\n<\/p>\n
On the latest episode of Last Week Tonight, John Oliver delved into the \u201cMake America healthy again\u201d (Maha) movement, a \u201cbig tent\u201d group that\u2019s \u201cnot just Republicans\u201d.<\/p>\n
Many within the loose Maha movement are parents interested in feeding their children healthy food. \u201cPeople have found themselves in Maha for all sorts of reasons, and there are areas where it has legitimate concerns,\u201d Oliver said on Sunday evening. He pointed to numerous former episodes that overlapped with Maha concerns, from plastic to sugar to biases in medicine, and confirmed that experts agree with health secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr\u2019s central claim that American children are getting sicker; a child in the US is 15% to 20% more likely to have a chronic condition in 2023 than in 2011.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
\u201cSo for some, especially experts in diet and nutrition, suddenly seeing the Maha movement bring attention to issues they\u2019re passionate about has been validating if also bittersweet,\u201d said Oliver before a clip of renowned nutritionist Dr Marion Nestle admit that seeing Kennedy appointed health and human services secretary was \u201cthe first time I\u2019ve heard anybody at that level of government talk about these things \u2026 I can\u2019t get over it. And it\u2019s hard to put that together with some of the other things he\u2019s saying.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is<\/em> bizarre to have someone you virulently disagree with in most respects echo your opinions in another,\u201d Oliver confirmed. \u201cIt would be like if Kim Jong-un came out and said, \u2018Wirecutter has too many articles now, and if you\u2019re looking at Wirecutter for like ketchup, you need to reassess how you make decisions.\u2019 It would be weird.\u2019<\/p>\n \u201cUnfortunately, some of \u2018the other things\u2019 RFK is saying could now have massive consequences given the position that he\u2019s in,\u201d he continued. \u201cBecause even when he and his movement can be right about identifying a problem, their solutions can range from the superficial to the outright dangerous.\u201d<\/p>\n Oliver punctured some of the movement\u2019s claimed victories, such as the banning of certain artificial food dyes. Given that there is literature to support that synthetic food dyes can impact neurobehavior in some children, and the fact that there is no real need for them, Oliver didn\u2019t oppose removing dyes from foods. But experts say such moves \u201cwon\u2019t actually move the needle\u201d when it comes to Americans\u2019 health.<\/p>\n \u201cMaking a big deal out of narrow wins is part and parcel of this movement,\u201d he explained, pointing to the influencer and Kennedy acolyte Vani Hari, also known as the Food Babe, who markets her own line of protein shakes in videos calling out obscure ingredients in normal milkshakes.<\/p>\n \u201cYou might be thinking, well, who cares if some of Maha\u2019s boosters can be wobbly on the science or are hawking products, as long as RFK Jr is putting reliable people in charge at the top,\u201d said Oliver. \u201cBut I\u2019d argue he isn\u2019t.\u201d<\/p>\n The host then looked at the brother and sister duo of Calley and Casey Means, top advisers for RFK Jr. The former claimed on the Joe Rogan podcast that he convinced Kennedy to join Trump\u2019s campaign after a revelatory meeting at a sweat tent. \u201cI would rather be anywhere on earth than in a sweat tent with RFK,\u201d Oliver joked. \u201cI\u2019d rather be in a dumpster full of glass and cockroaches. I\u2019d rather be in a flight where half the passengers are babies and half are Mel Gibsons.\u201d<\/p>\n Oliver also mocked a Casey Means podcast appearance in which she drank a \u201cliver smoothie\u201d and winced. \u201cI think we as a society have collectively lost our grasp of what smoothies are supposed to be,\u201d he said. \u201cBecause there should not be meat in there, as that is definitionally no longer a smoothie. It\u2019s hospital food for a terminally ill hyena.\u201d<\/p>\n Both Meanses promote the idea of \u201cmetabolic health\u201d or, to quote their book, \u201cGood Energy\u201d, to the point that Calley Means said that cancer, dementia, and genetic diseases are not random, but \u201call tied essentially to food\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t think it\u2019s quite that simple,\u201d said Oliver. \u201cMost medical experts will tell you that it\u2019s not that health outcomes can\u2019t be impacted by personal behaviors or diet, but health is complex, and its components are personal, environmental and systemic, on top of which sometimes \u2013 and this is a technical term \u2013 shit just happens, and it\u2019s out of your control.\u201d<\/p>\n While the Meanses come down hard on processed foods, there are other areas where they are \u201cworryingly lax\u201d, said Oliver. Casey doesn\u2019t favor restrictions on selling raw milk, which can contain carry dangerous pathogens such as salmonella, E coli and listeria, and has entertained bogus ideas on vaccines causing autism. Calley Means said on Rogan\u2019s podcast that \u201cif you were metabolically healthy, you did not die of Covid.\u201d<\/p>\n If one is to take the Meanses at their word, they just want Americans to eat healthier, but their work with Kennedy is not accomplishing that goal. The new administration has cut $1bn in federal funding for schools and food banks to buy food from local suppliers, and its made cuts to Snap food assistance eligibility, meaning there are fewer recipients of free breakfast and lunch at school. \u201cWhich I guess is one way to accomplish Maha\u2019s goals \u2013 kids can\u2019t eat any food dyes if they\u2019re not eating anything,\u201d said Oliver. \u201cAnd that is the thing: whatever cosmetic gain Maha has won since Trump took office have been more than offset in massive losses elsewhere.\u201d<\/p>\n Oliver also looked ahead to potentially even worse losses ahead. The Department of Health and Human Services under Kennedy has already begun scaling back and defunding mRNA vaccine research, in what one public health expert called \u201cthe most dangerous public health decision I have ever seen made by a government body\u201d. And in June, Kennedy fired everyone from the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, which decides on immunization standards. He has since appointed seven new members, only one of whom is recognized as a vaccine expert, the rest being, as Oliver put it, \u201ca real who\u2019s-uh-oh of crackpots\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is a bleak time to be involved in public health,\u201d he summarized, as the administration is \u201ctaking a buzzsaw to so many of Maha\u2019s stated priorities\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cIt is maddening that for the first time in recent memory, there\u2019s been a genuine groundswell of support for a cleaner, healthier, less corporately controlled America, but it\u2019s taken this fucking form,\u201d he added. \u201cBecause for the final time: it is absolutely legitimate to want Americans to be healthier, and there are clearly legitimate problems when it comes to America\u2019s health. But these just aren\u2019t the solutions.\u201d<\/p>\n Instead, the administration is \u201cshredding the social safety net\u201d, said Oliver, while \u201celevating voices that push the responsibility for healthcare down to the individual\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cIn its current form, Maha is not about making America healthy again,\u201d he concluded. \u201cAt best, it is about laundering the reputation of an administration that is doing the exact opposite.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" On the latest episode of Last Week Tonight, John Oliver delved into the \u201cMake America healthy again\u201d (Maha) movement, a \u201cbig tent\u201d group that\u2019s \u201cnot just Republicans\u201d. Many within the loose Maha movement are parents interested in feeding their children healthy food. \u201cPeople have found themselves in Maha for all sorts of reasons, and there<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":16569,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[54],"tags":[574,4813,37,2021,9546,262,1899,177,286],"class_list":{"0":"post-16568","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-entertainment","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-bleak","10":"tag-health","11":"tag-healthy","12":"tag-involved","13":"tag-john","14":"tag-oliver","15":"tag-public","16":"tag-time"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16568","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=16568"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16568\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/16569"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=16568"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=16568"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=16568"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}