Well being Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s Make America Wholesome Once more agenda proposes to eliminate toxins within the surroundings and meals provide. However the Trump administration is slicing again sources and laws wanted to realize that.
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It was a surreal second for Susanne Brander.
She was sitting within the viewers at a convention in April as Well being Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. spoke concerning the well being results of publicity to dangerous chemical compounds in our meals, air and water.
As she listened, Kennedy cited current analysis on microplastics from researchers in Oregon, discovering these tiny particles had proven up in 99% of the seafood they sampled.
“It was positively our examine,” says Brander, an ecotoxicologist at Oregon State College who co-authored the analysis together with a group at Portland State College.
The issue was, simply an hour earlier whereas in line for breakfast, an e-mail had popped into her inbox notifying her {that a} federal grant she’d relied on to fund her analysis for years — from the Environmental Safety Company — was being terminated.
Her analysis, the letter defined, now not aligned with the company’s priorities. And now right here was the standard-bearer of the Trump administration’s Make America Wholesome Once more, or MAHA, agenda elevating her work.
“I used to be baffled and extremely annoyed,” she remembers. “It seems like they’re selling the sector whereas ripping out the inspiration.”
Kennedy and the MAHA motion’s rise to energy is disorienting for scientists and advocates in environmental well being who’re centered on human publicity to poisonous chemical compounds and environmental pollution.
The analysis neighborhood has lengthy warned of troubling hyperlinks to power illness, particularly for kids, and have referred to as for extra authorities oversight of the plastic, fossil gas and chemical industries. Kennedy is bringing consideration to the difficulty as well being secretary.
And but within the first 5 months, the Trump administration has made strikes that run counter to those very objectives.
Well being Secretary Kennedy speaks on the Chemical compounds of Concern coverage summit in Charlotte, N.C., in April.
HHS/screenshot by NPR
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HHS/screenshot by NPR
“It is an infinite contradiction in actions,” says Thomas Burke, a former EPA official who directs the Johns Hopkins Threat Sciences and Public Coverage Institute.
The firings and downsizing of the federal workforce have disrupted groups that examine poisonous substances and pollution. Broad cuts to federally funded analysis have imperiled related scientific work. And regulators are weakening safeguards that restrict air pollution and different poisonous chemical compounds.
Dr. Philip Landrigan, a number one determine in environmental well being analysis, says the disconnect was underscored when the administration launched the MAHA Report final month, overseen by Kennedy and different Cupboard members, together with EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin.
That doc, which has come beneath scrutiny for inaccurate or nonexistent citations, positions the difficulty of environmental toxins and chemical compounds as a key precedence for tackling power illness in youngsters, together with food regimen, bodily exercise, expertise use and what it phrases “overmedicalization.”
Studying it, Landrigan says he could not assist however take into consideration the widespread harm the Trump administration is inflicting on the very businesses and scientific neighborhood with the “experience, expertise and know-how to guard youngsters towards these hazards.”
“You may’t say one factor and do one other,” says Sue Fenton, who directs the Heart for Human Well being and the Setting at NC State College, contrasting the administration’s rhetoric about clear water and air with its actions.
Yanked grants, cuts to workers
Examples of the contradictions will not be exhausting to seek out.
Cuts to the federal workforce beneath Kennedy’s watch have hobbled NIOSH, the Nationwide Institute for Occupational Security and Well being, which responds to poisonous chemical compounds and pollution within the office.
Throughout a spherical of layoffs, the administration eradicated most of a division on the Facilities for Illness Management and Prevention that investigated environmental hazards like heavy metals, air air pollution and carcinogens. Although many of those staff had been reinstated simply final week, President Trump’s proposed price range requires axing the CDC heart the place the division is housed.
President Trump, Well being Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Schooling Secretary Linda McMahon at an occasion saying the discharge of a Make America Wholesome Once more Fee report within the East Room of the White Home on Could 22. A number of different members of Trump’s Cupboard who served on the fee, together with EPA head Lee Zeldin, additionally attended.
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The Nationwide Institutes of Well being, which is beneath Kennedy’s command, has stopped accepting submissions for its flagship journal on environmental well being and yanked analysis grants. As an example, Ami Zota, an environmental well being scientist at Columbia College, had all 4 of her NIH grants canceled, although she was chemical publicity in shopper merchandise and monitoring how PFAS chemical compounds have an effect on ladies’s well being, throughout being pregnant and midlife.
A minimum of eight members of Mission TENDR, which research the hurt of poisonous chemical compounds on mind improvement and its hyperlink to neurodevelopmental issues, have misplaced federal grants, says Maureen Swanson, who co-leads the group.
She says one other 4 to 5 members are nonetheless ready to listen to about “pending cuts, together with to multimillion-dollar grants that fund their universities’ environmental well being analysis facilities.”
In a press release, the Division of Well being and Human Providers mentioned Kennedy “is dedicated to discovering the basis causes of the power illness epidemic, together with the toxins in the environment and our meals.” And the company has mentioned that it plans to consolidate and streamline work on environmental well being at CDC and elsewhere into the soon-to-be-formed Administration for a Wholesome America, or AHA.
Laws on maintain
On the EPA, which might play a crucial function in any substantive efforts to cut back dangerous chemical compounds and air pollution, the company’s administrator Zeldin is prioritizing deregulation and slicing workers.
The company has delayed implementing nationwide ingesting water requirements on PFAS, or “perpetually chemical compounds,” and proposed lifting laws to cut back emissions of mercury and poisonous pollution from energy crops. It has pushed again the deadline for trade to submit security research on greater than a dozen chemical compounds together with benzene, vinyl chloride and Bisphenol A.
The administration appointed a scientist who spent years working for the American Chemistry Council, Nancy Beck, to a outstanding function on the EPA, regardless of the MAHA report’s emphasis on eliminating conflicts of curiosity.
Zeldin has even touted EPA’s success in gutting analysis grants. The cuts have affected scientists who’re making an attempt to grasp the poisonous results of chemical compounds, together with a researcher at Wayne State College, Christopher Kassotis, whose work on chemical mixtures was cited within the MAHA fee report.
Rebecca Fry, chair of the division of environmental well being at UNC Gillings College of World Public Well being, says all of her school with EPA grants had them canceled.
“Their focus is strictly what’s in MAHA,” she says. “They’re making an attempt to grasp these advanced associations between chemical compounds within the surroundings and human well being and illness.”
And Zota worries concerning the lack of grants across the nation to coach scientists on the poisonous results of environmental chemical compounds. “It is simply so devastating,” she says. “In the event you discuss the best way to kill a subject, you actually assault the up-and-coming technology.”
The EPA mentioned in a press release to NPR that the administration is “working to resolve huge issues and having sturdy conversations throughout authorities about the best way to drive financial development whereas defending human well being and the surroundings as a part of the Make America Wholesome Once more Fee.”
EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin, accompanied by Schooling Secretary Linda McMahon (R), speaks throughout a Cupboard assembly on the White Home on April 30, 2025 in Washington, DC.
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A rising concern amongst scientists
As Kennedy’s MAHA push brings new visibility to her subject, Tracey Woodruff, who leads the us Heart on Reproductive Well being and the Setting, says she and lots of of her colleagues try to navigate a fragile train in science communication.
Kennedy has a historical past of creating false or deceptive claims on this subject, whether or not it is about chemtrails, or the impact of sure herbicides on gender. His rhetoric concerning the “mass poisoning of youngsters” can veer into sweeping claims concerning the impacts of environmental toxins, with out enough scientific proof. And his actions on vaccines have provoked alarm throughout public well being.
Extra broadly, MAHA’s give attention to environmental toxins typically displays a pressure of thought on the planet of different drugs and wellness that inaccurately frames any “pure” substance pretty much as good and man-made or artificial chemical compounds as dangerous.
Nevertheless it’s additionally true that in relation to many well-studied chemical compounds, together with some that Kennedy cites, “we’ve got sufficient information to take motion,” she says. “If we do not discuss concerning the issues that he is saying which can be actual points the federal government needs to be addressing, I am fearful it’s going to delegitimize all our work.”
Woodruff and others in her subject have outlined their main areas of concern in consensus statements and different peer-reviewed papers on the proof tying artificial chemical compounds and different substances to weight problems, most cancers, heart problems, fertility, neurodevelopmental issues and extra.
Phthalates, perpetually chemical compounds, flame retardants, bisphenols, formaldehyde-releasing preservatives and sure pesticides are among the culprits, however there are 1000’s in use which have by no means been rigorously evaluated for his or her well being results, particularly on infants and kids.
“There are big gaps in the way in which that we regulate or defend folks from these harms,” says Burke of Johns Hopkins.
It is enormously difficult to pinpoint the impression of particular substances as a result of folks encounter so lots of them over the course of their lives. The proof of hurt usually comes from lab work and long-running observational research that may search for relationships with illness and well being issues within the inhabitants.
More and more, researchers emphasize it is the cumulative publicity that’s most regarding right here.
“Many of those chemical compounds of concern assault the identical mechanism within the human physique and might have additive or exponential results,” says Dr. Leonardo Trasande, who directs NYU Langone’s Heart for the Investigation of Environmental Hazards and research the well being impacts of endocrine-disrupting chemical compounds in on a regular basis merchandise.
Linda Birnbaum, the now-retired director of the Nationwide Institute of Environmental Well being Sciences, was additionally within the viewers with Susanne Brander when Kennedy spoke on the coverage summit on chemical compounds and plastics earlier this 12 months.
She says about “80% to 90%” of what she heard throughout that speech was “actually good” concerning the want for main reform. “However there aren’t any easy options. We’re not going to remedy power illness in a 12 months or three years or 5 years,” she says.
Questions on a daring agenda
In public appearances, Kennedy has outlined what specialists describe as an bold agenda to overtake how the U.S. evaluates chemical compounds, notably within the realm of meals and a few shopper merchandise.
“It will do what many people have been asking for for a very long time,” says Trasande at NYU. “I am not making an attempt to place rose-colored glasses on. I simply assume we’ve got to name it pretty,” he provides.
This consists of trying on the cumulative and combination results of chemical compounds within the meals provide and revising a regulatory pathway that permits firms to self-declare whether or not a meals additive is secure.
In a press release to NPR, HHS additionally pointed to its announcement of a brand new evaluation program to “reassess beforehand authorized chemical compounds in meals and food-contact materials and develop security assessments to check endocrine and neurobehavioral results.” In response to the FDA, a public web site will share details about chemical compounds beneath evaluation.
However teachers and advocacy teams which have pushed for such adjustments are skeptical concerning the Trump administration’s dedication.
Even on eliminating petroleum-based meals dyes, an space that Kennedy has touted as a significant achievement, Woodruff factors out that the administration made this a voluntary resolution for producers, not an outright ban.
“We’re not seeing any significant motion,” says Katherine O’Brien, a senior legal professional on the nonprofit advocacy group Earthjustice.
“What we have seen is splashy press releases, handshake agreements with trade, and principally plans to make plans,” she says, “however what reduces the incidence of power ailments from chemical contamination is utilizing the federal authorities’s precise regulatory authority.”
She and different advocates say there’s quite a bit the Trump administration may do shortly — actions like prohibiting phthalates in meals packaging, which teams like hers have needed the FDA to do for years.
And the truth is that any complete effort to crack down on dangerous chemical compounds requires the EPA to additionally wield its regulatory powers as a result of the substances additionally present up in our water and the surroundings.
Maria Doa, a former EPA scientist now on the Environmental Protection Fund, says this can be a evident inconsistency within the Trump administration’s MAHA platform.
“You might want to take a holistic strategy,” she says. “You should not be pulling again efforts to manage our publicity to chemical compounds in a single space and say you are going to be extra protecting in one other.”
As a self-described pragmatist, Linda Birnbaum says she hopes to salvage one thing from the “mess” that has disrupted a lot of her subject, however principally she’s doubtful.
“Very truthfully, my concern with Kennedy, amongst others, is that as quickly as he begins really making an attempt to manage some of these items, trade goes to go to Trump and so they’ll kick him out,” she says.
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