Evanston center named for pioneering Latino couple is dedicated
'The Prieto family home was the gathering place where everyone was welcome,' said Johnson, a longtime former Evanston resident who is now the mayor of Libertyville. 'The Prietos provided a clear example of the kinds of things we need to admire in this country and practice in our value system – inclusion, service, family and prayer.'
Johnson was among a half-dozen speakers who celebrated the Prietos as Evanston marked the official naming of the Dr. Jorge and Luz Maria Prieto Community Center, 430 Asbury Ave., on July 19.
'This is not just the dedication of a name on a building,' she said. 'It is far more important than that. It is the continuation of a legacy of two wonderful people whose lives not only impacted the lives of their nine children and grandchildren, but my life and that of so many in this community, Chicago and Mexico.'
Dr. Jorge Prieto, who served as president of the Chicago Board of Health in the 1980s and also as a Cook County Hospital department head, was celebrated as a generous physician who treated members of the community regardless of income, opened health clinics in Chicago and traveled to California to treat migrant workers.
'He was a quiet, unassuming man who nonetheless found himself at the forefront of medical, immigrant and workers' rights causes,' said his 2001 Chicago Tribune obituary.
'He became an icon for a generation of Mexican-Americans living in Chicago, a city that at the time barely recognized their existence, let alone provided for it.'
On Saturday, Evanston Mayor Daniel Biss called the naming of the community center a 'joyous occasion.'
'This is a wonderful moment to celebrate a family that did so much for the health and welfare of the community and did so much for the integration of Evanston,' Biss said. 'They paved the way for Latino families to come to Evanston.'
Biss said the 14,500-square-foot community center, which will provide recreation such as pickleball courts and drop-in play areas, is a much-needed facility where youth and the rest of the Evanston community can gather.
'This sense of community is what makes Evanston so great,' he said. 'I'm excited about what the facility is going to be and remain for the citizens of Evanston.'
Jeanne Fox, former head of the Evanston Mental Health Board, said Luz Maria Prieto served as the petite but powerful leader of the city's efforts to diversify its staff to begin to accommodate the needs of Latino residents.
'She was an eloquent, passionate speaker,' Fox said. 'She spoke about the needs of Latino residents. In 1975, Evanston had no one in city services who spoke Spanish.'
After appealing to the City Council at three consecutive meetings, Evanston found the funding to hire a Latino outreach coordinator, she said.
'I was assigned to help her accomplish her goals,' Fox said. 'There were many challenges to overcome, but there were many successes, too. Today, many of the services that were achieved are part of regular city services.'
Two of the Prietos' children thanked Evanston for the dedication.
One of the couple's sons, Dr. Jorge Prieto, Jr. agreed with other speakers that his parents did not choose their actions for their own benefit, but rather to improve the lives of others.
'They would never have sought this honor themselves, for their goals were never personal rewards or wealth,' Prieto said. 'They abhorred those who would benefit from the suffering of others. They sought to eliminate the inequities that led to that suffering.'
His parents were exiled from Mexico by a 'corrupt' president, Prieto said. His father grew up in Texas and California during the Depression, he said.
'He experienced life firsthand as an impoverished immigrant,' Prieto said. 'When my parents first moved to Chicago in the middle of the last century, this young Mexican couple experienced the discrimination that was so prevalent then and unfortunately still exists. They moved to Evanston because they sought better opportunities for their growing family.'
Daughter Luz Maria Prieto shared a story of her father providing medical treatment to a man who could not afford to go to a doctor.
'For our family, this story captures how my family worked as a team and my father practiced medicine,' Prieto said. 'He believed everyone deserved medical care regardless of their income.'
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Vox
an hour ago
- Vox
The one, big unanswered question about Ozempic
covers health for Vox, guiding readers through the emerging opportunities and challenges in improving our health. He has reported on health policy for more than 10 years, writing for Governing magazine, Talking Points Memo, and STAT before joining Vox in 2017. We are nearing a point of no return for GLP-1 drugs. More than one in 10 Americans have already taken a GLP-1 agonist, be it Ozempic, Wegovy or Mounjaro. The medications, originally developed for diabetes treatment, have proven to be remarkably effective in helping people lose weight — and America is in the throes of an obesity crisis. They have shown promise in treating cardiovascular diseases, the country's leading killer and a direct consequence of the obesity epidemic. With each additional study finding yet another application for these drugs, you might find yourself asking: Should I be taking Ozempic? Should everybody take it? Is there anything these drugs can't do? And indeed, right now it can seem like everyone will be taking GLP-1, sooner or later. These drugs currently require regular injections and can cost more than $1,000 out of pocket, but cheaper and more easily used versions are coming. Eli Lilly will soon bring a pill version to the market, with a version expected to debut at a lower price than injectable Ozempic or Wegovy did. A generic GLP-1 agonist is on track to arrive at Canadian pharmacies in 2026 and a US version will likely follow within the next decade. Some of the newer versions in development may prove to be even more effective than the first generation, which will only create more demand among doctors and patients. Put it all together, and we can expect many, many more people taking them. GLP-1 drug prescriptions for adults with commercial insurance increased by a staggering 364 percent from 2019 to 2024, but they were still only prescribed to 4 percent of insured US adults; more than 100 million US adults — 40 percent of the population — are obese, the Wall Street Journal reported earlier this year, and as more insurers cover these drugs for weight loss, more patients will be able to access them. These drugs' power comes from their mysterious ability to control people's compulsions. Patients who take an GLP-1 agonist say that the fatty ultraprocessed foods they used to find irresistible are no longer so tempting, though sometimes those old cravings for unhealthy junk come rushing back after taking the drugs for a while. Substances as habit-forming as coffee no longer hold the same sway. Others notice decreased desires that have nothing to do with their diet — to bite their nails, for example. We are entering the Ozempic era, and even as excitement grows about the possibilities for these medications, now is the time to take seriously the possible risks from this new class of drugs. A lot of people experience brand-new cravings, sometimes for healthier foods. 'Beans — I get cravings for beans. I never really ate them before, now I crave homemade baked beans in a tomato sauce,' Sarah, a charity development worker from Scotland who has been taking a GLP-1 compound for a few months, told me by email. 'It used to bother me if a cafe served beans on a cooked breakfast; now beans is the main part of my breakfast.' Swapping salad greens for carbs sound like a clear win — in fact, it sounds almost too good to be true. In the long term, what does it mean to modulate our desire? Are we sure we can suppress the harmful compulsion to eat too much without compromising the productive ones — such as the desire to succeed or the pleasure we find in personal relationships? How might these drugs impact our experience of joy and pain? What might that do to impact the messy human experience of…simply living? 'What are the very long-term effects of these drugs? The literature will say, 'Well, there isn't really bad long-term effects because some people have been taking it for diabetes for 10 years, and they don't have bad effects,'' Kent Berridge, a professor of psychology and neuroscience at the University of Michigan, told me. 'And I think that's a fair argument. But then 10 years is not 20 years or 30 years.' We are entering the Ozempic era, and even as excitement grows about the possibilities for these medications, now is the time to take seriously the possible risks from this new class of drugs. In my conversations with some of the top experts on the science of cravings, they offered a cautious outlook in regard to messing with our brain's desire pathways. But they were also optimistic that these drugs could deliver benefits to many Americans without turning us into emotionless robots. Why GLP-1s work for so many different medical conditions In the 1980s, scientists had identified the naturally occurring hormone GLP-1 and its importance in regulating people's digestion. By the end of the decade, investigators had confirmed that the hormone encouraged insulin production — offering the potential to treat people with diabetes, who struggle to produce insulin that regulates their blood sugar. Then just a few years later, a scientist identified a peptide from the Gila monster that was similar to the human hormone GLP-1 but came in a more stable form, offering therapeutic potential. By the mid-2000s, the first GLP-1 agonist drugs were approved for diabetes, but the daily injections required and the narrow focus kept the market small. In 2017, the Food and Drug Administration approved Ozempic — a weekly injection, rather than a daily shot. By that point, doctors had already begun to notice that some patients who took the GLP-1 agonists experienced a reduced appetite with resulting weight loss. Researchers began to study the weight-loss effects and they were stunned: One of the first studies found users lost 15 percent of their body weight, on average, in little more than a year, a wildly larger percentage than from any other weight loss drug or tool. The Ozempic fervor had begun. Specialty pharmacies started to sell off-brand compounded versions of the drugs. The FDA then approved Wegovy, an Ozempic successor, for weight loss in 2021, and in 2023, Zepbound got the green light for weight-loss prescriptions. As their astonishing weight-loss effects became clear, research into GLP-1 agonists and their health benefits exploded. Today, the list of possible benefits is genuinely astounding. But how, exactly, do they work? First, a drug like Ozempic mimics the natural GLP-1 hormone in your gut, which slows down digestion in the stomach and gastrointestinal tract. Those who take it feel fuller earlier and longer, and it's easier for them to eat less. The better regulation of blood sugar also prevents massive swings in glucose, which can induce hunger. As a result of its effect on digestion, the most common clinical side effects reported with Ozempic and its peers are nausea, vomiting, diarrhea and constipation. In clinical trials for GLP-1 treatment for diabetes or obesity, between 4 and 12 percent of patients experienced constipation; a similar share of patients endured vomiting and diarrhea. There have been reports of other rare but serious physical side effects: The drugs have been linked to an elevated risk of eye disease among older patients, for example. Some people who lose weight quickly experience temporary hair loss, a symptom that a small number of patients on GLP-1 medications have anecdotally reported. But scientists have also discovered these drugs can affect your brain directly, with sometimes surprising and unpredictable effects on people's cravings — for food and for other things. Naturally occurring GLP-1 secretes from in a person's intestines into their blood and it disappears within a matter of minutes, destroyed by enzymes in the blood, Berridge said. As a result, it does not cross into people's brains very easily. The drug form, GLP-1 agonists, on the other hand, can cross this barrier. When a person takes Ozempic or Wegovey or whichever GLP-1 they've been prescribed, the semaglutide endures for a long time, giving it more time to cross into the brain. Once the chemical is in that person's brain, it can turbocharge neurons in your brainstem that naturally produce some very small amounts of GLP-1. Those neurons then release the hormone into many other parts of the brain and disrupt the release of dopamine, which produces that little surge of pleasure that makes eating a sweet sugary piece of cake so damn good or finishing a half marathon after months of training so satisfying. 'The drugs are getting into these structures and it turns out that they suppress cravings in all of these places, including the reward-system ones,' Berridge said. Scientists began to make this connection when observational studies reported that people who took a GLP-1 agonist for its diabetes or weight-loss effects also reported consuming less alcohol or fewer illicit drugs than they did before. Researchers started to probe further, experimenting with injecting microdoses of a semaglutide directly into the brains of animals in lab studies, and they have found a decrease in all kinds of cravings, including powerful compulsions for cocaine and heroin. These findings have introduced the startling possibility that, beyond food, we could control some of the most uncontrollable urges that people struggle with, often to the detriment of their health. But they also bring us to the big question: If we can turn down the volume of our desire, how might that change the very emotions that make us human, the experience of our deepest joys and pleasures? What the science on desire can tell us about GLP-1s I've started to think of the dilemma these drugs present this way: Can I cut off the part of my brain that compels me to reach for a bag of potato chips at night, without compromising the desire to sit down and read books with my children? Unfortunately, we simply don't know yet. Scientists aren't exactly sure how these complex human desires interact. The desire to eat, for example, is one of our oldest evolutionary impulses, Berridge, the Michigan neuroscientist, told me. Can we really mess with that ancient part of our brain without unintended consequences? There are at least two ways of thinking about what the answer might be. First, the (maybe) good news: Berridge's research has focused on the distinction between wanting something and liking it. He told me if Ozempic can eliminate our unchecked wanting of something that's bad for us — such as fatty, processed foods or alcohol, for example — but still maintain our enjoyment of it, that would suggest people who take it are not suddenly at risk of losing all of the pleasure in their lives, including other things that also cause a surge of dopamine in our brains, like finishing a creative writing project after months of work or cherishing conversations with your friends. This is a concept that my former colleague Brian Resnick explored last year: GLP-1s have the ability to manipulate a figurative 'dial of desire' in our brains, which could be leveraged for good. In the 1980s, Berridge worked on a series of experiments with a colleague, Terry Robinson, in which they eliminated dopamine in rats. What they observed was the rats stopped voluntarily eating, drinking, and seeking other rewards set up by the investigators. However, when they were given something sweet to eat, their faces would react positively to the taste, just as they normally would. That reactivity, the researchers postured, was a proxy for their joy. The rats could also still become averse to new sensations, which again affirmed a capacity for strong emotions, even if their compulsiveness had been removed. Berridge told me he actually doubted their findings at first — how could you like something but not want it? — but it continued to be replicated in experiments by other investigators over the years. In one particularly revealing experiment from 2005, participants were given cocaine and a dopamine-blocking drug. They still liked the cocaine when they were given it, but their desire for additional cocaine was dampened when the dopamine was blocked. The study was small, but it affirmed Berridge and Robinson's initial insight: Dopamine appears to influence the wanting of things, rather than the liking of them. Early studies of Ozempic patients indicate most participants still enjoy their food despite their compulsion to eat being reduced. Some of them, including some of the patients I spoke with, also found themselves desiring healthier foods. 'That's encouraging,' Berridge told me. 'I would say that's a good thing.' However, another way of understanding desire would raise more cause for concern. Jackie Andrade, a psychology professor at the University of Plymouth, has worked with colleagues on the Elaborated Intrusion Theory, which proposes that all our cravings are not unique brain processes but part of our general motivation. According to this theory, when we encounter certain 'triggers' — such as a physical sensation or some environmental cue — the trigger leads to a burst of spontaneous thoughts about an object of our desires. And when we begin mentally picturing our desire, our craving for it only increases. Here is the key finding, Andrade told me: The object of desire — whether it be alcohol, chocolate, or cigarettes — is less important than the underlying mental processes involved in craving. The brain mechanisms are the same regardless of the craving, based on their observations of people's brain patterns when being presented with different triggers. We crave something because the image of it in our minds is briefly pleasurable and thinking about whatever it is boosts our mood, which in turn strengthens the craving and our awareness that we don't have it. This explains one of the conundrums about desire: Our desires are thoughts and thoughts require mental effort. So why aren't they easier to shake? This cycle of environmental triggers — seeing a billboard advertising fast food or attending a cookout with chips and dip on display — leads to our imagining the craving, which leads to both pleasure if we satisfy it and frustration if we don't, which is why we feel such strong impulses to resolve the cravings. But, at least according to the Plymouth researchers' work, there is not a clear distinction between a craving for a piece of pizza and a craving for something more productive. 'From our research, the cognitive processes are the same for both,' Andrade said. 'Could we have less driven entrepreneurs or marathon runners because they're on these drugs and they're too chilled out to want to do anything? Right now, we don't know.' What we still need to figure out about these drugs Even as their usage explodes, the reality behind these drugs and how they affect our desires is still a mystery. Pills are likely to have the same effect as injections on cravings, Berridge told me, so long as the GLP-1 agonist is still crossing into people's brains. 'In what sense is it reducing wanting? Because there's a couple of possible ways. One way would be to subtract a degree of intensity from every want,' Berridge said. 'So addictive wants go down, but then so do the everyday desires in life and even eagerness to go out into the world and face it and do things. That would be bad if it was a general subtraction in intensity of wanting.' 'On the other hand, it is possible that that's not what it's doing, but rather it's lowering the ceiling,' he continued. 'So really intense peaks of wanting can't go so high, but things below that ceiling can still remain normal.' In other words, GLP-1 agonists can only decrease the intense peaks of our cravings, which could allow us to, for example, not binge-eat or overdrink — without eliminating a more normal intensity of wanting for other things. The problem is, Berridge said: 'I don't know of any actual studies that have asked this question.' He said he would like to see a study that measures people's motivation to pursue a wide range of incentives, both mild and intense ones, when on and off one of these drugs. Researchers at the University of Plymouth are setting up studies that would evaluate behavioral changes in people who take the GLP-1 medications. We need more evidence, because what we have right now is circumstantial and inconclusive anecdotes. Peruse the many Reddit communities devoted to these weight-loss drugs and you'll see the subject of cravings come up a lot. Some people describe food cravings that come back after a few months of taking Ozempic or Wegovy. Others report strange new cravings they never experienced before, such as a sudden taste for milk. Some of the changes are expected — decreased desire for nicotine or alcohol — but some are puzzling: One user, a true crime aficionado, described a reduced desire to look at dark or gory materials online after being on a GLP-1 agonist. Others responded by sharing that they were less compelled to shop online or stopped biting their nails. Sarah, the charity development worker from Scotland, told me she started taking a GLP-1 drug three months ago after she gained weight during perimenopause and was struggling to lose it. She's since lost 18 pounds. There have been some physical side effects — fatigue and acid reflux — and she's noticed a significant shift in her cravings. Whereas she used to mix salads with pasta, she finds she no longer craves the carbs. Mashed potatoes used to be one of her favorite foods, but she hasn't eaten that once since going on the medication. At the same time, she has new hankerings for beans and green apples — which she told me she found puzzling because she says she used to hate the sound of teeth crunching into an apple. 'I don't get the same emotions from food,' she told me over email. 'It's nice, I enjoy it, but I don't feel food in the same way.' She, like many other patients, also says she no longer experiences the same desire to drink alcohol. She told me she drinks at most one night on the weekend and no longer attends happy hours with her colleagues like she used to, when she would have a few drinks midweek. 'I don't go and not drink, I just don't go,' she told me. 'Drunk people are tedious when you're sober!' GLP-1s are genuinely promising, but they also reveal our insatiable desire to find a wonder drug that takes care of all of our problems in one pill. Andrade said we should resist that temptation, even if Ozempic and its peers could play a role in helping to address important health crises. Research has consistently found that weight loss tends to be more sustainable when it includes behavioral changes in addition to pharmaceutical interventions. Ideally, you would do both: work on modifying your behavior, while medication assists. Losing weight isn't just about eating less, but eating healthier and exercising more in order to enjoy the health benefits that those positive activities produce. If Ozempic affects all kinds of motivation, patients may not be as driven to adopt those other desirable behaviors. 'If people are taking these drugs, are they more motivated to, say, become more physically active or to eat more healthily? Or are they less motivated because the drugs are doing it for them?' Andrade said. 'There's the risk that people might not want to make changes. If you've still got a bad diet and a sedentary lifestyle, you're building up other problems that are maybe a little bit more hidden because the obesity is not there.' This is already an ongoing subject of concern: Some studies have suggested that people who stop taking Ozempic gain back much of the weight they lost; that may be because they are not adopting desirable new behaviors — better eating, more activity — alongside their taking the drug. On the flip side, some doctors say they also worry about people who take the drugs for reasons other than weight loss but end up undereating and increasing the related health risks of undernourishment. Are these findings a canary in the coal mine for other unexpected and undesirable side effects related to the drug's effects on cravings? It's a genuinely vexing question. After all, many people take these drugs because they do have a problematic compulsive behavior — they eat too much. Getting those cravings under control is the point of getting a prescription. But are people also losing other less obvious desires? Are they losing, in a sense, a part of themselves? The evidence for now is mixed. One Reddit user joked they felt like they were getting mental health care they didn't know they needed. Two Reddit users shared that they had cut down from multiple cups of coffee in the morning to one (or less). 'I'm kind of bummed about it,' one said. 'I love my coffee.' 'Same. I love coffee,' the other poster replied.
The Hill
17 hours ago
- The Hill
Medicaid changes will hurt family caregivers, experts warn
Medicaid cuts under President Trump's sweeping tax and spending package will harm family caregivers, experts warn, by reducing access to health care for themselves and the people they care for, which could then lead to more caregiving responsibilities. The Congressional Budget Office estimates the package will reduce Medicaid spending by roughly $911 billion over the next 10 years and increase the number of uninsured Americans by up to 10 million. Some of those who could lose coverage are among the 8 million — or 13 percent — of family caregivers in the United States who receive their health insurance coverage through Medicaid, according to the National Alliance of Caregiving. 'We are very concerned of the impact of the just finalized Medicaid cuts on the community of family caregivers,' Jason Resendez, president and CEO of the alliance, said during a call with reporters earlier this week. Medicaid recipients will be subject to more frequent eligibility checks, in part, due to revised work requirements for the joint state and federal program. Now, adults between the ages of 19 and 64 will need to work or participate in community service activities for at least 80 hours a month to be eligible for health care coverage under Medicaid. There are some exceptions for parents with dependents as well as for those deemed 'medically frail' or who are pregnant or postpartum, according to the health care policy nonprofit KFF. Many caregivers cannot work outside the home because of the intense care their family members need, or can only work limited hours, which can make fulfilling Medicaid work requirements difficult to impossible. This was the case for Lisa Tschudi, host of caregiving podcast 'Love Doesn't Pay the Bills,' who stayed home full time to take care of her daughter who has ataxic cerebral palsy and epilepsy. 'We really did not have other options,' she said. 'I, many times, tried to line up some non-me care for her during the workday and a job for myself, and I never really got my start in a paid job in that way.' Her daughter's epilepsy was poorly controlled for years as a child and teen, which required her to travel for frequent doctors' appointments on top of taking care of her younger daughter. 'It was a lot to manage,' she said. Work requirements might force some family caregivers to look for outside help, if that is an option, which represents a new expense and, potentially, a new challenge to navigate. 'Even if you can find outside providers to come in … families often find that they are not reliable,' said Elizabeth Edwards, senior attorney at the National Health Law Program. 'Some of that inconsistency of how people show up as providers can mean it's very hard to hold a job.' Family caregivers also already spend huge amounts of time navigating numerous bureaucratic hurdles, and new work requirements will add to the paperwork they have to fill out to prove they are eligible for health care under Medicaid. This extra administrative work also increases the likelihood of errors occurring in the eligibility system, which could delay coverage or prevent some from being enrolled altogether, according to Edwards. That is what happened to many Medicaid recipients in Arkansas and Georgia when the two states implemented work requirements in 2018 and 2023, respectively. More than 18,000 people in Arkansas lost Medicaid coverage over the 10-month period the state rolled out work requirements without increasing employment, according to a KFF analysis. Georgia still has one of the highest uninsured rates in the country at 12 percent, according to the Commonwealth Fund. 'We anticipate [them] not just being faced with these eligibility issues, but family caregivers losing Medicaid coverage because of these additional hurdles that they'll be forced to traverse,' Resendez said. About 11 million family caregivers in the U.S. receive payment for the care they provide, according to Resendez. Those payments primarily come through home and community-based services and consumer-directed programs at the state level. But those programs will likely start to lose funding as states are forced to decide what to fund with fewer Medicaid dollars, experts told The Hill. 'When states have less money and are forced to make decisions, home and community-based services are the first optional benefits to get cut,' Resendez said. Tschudi, as well as her husband and second daughter, are all paid family caregivers under a home and community-based service their home state of Oregon's Medicaid program provides. Without that program, her family would likely have to go back to unpaid caregiving, which would not be financially possible at this time. 'I don't wish it on anyone,' Tschudi said about the struggles that come with unpaid caregiving. 'I really think you leave families in an impossible situation when you don't pay for caregiving.'
The Hill
19 hours ago
- The Hill
Coke with cane sugar may not be that big of a MAHA victory
Coca-Cola is going to offer a cane sugar version of its signature beverage, rather than one sweetened with corn syrup. Major segments of the food industry, including General Mills and Heinz, have pledged to remove certain colored dyes from their products. The fast-food chain Steak 'n Shake is making french fries in beef tallow rather than vegetable oil. Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has claimed them all as significant victories for his 'make America healthy again' (MAHA) movement as part of its quest to reform the U.S. food supply. 'Froot Loops is finally following its nose — toward common sense,' Kennedy said on social platform X after cereal-maker WK Kellogg Co. agreed to remove synthetic dyes from its cereal by 2027. 'I urge more companies to step up and join the movement to Make America Healthy Again.' But nutrition and food policy experts say the moves are a far cry from actually making America healthier. While they praised the administration and MAHA for drawing attention to what they said is a broken food system, the victories touted thus far have been largely symbolic and rely on the goodwill of an industry that is eager to appear helpful to avoid strict government regulation. 'I think if we're really curious about improving public health, some of the small health initiatives, like … replacing high fructose corn syrup with cane sugar, are really not where the administration should be channeling their efforts and leveraging the power that they do have,' said Priya Fielding-Singh, director of policy and programs at the George Washington University Global Food Institute. 'I think they should be focusing their efforts on initiatives that actually address the root of the problem, which is essentially a food system that promotes excess sugar, salt and fat,' Fielding-Singh said. Health officials and GOP lawmakers have taken to conservative media in recent weeks to tout the commitments from food and beverage companies to remove synthetic dyes. According to the HHS, nearly 35 percent of the industry has made such a commitment. But there's been no force behind the companies' actions, which experts said is an issue. 'Simply switching from synthetic to natural colors will not make these products less likely to cause obesity,' said Jerold Mande, a former senior official during three administrations at the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the Department of Agriculture and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration. Barry Popkin, a nutrition professor at the University of North Carolina Gillings School of Global Public Health, said Kennedy could make a major statement by banning all colors and dyes. It wouldn't directly make Americans healthy, but it would go a long way toward making ultra-processed food look less appealing. 'All this voluntary stuff only goes so far. It really does minimal impact,' Popkin said. 'Unless he goes to the FDA and has the FDA change a regulation … there's nothing.' Kennedy has also singled out the use of high-fructose corn syrup as a major contributor to diabetes and obesity. He has previously called it 'poison,' an epithet he repeated in late April when talking about sugar. When Steak 'n Shake said earlier this month it was going to sell Coca-Cola with real cane sugar, Kennedy praised the move. 'MAHA is winning,' Kennedy posted on X. But experts said there's no substantial difference in the benefits of using cane sugar as a substitute for high-fructose corn syrup. 'At the end of the day, a Coke is still a can of Coke. It's not a fruit or a vegetable, right? And so if you're not shifting consumption away from these higher calorie, lower nutrient processed foods, toward nutrient dense, health promoting foods, then you're not actually going to be shifting the health of Americans in the right direction,' Fielding-Singh said. But if Kennedy thinks sugar is poison, 'they're both sugar and would both be poison, in his words,' said Mande, who is now CEO of Nourish Science. Health officials argue industry cooperation is key to the MAHA agenda. 'Working with industry is the best place to start. And we believe in industry to do the right thing when called upon,' Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Marty Makary and Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Administrator Mehmet Oz wrote in a joint op-ed in The Wall Street Journal. 'Our agencies are in a strong position to show Americans which companies are doing the right thing when it comes to popular reforms. By the time we're done, we will have built new relationships and be better positioned to hold them accountable,' Makary and Oz wrote. Yet there is plenty the agency can, and should do, that industry has pushed back against. Aviva Musicus, science director of the nonprofit Center for Science in the Public Interest, said MAHA is wasting its political capital. 'It's striking that we haven't seen the administration use policy to improve the food system. It's solely relying on voluntary industry commitments that we've seen repeatedly fail in the past,' Musicus said. 'In pushing the food industry to change, Trump and RFK Jr. have a chance to live up to their promises to fight chronic disease. Coca-Cola is at the table, but they're wasting the opportunity to actually improve health. The administration should focus on less sugar, not different sugar,' Musicus added. Popkin said he would like to see warning labels on ultra-processed foods high in sodium, added sugar and saturated fat. Kennedy 'hasn't tackled ultra-processed food yet. That'll be where he could make an impact on health in the U.S. and all the non-communicable diseases, including obesity. But he hasn't gone there yet,' Popkin said. The coming months will reveal more on the MAHA movement's plans to change how Americans eat. New dietary guidelines will be released 'in the next several months,' Kennedy said recently. In addition, a second MAHA report focused on policy recommendations is expected in August. 'We have to be considering that there could be real potential down the road,' Popkin said. 'But [there's been] nothing yet. That document will tell us if there ever be.'
