The Make America Healthy Again movement is a threat to public health

The Make America Healthy Again, or MAHA, movement is a potent and growing Trump-centric subculture. MAHA influencers, politicians and followers argue that Americans have been made sick by corporate greed — which is as close to a unifying principle as MAHA can be said to hold.  

According to MAHA, pharmaceutical, agricultural and food industry giants have poisoned us with red food dye, seed oils, processed food and microplastics. And currently, the movement is obsessed with promoting so-called raw milk, incorrectly claiming that unpasteurized milk provides health benefits, including immunity to E. coli and salmonella. In fact, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, those who consume unpasteurized milk are 840 times more likely to contract a foodborne illness than those who drink pasteurized milk.

The most insidious aspect of MAHA is arguably its most defining feature: anti-vaccine rhetoric. On message boards, subreddits, livestreams and podcasts, many MAHA commentators disseminated anti-vaccine disinformation and false conspiracy theories throughout the Covid-19 pandemic.   

It was during the Covid pandemic, too, that the leading face of MAHA emerged: Robert F. Kennedy Jr. — who, before leaving the party and becoming an independent, challenged President Joe Biden for the 2024 Democratic presidential nomination. On the campaign trail, Kennedy pushed several MAGA conspiracy theories and promised to end the Food and Drug Administration’s “aggressive suppression of … ivermectin, hydroxychloroquine, vitamins, clean foods, sunshine, exercise, nutraceuticals and anything else that advances human health and can’t be patented by Pharma.” This is now gospel to the MAHA movement.   

A study by the Center for Countering Digital Hate cited Kennedy as one of 12 “anti-vaxxers who play leading roles in spreading digital misinformation about Covid vaccines,” especially when it comes to spreading falsehoods that childhood vaccines cause autism. Now, President-elect Donald Trump has tapped him to serve as secretary of health and human services.  

What makes MAHA’s grievances particularly complicated — and fascinating — is that they’re not entirely wrong. Autoimmune disorders, ADHD, anxiety, childhood obesity and chronic fatigue — just some of the health problems the movement cites — are all on the rise. The problem is the unholy marriage between conspiracy and reality. Take, for example, how the increased ADHD and anxiety diagnoses can be attributed, at least in part, to a greater understanding of mental health issues and an easing stigma around mental health.  

Last month, New York magazine mapped several prominent MAHA disciples’ — including influencers and even one conservative food journalist — journey from health conscious to full-throated embrace of wellness conservatism. Some came from the traditionally liberal, 1970s natural food movement. Many women found their way to MAHA disillusioned and frustrated after doctors dismissed their genuine health concerns. Still others came to MAHA from the growing anti-vaccine movement, which has been around for decades but went into hyperdrive during the pandemic. Regardless of their origin, the Covid-19 pandemic crystallized their beliefs and created something of a shared worldview or philosophy.  

Much of MAHA indoctrination happens, unsurprisingly, online. Take MAHA influencer Alex Clark. Clark’s hugely successful podcast, “Culture Apothecary,” explores many of the key tenets that make up contemporary MAHA conservatism: the dangers of hormonal birth control and vaccines, the ills of feminism, Christianity — including a strident anti-abortion sentiment — and the damaging effect of food on women’s fertility.

A lot of what Clark espouses is easily refutable, but nutritional science and many aspects of women’s health fall in a different category: They’re both understudied. Moreover, doctors often treat women with less care than men for similar ailments. For example, a study published by the Journal of Neurotrauma found that women are treated less aggressively for traumatic brain injury, a leading cause of mortality and disability. And that is just one example. 

Clark, also the face of Turning Point USA’s Young Women’s Leadership Summit, is a master at tapping into these painful, gray areas by capitalizing on fear and genuine lived experiences and creating something of a community around it. Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk noted in a statement to The Washington Post, “MAHA is a movement that transcends party, but it does skew female.” Clark is one of thousands of similar-minded influencers on Spotify, Instagram and TikTok.  

Addressing the growing conspiracy theory culture in the U.S., Naomi Klein argued in her book, “Doppelganger: A Trip Into the Mirror World,” that “conspiracy culture often gets the facts wrong but the feelings right.” There is no question that there is a health crisis, mental and physical, in this country. But MAHA’s “solutions” are not the answer. Their “facts” are wrong — a healthy populace actually needs vaccines and pasteurized milk — but the feeling may be closer to right.  

At first MAHA might seem like a strange MAGA coterie. Trump is, after all, famously sedentary with an affinity for fast-food burgers and dessert stations. It makes sense, though, when you consider what is at the heart of both the MAHA and MAGA movements: individualism.  

MAHA — from the movement’s mistrust of childhood vaccines to its influencers’ exhortations to “do your own research” — shows just how far American culture has gone to undervalue true community. My family, my needs, my children and my beliefs — the movement insists — are more important than anyone else’s — and the so-called elites telling us we have a responsibility to the community to vaccinate our kids are engaging in tyranny.  

In the MAHA mind, it’s all about you — science and the public good be damned.

This article was originally published on MSNBC.com