RFK Jr’s No. 1 obstacle to embracing unhealthy food: money

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has vowed to transform America’s food system, vowing to crack down on foods and ingredients he blames for many of the country’s ills, including ultra-processed foods and food additives.

President-elect Donald Trump has chosen Kennedy to be his nominee for Secretary of Health and Human Services, where he would lead a sprawling department that includes 13 agencies that play major roles in Americans’ health. Among these agencies is the Food and Drug Administration.

Kennedy has a number of controversial views when it comes to public health, including anti-vaccine activism. However, experts generally agree that his views on food and nutrition are commendable.

Still, he likely faces one major obstacle: money.

The FDA’s food division, poised to play a major role in Kennedy’s ambitions, operates on a tight budget. Unlike the agency’s drug division, which is largely self-supporting throughout user payment at pharmaceutical companies when they apply for drug approval, its food division is more dependent on funding from Congress, said Jerold Mande, a former FDA senior adviser and former undersecretary for food safety at the Department of Agriculture. (Separately, Kennedy has suggested he wants to pay end-user fees, arguing the system creates a conflict of interest.)

Historically, Mande said, Congress has been reluctant to provide money for the agency’s food and nutrition program.

“The FDA’s food program has a billion-dollar budget, and only $25 million of that goes to food nutrition and chronic disease,” said Mande, now an adjunct professor at Harvard University and executive director of Nourish Science, a food advocacy group. “So there’s almost no money for it, and that’s the No. 1 barrier: they don’t have the budget or the staff to do anything.”

In comparison, the food industry spends almost 14 billion dollars a year on advertisingthe majority of which promote fast food, sugary drinks, candy and other unhealthy snacks, said Elisabetta Politi, director of nutrition for the Duke Diet and Fitness Center in Durham, North Carolina.

The industry, she said, probably spends millions more lobbying Congress.

“I think it’s a striking comparison of how difficult it is for consumers to make healthy choices when the food industry is so powerful,” Politi said.

Kennedy’s ideas about food are “good,” she said, but “how you do it, I’m not so sure.”

Difficult but not impossible

Marion Nestle, professor emerita of nutrition, food studies and public health at New York University, said that even with limited funds, it is not impossible to address the food industry, noting that Kennedy is not the only public figure to tackle unhealthy foods.

Former First Lady Michelle Obama, an advocate for healthy eating, started the Let’s Move! campaign, which focused on fighting obesity among children, including through healthy eating. She also championed the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act of 2010, which set new nutrition standards for school lunches, including more fruits and vegetables.

Late. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., has called for more thorough reviews of foods coming from overseas and recently compared processed food industry to the tobacco industry.

Mande said the current FDA commissioner, Robert Califf, has made food a priority in his second term. Califf spearheaded the restructuring of the FDA’s food division in the wake of the 2022 infant formula shortage crisis, which occurred after a facility was shut down due to bacterial contamination that the agency said may have been linked to two infant deaths.

Still, it’s clear that the division is moving slowly. Mande said Califf likely has wanted to do more, but he hasn’t been able to “move through the red tape to move forward with it” or get the necessary resources.

“I mean, everything RFK has said about chronic disease and our food and the need to do something about it, Califf has also said that throughout his tenure,” Mande said.

In July, the FDA finally banned brominated vegetable oil, a food additive used primarily in sports drinks and fruit-flavored sodas that carries potential health risks, including damage to the liver, heart and brain. However, this ban was only proposed last year, decades after the agency concluded that its use in food was not safe.

The agency is also expected to propose new front-of-pack nutrition labels in the coming weeks and is working on an update to the definition of “healthy,” though it’s unclear whether they’ll be able to get that done before the new administration comes in . The FDA is also reevaluating the potential cancer risk of Red Dye No. 3, a synthetic food coloring already banned in California and Europe.

In a statement, an FDA spokesman said the agency “intends to make a decision on Red Dye No. 3 soon.”

Other additives allowed in the United States but banned in many European countries include yellow dyes No. 5 and No. 6, and potassium bromate and azodicarbonamide, both used in flour for making bread.

Need allies

Of course, much of what Kennedy will be able to accomplish will depend on how he decides to shake up the public health agencies, including the FDA, Nestle said. Kennedy has threatened to eliminate “entire departments” at the agency, including the nutrition department. He needs people with knowledge of how to take food policy forward.

Mande said Kennedy will likely need allies in the administration to achieve his goals, particularly at the FDA and the Department of Agriculture, which can push Congress to do more. Trump has not yet announced which people he wants to fill those roles.

To some extent, Kennedy may also have to work with the food industry, Politi said. Nestle agreed, noting that the industry has been mostly silent amid Trump’s transition to the White House.

“They’ve been very, very quiet, and I don’t hear the cereal companies making big statements about the artificial colors, that there’s no evidence that they’re harmful,” Nestle said. “I don’t hear the fast food industry saying anything, which is confusing because those industries didn’t waste a millisecond when Michelle Obama tried to do something.”

It remains to be seen whether Kennedy will face pushback if and when he is confirmed.

All experts agreed that the best opportunity that Kennedy has to make the most impact is the development of 2025 Dietary Guidelines for Americanswhich will provide nutrition guidance for the next five years, and the Department of Health and Human Services is responsible for overseeing. The Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee is finalizing its scientific report, which will help inform the guidelines, Nestle said. However, she added, both HHS and USDA are responsible for setting the new guidelines.

“The agencies are writing the guidelines, and the agencies will have new secretaries,” Nestle said. “The dietary advice could very easily reflect Kennedy’s agenda.”

Mande said the dietary guidelines are a “political process.”

“As I mentioned, the budget they have to educate the public against food advertising? There’s no budget, is there?” he said.But Kennedy “will pretty much have the ability to write anything he wants into these guidelines,” he said.

“It’s strong,” he said.