies of the chance to choose to begin their lives.”

This is not to say that everything about MAHA is wrong. They’re certainly right that we need to pay more attention to prevention and to chronic diseases. Right now, MAHA representatives are also at war with Lee Zeldin, the head of EPA, over his effort to weaken protections against toxic chemicals. In a petition on social media, MAHA activists say that  Zeldin has “has prioritized the interests of chemical corporations over the well-being of American families and children.” No doubt that’s true. As this shows, even if you operate in evidence-free mode, you’re going to be right some of the time.

The problem, however, is that these well-meaning but profoundly ill-informed people are now in charge of our health care, where they are likely to wreak havoc.  We’re already seeing an upsurge in children hospitalized for measles, and a few dying, due to irrational opposition to vaccination. Things are only going to get worse.

anti-vaxxers, FDA, MAHA, Make America Healthy Again, public health, RFK Jr., science denial, vaccines