America needs a real challenger to corporate greed, not conspiracy-riddled RFK Jr.

Food program manager Claire Kelloway argues that the US needs a true opponent of corporate greed, rather than someone like Robert F. Kennedy Jr., whose stance is entangled with conspiracy theories.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. drew modest support from Republicans and Democrats by running for president on a campaign to “Make America Healthy Again, (MAHA), reducing chronic diseases such as diabetes and heart disease by targeting corporate influence over food regulation and nutrition standards. On their face, these are important goals. However, Kennedy is not the right leader to take them on — even if incoming President Trump gives him the chance.   

The danger of the MAHA movement is that it mixes real villains with false ones. So long as political leaders in both parties fail to meaningfully speak to the ways powerful corporations make us sicker, conspiracy-minded figures like Kennedy will be able to fill the void. Rather than chide Kennedy supporters, Democrats should drill down to the root sources of their fears, and fight for real corporate accountability.  

There’s no shortage of reporting debunking Kennedy’s more dangerous theories, but it bears repeating: no reputable scientific body has found a link between childhood vaccines and autism, nor evidence that 5G cell towers cause harm to human cells, nor that ivermectin can treat COVID-19.  

Kennedy’s broader argument emphasizes that people would not need as many medications (including vaccines) with better diets and fewer pollutants in the environment. While no one would question the benefits of a healthy diet and less pollution, these factors cannot provide the same disease immunity and treatment for acute illness as pharmaceutical products.  

Despite his falsehoods, RFK Jr.’s Make America Healthy Again platform has gained modest yet meaningful bipartisan appeal. Kennedy won support from 7-15 precent of the electorate over the course of his campaign, consisting largely of self-identified independents under 50 years old who were less likely to follow politics.  

Food and health-related conspiracy theories are nothing new. Studies suggest that some people cling to conspiracies to make sense of perceived threats to their needs and to control the anxiety of feeling powerless. At the heart of most compelling conspiracies is a grain of powerful truth that appeals to people’s intuition about how the world “really” works. A common thread in most wellness misinformation is the specter of Big Food or Big Pharma putting profits ahead of public health. On this point, Kennedy and the MAHA movement are not wrong.  

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