Latest news with #Means
Boston Globe
5 days ago
- Politics
- Boston Globe
Who runs ‘MAHA'? Inside Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s inner circle as health secretary.
At the core of the so-called 'Make America Healthy Again' movement is scrutiny of ingredients in food, agricultural production, and vaccines, as well as a rejection of decades of scientific consensus, sometimes favoring fringe and debunked theories. Get Starting Point A guide through the most important stories of the morning, delivered Monday through Friday. Enter Email Sign Up Here are the key people in Kennedy's orbit leading the charge. Advertisement The inner circle Kennedy's two closest advisers from the MAHA world are Calley Means and Stefanie Spear . Spear, the press secretary for his 2024 presidential campaign, is his deputy chief of staff and senior counselor. She's a longtime environmental activist who joined forces with Kennedy in 2011 to turn her environmental news and activism venture EcoWatch into an online operation. In 2020, she joined Kennedy's antivaccine group, Children's Health Defense, to run its news and activism arm. Robert F. Kennedy Jr., founder of Waterkeeper Alliance, walked through the Cleveland Rowing Federation boathouse with EcoWatch founder Stefanie Spear before speaking at an event in Cleveland in 2011. AP Photo/Mark Duncan/Associated Press At Health and Human Services, Spear remains his top communications adviser, managing his public appearances. She has, at times, drawn consternation from others in the administration for Advertisement Calley Means is a more recent arrival to Kennedy's orbit, having started working with him roughly a year ago, Means said in an interview last month. In that short time, he has become hugely influential. Means told the Globe he helped connect Kennedy with Trump when Kennedy's independent presidential campaign sputtered. Means is a health and wellness influencer and entrepreneur who runs a company that allows people to get letters of medical necessity to use their pre-tax health savings accounts to buy fitness and nutrition products from his company's partners. He is also the brother of surgeon general nominee Casey Means. He is a vociferous critic of sugar and processed foods, as well as the food industry, and has been a Means is serving the administration as a special government employee, an arrangement that allows him to bypass some ethics requirements for administration officials and maintain his ties to his business ventures. He is one of the most visible members of MAHA, appearing regularly in the press and at events organized by outside groups supportive of Kennedy. Means and his sister, however, have The outside influencers MAHA has its roots in social media and podcasts, where a coterie of health and wellness influencers have reached Americans with a broad cross-section of political views. Some are former Democrats, and many lean on their experience as parents to land their message. Advertisement The Free Press' Honestly with Bari Weiss hosts Jillian Michaels, Vani Hari, and Calley Means on January 19 in Washington, X and The Free Press host Inauguration Eve Vani Hari , known online as 'the Food Babe,' has earned millions of social media followers after Jessica Reed Kraus is a self-described 'mommy blogger' with a strong online social following. She built her media presence largely by purveying in celebrity gossip and conspiracy theories, but during COVID, she publicly opposed health mandates and later gained special access to cover the Kennedy campaign and Trump world, according Alex Clark is an online influencer The deputies The government's key health positions have been staffed with Kennedy allies or fellow ideological travelers. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., center, is flanked by, from left, Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Martin Markary; Jay Bhattacharya, director of the National Institutes of Health; President Trump; and Dr. Mehmet Oz, administrator of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, as he spoke in the Roosevelt Room at the White House, May 12, in Washington. Mark Schiefelbein/Associated Press National Institutes of Health director Jay Bhattacharya joined Kennedy in the world of COVID contrarianism, authoring a declaration from a group of scientists challenging mainstream public health views during the pandemic. Formerly a Stanford professor and physician-economist, Bhattacharya is overseeing efforts to overhaul how government scientific research funding is distributed, halting billions to traditional research with stated goals of investing in understanding the causes of disease rather than treatment. Advertisement Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Martin A. Makary is one of the longer-standing supporters of MAHA, having testified in Congress last year at a roundtable on the topic. Formerly a liver and pancreatic surgeon and researcher at Johns Hopkins University, Makary is an author who has criticized traditional medicine's dogmas and was also a COVID-era contrarian. Dr. Casey Means, a wellness influencer, left, and journalist Megyn Kelly attended a confirmation hearing for Robert F. Kennedy Jr. for the Secretary of Health and Human Services post at the Capitol in Washington on Jan. 29. Ben Curtis/Associated Press Casey Means , the sister of Calley Means, has been nominated to serve as surgeon general. She is a wellness author, influencer, and entrepreneur who has advocated a The outside support Some of Kennedy's staff and allies from his presidential campaign have transitioned to boosting his administration's agenda. Del Bigtree, founder of the Informed Consent Action Network, during an antivaccine rally outside the New York State Capitol in Albany in 2019. DESIREE RIOS/NYT Del Bigtree , a longtime antivaccine activist and filmmaker who served as communications director for Kennedy's campaign, took over as CEO for one of the outside big money groups that backed Kennedy's presidential bid, rebranded as MAHA Action. Bigtree was a constant presence at Kennedy's confirmation hearings, and the group coordinated press coverage of Kennedy's appearances as it produced glossy MAHA promotional content. Before his confirmation, Kennedy transferred ownership of the MAHA trademark to Bigtree. Bigtree, however, recently left the group, Advertisement Separately, publisher Tony Lyons and tech and finance millionaire Mark Gorton recently launched the MAHA Institute, a rebranded version of the dark money group they co-led alongside a political action committee that financially backed Kennedy's presidential bid. Lyons runs Skyhorse Publishing, a The launch of the MAHA Institute earlier this month The Hill ally Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., questioned Robert F. Kennedy Jr., President Donald Trump's choice to be the Secretary of Health and Human Services, as he testified before the Senate Finance Committee during his confirmation hearing, at the Capitol in Washington, Jan. 29. Jose Luis Magana/Associated Press Kennedy has picked up a number of supporters on Capitol Hill who have taken up his MAHA brand or who share his skepticism of vaccines, but Senator Ron Johnson , Republican of Wisconsin, is arguably his most stalwart ally on the Hill. Last September, not long after Kennedy endorsed Trump and debuted his MAHA message riffing off of Trump's 'Make America Great Again' slogan, Johnson Tal Kopan can be reached at
Yahoo
6 days ago
- Health
- Yahoo
Trump's Surgeon General pick credits magic mushrooms with helping her find love. Here's what to know about the psychedelic drug
Dr. Casey Means, a Stanford-educated surgeon and wellness influencer with no active medical license, is President Donald Trump's pick to become the next U.S. Surgeon General. But what you might not know is that she is also a fan of the psychedelic drug called psilocybin, found in magic mushrooms. Means says that she first took psychedelic mushrooms in 2021, the Associated Press reports. Means attributes psychedelics to helping her find love, and said the drugs can be 'a doorway to a different reality that is free from the limiting beliefs of my ego, feelings, and personal history.' She also wrote in a recent book that people should consider psilocybin-assisted therapy, according to the AP. The drug is federally illegal. However, the Food and Drug Administration has approved psilocybin to be used as a 'breakthrough' drug. This designation helps accelerate the development and review of medicines that have been shown to improve treatment for illnesses. Clinicians study psilocybin in carefully-controlled experiments. However, a peer-reviewed study published last month shows usage has skyrocketed, particularly among adolescents and people over 30. In 2023, more adults used magic mushrooms than other recreational drugs such as cocaine, LSD, methamphetamine or illegal opioids, the study found. Dr. Albert Garcia-Romeu, an associate professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, spoke to The Independent about the rise of psilocybin — and what researchers are still trying to figure out. Psilocybin has been studied for its physical and psychological effects by researchers in medical settings. Garcia-Romeu's own research explores how psilocybin can aid addiction treatment. The psychedelic medication showed 'really good success rates' in helping people quit smoking when combined with therapy, he told The Independent. Psilocybin has also been shown to treat depression, Garcia-Romeu said. The treatment is particularly effective in treating depression and anxiety in cancer patients who are approaching the end of their life, he added. While psilocybin is known for its psychological effects and can treat mental health disorders, it also shows promise in treating a variety of physical illnesses. Studies have shown the drug can help patients suffering from migraines, the chronic pain condition fibromyalgia and Lyme disease. There's still a lot we don't know about psilocybin's effects on the body. Researchers still aren't sure how exactly psilocybin works, Garcia-Romeu said, and don't know how or why psilocybin treats certain mental health conditions. Scientists also don't know how it causes certain biological changes, such as reducing inflammation, according to Garcia-Romeu. 'We don't really know how or why one dose of the drug can have an antidepressant effect that lasts anywhere from six weeks or longer,' he said. Researchers are also working to understand who these drugs are best able to help. 'Who's going to be a person that responds well, and who's going to be a person that won't necessarily have a good treatment response?' Garcia-Romeu said. 'Who is at risk of potentially developing problems after receiving these types of treatments?' While psilocybin can't cause you to overdose in the same way as drugs like fentanyl, alcohol and Xanax, it can trigger serious mental illnesses, especially in large amounts. 'It can cause very intense psychoactive effects, so when people are under the influence, they can become disoriented, they can become paranoid, they can become delusional,' Garcia-Romeu said. Psilocybin can also unlock mental illnesses that haven't come to the surface yet, like schizophrenia or Bipolar I disorder, Garcia-Romeu explained. This typically happens in patients with a personal or family history of these disorders. 'It could trigger these ongoing problems for weeks, months, or even years,' Garcia-Romeu said. 'They could then end up having to deal with this sort of latent mental health issue that was underlying.' There's also many different species of mushrooms, and getting them from a non-clinical environment can also mean not knowing exactly which type of mushroom you're ingesting. At the federal level, psilocybin is considered a 'Schedule I' drug. That means it has no accepted medical use and has a high potential for abuse. But, thanks to the FDA's 'breakthrough' designation, researchers are learning more about how it can treat certain illnesses every day. Garcia-Romeu expects it could be widely legalized for medical use under a doctor's supervision within a decade. Many people who report using it recreationally also have chronic pain or mental health conditions, and it's believed the use is part of self-medication and management. But widespread legalization isn't going to happen any time soon, he said. 'Legalization to the point where people would be able to go out and buy this like they would alcohol at a liquor store, I don't think that's going to happen in this country probably in our lifetime,' he said. There are also evolving policy conversations about psilocybin use for religious and cultural purposes. Psilocybin has been used by Indigenous communities for centuries. 'Long before Western science or medicine knew anything about these drugs, they were being used as part of the spiritual and religious lives of Indigenous cultures in Central, South and North America,' Garcia-Romeu said. 'That's something that will probably lead to more debate and policy discussions, and it's unclear how exactly that's going to shake out,' he added.
Yahoo
23-05-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
Trump's former surgeon general calls for maintaining qualifications current nominee doesn't have
President Trump's former surgeon general, Jerome Adams, said this week that failure to maintain certain requirements for the role he once occupied would compromise the 'mission and credibility' of the federal public health service. Trump's current nominee for the role, Casey Means, graduated from medical school but did not complete her residency, meaning she is not a practicing physician, a distinction that historically has been a prerequisite for the role. Means and her defenders, including Kennedy, say she left the formal health care system because it was not making people healthier, and she and her brother have carved out a popular lane as influencers and authors aligned with the 'Make America Healthy Again' agenda. Without naming any names, Adams stated in a lengthy post on the social platform X that his thoughts were in 'no way a personal criticism of any candidate, but a clarification for the sake of the integrity of the [U.S. Public Health Service Commissioned Corps (PHSCC)] that I was blessed and honored to lead.' 'Physician requirements include a medical degree (e.g., MD or DO), a residency, and a valid medical license,' Adams wrote. 'This is analogous to how an Army General must meet the minimum qualifications to serve in the military before being promoted to lead other troops who are held to those same standards.' When Trump announced he was replacing Janette Nesheiwat with Means to be his pick for surgeon general, critics from within MAGA and the Make America Healthy Again movement spoke out against her. Adams noted at the time that surgeon general nominees historically have been required to be licensed physicians. Critics of Means, who graduated from Stanford University School of Medicine, have latched on to her decision not to complete her residency program. According to former colleagues of Means, she left a five-year residency program at the Oregon Health and Science University after 4 1/2 years due to anxiety and feeling she wanted to do something different. Means is co-founder of Levels, a health technology company that focuses on tracking health information through medical devices. Adams served as surgeon general during Trump's first term and is presidential fellow and the executive director of the Center for Community Health Enhancement and Learning at Purdue University. He acknowledged that appointing nonphysicians is not explicitly prohibited by law but said the requirements of leading the PHSCC would make having a medical license 'indispensable.' Adams gave the example of the Air Force chief of staff not being legally required to have completed flight training or licensure, but noted those credentials are strongly implied by the responsibilities of the role. 'The Surgeon General's position as a trusted public health authority and physician makes full training and licensure a critical expectation in addition to an implicit legal requirement,' Adams wrote. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Los Angeles Times
22-05-2025
- Health
- Los Angeles Times
‘MAHA moms,' psilocybin therapy, anti-vaxxers: L.A.'s wellness movement's path to the White House
On Oct. 29, 2022, the universe told Dr. Casey Means her fate lay in Los Angeles. President Trump's new pick for surgeon general wrote in her popular online newsletter of her epiphany, which came during a dawn hike among the cadmium-colored California oaks and flames of wild mustard flower painting the Topanga Canyon: 'You must move to LA. This is where your partner is!'' Los Angeles has been a Shangri-La for health-seekers since its Gold Rush days as the sanitarium capital of the United States. Today, it's the epicenter of America's $480-billion wellness industry, where gym-fluencers, plant-medicine gurus and celebrity physicians trade health secrets and discount codes across their blue-check Instagram pages and chart-topping podcasts. But by earning Trump's nod, Means, 37, has ascended to a new level of power, bringing her singular focus on metabolic dysfunction as the root of ill health and her unorthodox beliefs about psilocybin therapy and the perils of vaccines to the White House. The surgeon general is the country's first physician, and the foremost authority on American medicine. Means' central philosophy — that illness 'is a result of the choices you make' — puts her in lockstep with Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and in opposition to generations of U.S. public health officials. Means declined to comment. But interviews with friends and her public writings track a metamorphosis since her move to L.A., from a med-tech entrepreneur and emerging wellness guru to the new face of Trump's 'Make America Healthy Again' movement, or MAHA for short. If confirmed, America's next top doctor will bring another unconventional addition to the surgeon general's uniform: a baby bump. Friends told The Times Means and her husband, Brian Nickerson, are expecting a baby this fall. '[The pregnancy] will definitely empower her,' said Dr. Darshan Shah, a popular longevity expert and longtime friend of Means. 'It might create even more of a sense of urgency.' On this, both supporters and critics agree. Fertility is a primal obsession of the MAHA movement, and a unifying policy priority among otherwise heterodox MAGA figureheads from Elon Musk to JD Vance. In this worldview, motherhood itself is a credential. 'She's going to say, 'I'm a mom, and the reason why you can trust me is I'm a mom,'' said Jessica Malaty Rivera, an infectious disease epidemiologist and an outspoken critic of Means. Mothers have long been the standard-bearers for Kennedy's wellness crusade. 'MAHA moms' flanked him at the White House during a roundtable in March, where they filmed themselves struggling to pronounce common food additives. Many flocked to Trump after the president vowed to put Kennedy in charge of the nation's healthcare. 'It's such a radical change that's required [in medicine],' said the writer and healer Deena Metzger, 88, whom Means has called one of her 'spiritual guides.' 'It's wildly exciting that she might be surgeon general, because she's really thinking about health.' Her outsider status gives her a clear-eyed perspective, her supporters say. 'The answer to our metabolic dysfunction is through lifestyle,' said Dr. Sara Szal Gottfried, an OBGYN and longtime friend of Means. 'Seventy percent of our healthcare costs are due to lifestyle choices, and that's where she starts.' Means' 2024 bestseller 'Good Energy' touts much the same message: Simple individual changes could make most people healthy, but the medical system profits by keeping them sick. 'Moms (and families) will not stand anymore for a country that profits massively off kids getting chronically sick,' Means posted on X on Jan. 30. 'Nothing can stop the frustration that is leading to this movement.' Critics say that elides a more complex reality. 'This is what we call terrain theory — it's the inverse of germ theory,' said Rivera, the epidemiologist. 'Terrain theory has a very deeply racist and kind of eugenic origin, in which certain people got sick and certain people didn't.' She and others point out that Means is being elevated at the same time the administration guts public health infrastructure, slashing staff and research funding and aiming to cut billions more from public safety net programs. 'MAHA is why we are defunding the [Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and National Institutes of Health],' Rivera said. 'Thirteen million people could be uninsured because of [Medicaid cuts].' But trust in those institutions — and in physicians generally — has tanked in the past five years, surveys show. The blurring of personal pathos and professional authority at a moment of crisis for institutional medicine is central to MAHA's influence and power, public health experts say. They point to the movement's broad appeal from cerulean Santa Monica to crimson Gaines County, Texas, as evidence that health skepticism transcends political lines. '[MAHA] has sucked in a lot of my blue friends and turned them purple,' Rivera said. 'I have people doing the mental gymnastics of 'I'm not MAGA, I'm just MAHA.' I'm like, 'I don't think you realize those two things are one thing now.'' Means' own celebrity is similarly vast, uniting Americans fed up with what they see as a sclerotic and corrupt medical system. Her opposition to California's stringent childhood vaccine mandates, enthusiasm for magic mushrooms, and obsession with all things 'clean' and 'natural' have endeared her to everyone from raw milk fans to anti-vaxxers to boosters of Luigi Mangione, the accused killer of a healthcare chief executive who regularly receives fan mail while awaiting trial in Brooklyn's Metropolitan Detention Center. 'We've never had anyone in that role [of surgeon general] who almost anyone knew who they were,' Dr. Joel Warsh, a Studio City pediatrician and fellow MAHA luminary, whose book on vaccines 'Between a Shot and a Hard Place' came out this week. 'We know the public loves her.' That adoration may yet outshine concerns over Means' medical qualifications — despite her elite education, she left just months before the end of her residency as an ear, nose and throat surgeon at Oregon Health & Science University. Her Oregon medical license is current but inactive and her experience in public health policy is limited. And while the nominee vigorously defends the brand partnerships that often bookend her newsletters and social media posts, others see the dark side of L.A. influence in the practice. 'L.A. is its own universe when it comes to wellness,' Rivera said. 'You can convince anybody to buy a $19 strawberry at Erewhon and say it's worth it, the same way you can sell people colonics and detox cleanses and all kinds of wellness smoke and mirrors.' Means made her name as CEO of a subscription health tracking service whose distinguishing feature is blood sugar monitoring for non-diabetics — a practice she touts across several chapters of her book. Her newsletter readers are regularly offered 20% off $1.50-per-pill probiotics or individually packaged matcha mix promising 'radiant skin' for its drinkers. More recently, she's partnered with WeNatal, a bespoke prenatal vitamin company whose flagship product contains almost the same essential molecules as the brands offered through Medicaid — the insurance half of pregnant Californians use. Taking it daily from conception to birth would cost close to $600. 'So many of the companies that she supports, so many of the companies selling snake oil have some connection to or presence in Los Angeles,' Rivera went on. 'It is the mecca for that kind of stuff.' Even some in the doctor's inner circle have misgivings about the world of influence that launched her, and the administration she's poised to join. 'I'm not sure the obsession with wellness is really about wellness,' Metzger said, her husky Gentle Boy lying at her feet in her home in Topanga. 'There's wellness, which is maybe even a social fabrication, and there's health.' The writer and breast cancer survivor has spent decades convening doctors and other healers on this mountaintop as part of her ReVisioning Medicine councils, probing the question posed variously by Soviet writer Mikhail Bulgakov and American humanitarian Dr. Paul Farmer, Jewish philosopher-physician Moses ben Maimon and fictional heartthrob Dr. Robby on 'The Pitt': Can we create a medicine that does no harm? 'How do you believe in that? Or associate with it?' she wondered about the MAHA movement her friend had helped to birth. 'But If she's there and she has power to do things, it will be good for us.' While mainstream medical authorities and wellness gurus agree that pesticides, plastics and ultraprocessed foods harm public health, they diverge on how much weight to give MAHA's preferred targets and how to enact policy prescriptions that actually affect them. 'We have people forming a social movement around beef tallow — let's get that focused on alcohol reduction, tobacco reduction,' said Dr. Jon-Patrick Allem, an expert in social media and health communication. 'I don't disagree with reducing ultraprocessed foods. I don't disagree with removing dyes from foods. But are these the main drivers of chronic disease?'
Yahoo
19-05-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
RFK Jr. is laundering Christian right views as MAHA
At first blush, Casey Means seems like the last person Christian conservatives would want as the Surgeon General. Donald Trump's new pick for the nation's top doctor, though she does not have a medical license, favors the occult-speak popular in the "wellness" influencer world where she makes her money. As Kiera Butler and Anna Merlan at Mother Jones documented, Means veers "in a more New Age direction" in her "medical" writing. "Perhaps the body is simply the material 'radio receiver' through which we can 'tune in' to the divine," she mused in her October newsletter, where she also speculated about "the vibration of humanity" and how the "future of medicine will be about light." In another, she wrote about how she found love after she built a "small meditation shrine in my house," performed "full moon ceremonies," and spoke with trees, "letting them know I was ready for partnership, and asking them if they could help." One MAGA influencer, Laura Loomer, did try to make hay over this, but she's Jewish and so is largely ignored by the Christian right on matters like this. But Loomer isn't wrong that, in the past, this behavior would get the evangelical world all worked up over the evils of paganism and witchcraft. So far, however, they're mostly silent on the matter. That's likely because Means is aligned with them against an enemy they hate far more than Satan: feminists. Along with her shrines-and-moons talk, Means also wrote that she had shed "my identity as a 'feminist,'" giving up on wanting "'equality' in a relationship" to instead embrace "a completely different and greater power: the divine feminine." It's woo-woo, but ultimately no different than the message promoted by conservative Christians: that a woman's role is as a man's helpmeet, not his equal. Christian conservatives know they have a branding problem. Increasing numbers of Americans in recent years are rejecting organized religion, seeing it as cruel, restrictive and close-minded. At the same time, interest in a more vague spirituality is on the rise, fueled by "wellness" influencers framing spirituality as a shortcut to worldly gains like money, fitness, and romance. The Christian right was always more interested in social control than in Jesus. Increasingly, they seem comfortable with reskinning their retrograde ideas with the aesthetics of woo-woo instead of Christianity, so long as it serves the goal of crushing social Carlson is a good barometer of this. The internet show he started after he was fired from Fox News has an overtly Christian nationalist lean. He had Means on in September to spread lies meant to scare women out of using hormonal birth control. After Carlson falsely presented it as forbidden information with "you were not allowed to criticize the pill," Means fired off a rapid series of lies. She compared the birth control pill to "spraying of these pesticides" and said it was "literally shutting down the hormones in the female body that create this cyclical lifegiving nature." She said it's a "disrespect of life" to prevent pregnancy. Unsurprisingly, while recommending other women stay perpetually pregnant for their "health," Means appears to have no children. Part of the Christian right's comfort with a pagan-esque spin on their retrograde politics is that conservative Christianity has been getting witchier in recent years. That's due to the rise of charismatic Christianity, which has received a big boost by associating itself with Trump, who many charismatics regard as a holy figure fulfilling a prophecy. "It is a style of supernaturalist spirituality and miracle- and prophecy-based preaching that was fairly niche within American evangelicalism circa 2015," explained Dr. Matthew Taylor, a religious scholar at the Institute for Islamic-Christian-Jewish Studies. Charismatics emphasize practices that used to be fringe in American Christianity, such as "ideas of faith healing or miracles, prophecy, and the occult/demonic forces of opposition," are normalizing as charismatic Christianity surges, he added. Carlson, again, is a good barometer of this. He used to present as a staid mainline Episcopalian, but now he denounces that church and speaks of being "mauled by demons." Casey and her brother, Calley Means, are tight with Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert Kennedy, which is why she got the surgeon general nod and her brother got a position as a "special government employee" assisting Kennedy. Kennedy has exploited the false perception that he's a liberal Democrat to bamboozle some people into thinking far-right health policies, such as slashing Medicaid, are "moderate" positions. Like the Means siblings, he's also using his appeal to people outside the religious right as a way to launder Christian right views. Last week, Kennedy ordered the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to "review" the legality of mifepristone, a drug used to abort pregnancies. He said this was necessary due to "new data," which is actually a non-reviewed "study" by a Christian right organization falsely claiming abortion pills are dangerous — a "study" that was immediately debunked by experts. Kennedy has a long history of embracing fake science while ignoring real science, but this is his first foray into doing it to cape for a cause that's primarily, if not exclusively, associated with the religious right. But it works for him because his "MAHA" slogan — short for "Make America Healthy Again" is based on the lie that Americans were healthier in the era before public health interventions like vaccines. That notion fits nicely with the long-standing, false Christian right claim that American women were better off before the pill was invented or abortion was legalized. It's all lies. In 1950, life expectancy for women was 71 years, and it's nearly 80 years now. Similarly, maternal and infant mortality declined throughout the 20th century, in large part because of contraception and legal abortion. But the fantasy that there was some "natural" past era when people were healthier has a lot of appeal in some corners, and the Christian right is only too happy to exploit it to push a deeply anti-feminist message. Certainly, the "tradwife" trend on social media, which ties a naturalistic aesthetic to patriarchal gender roles, is part of this larger MAHA rebranding of the Christian right. Nor are Christian conservatives merely riding the coattails of charlatans like Kennedy or the Means siblings. In January, Politico reported that Christian right groups are using "MAHA" packaging to claim that abortion pills are a water contaminant and must be banned under anti-pollution laws. 'This is not because the environment was my first weapon of choice — it's because it's the one we have now,' Kristi Hamrick, the vice president of Students for Life of America, admitted. "And, frankly, I'm for using the devil's own tools against them." By "devil's tools," she means laws keeping air and water clean for living, breathing human beings, including the babies Christian conservatives falsely claim to care about. But lying is also a "devil's tool," and lying is very much what is going on here. There is not a shred of scientific evidence that women who miscarry at home from abortion pills and flush their very early pregnancies are contaminating the water supply. That thinking is more magical than scientific, as if the perceived "sin" of abortion could somehow transmit itself through water. But it's not surprising that anti-abortion activists think they can sell this nonsense in the RFK era, where "vibes" and conspiracy theories are replacing science-based medicine.
