Make America Healthy Again: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO)

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Our main story tonight concerns health. It's something a lot of people are shocked to learn I have, along with Peabody Awards, a viola I can actually play, and Eleanor Roosevelt's bones. Specifically, it concerns the MAHA movement, which stands for Make America Healthy Again.

It's most closely associated with RFK Jr., who opened a video about it last fall like this.

Hey, everyone, I'm here today to tell you which is almost closely associated with RFK Jr., who opened a video about it last fall like this.

for bear carcass skyrocket. to release videos like this.

This is a list of ingredients from foods, carrageenan, riboflavin, modus anisotium glutamate, and 20 others that I can't pronounce.

Sodium steroid lexalate. I think you're getting the picture that you can't pronounce this stuff.

Sodium gillionate, titanium dioxides. Polysorbate 80, BHT, TBHQ. If you are an American company poisoning us with ingredients you don't use in other countries, we're coming for you.

Okay, so first, riboflavin is just vitamin B2, but sure. Second, I'd love for the Secretary of Education to be able to read, just a personal preference. And finally, as long as we're blacklisting foods based on bad names, I've got some suggestions starting with kumquat, a word that starts with cum and gets worse from there.

Now, some of the non-administration figures in that video are Maha moms and influencers who played a big role in spreading this movement. Some have even been invited to the White House, like this influencer back in May.

So I'm in D.C. for the big announcement

I got some cherries, blueberries, apple.

And that is my lunch in the White House. So I'm eating raw milk, raw meat, grass-fed beef in the White House.

are necessarily Republicans. Every ingredient in this is organic. The mother of three is strict about what goes into her pantry and her kids, avoiding artificial and processed ingredients. She's part of the Maha movement. Cho is a Democrat. She lives in New Jersey.

It's not a political issue. It's an issue of, do you want your kids to get the best food or not? Do you want your kid to have the best environment to live in?

Look, I admire her commitment to serving only organic food, but I will say, the day her kids get given a gush up by a neighborhood kid, their lives are going to change forever. But I do get it. Ultimately, everyone wants their kids

to have the same set of things. Good food, a good environment, and zero desire to own spiders. You just want them to be safe, nurtured, and you also want, maybe a little bit more, a guarantee that at no point will there be

any tarantulas in or around your house. Those are the things every parent prays for, both to regular God and whatever ancient spider God and God pertains to the second thing. Oh, and happiness. You want them to be happy as well if there is, uh, if there's time. The point is, people have found themselves in Maha for all sorts of reasons. There are areas where this movement has legitimate concerns.

We've done plenty of episodes dealing with topics that overlap with the Maha agenda, and experts agree that there are times when RFK and this movement are pointing out real problems. For instance, one of the central claims he's made is that American kids are getting sicker, which is largely correct. A major study published last month in JAMA

found, among other things, there's a growing mortality gap between the U.S. and other developed countries, and that an American child was 15 to 20 percent more likely to have a chronic health condition in 2023 than in 2011. So for some, especially experts in diet and nutrition, suddenly seeing the Maha movement bring attention

to issues they're passionate about has been validating, if also bittersweet. Here is Dr. Marion Nestle, one of the country's foremost experts on nutrition policy, summing that up.

To hear RFK Jr. talk about the need to do something about chronic diseases, you know, it's the first time I've heard anybody at that level of government talk about these things, and he sounds just like me. I can't get over it.

And it's hard to put that together with some of the other things he's saying.

Right. It is bizarre to have someone you virulently disagree with in most respects echo your opinions in another. It'd be like if Kim Jong-un came out and said, Wirecutter has too many articles now, and if you're looking at Wirecutter for, like, ketchup,

you need to reassess how you make decisions. It'd be weird. I mean, I would agree with him. -...but that would be weird. -...but that would be weird. But unfortunately, some of the other things RFK is saying could now have massive consequences given the position that he's in.

Because even when he and his movement can be right about identifying a problem, their solutions can range from the superficial to the outright dangerous. So given that, tonight, let's check in on the Maha movement and do a few things.

Look at what it has and hasn't accomplished so far, meet two key people at the top of it, and examine where, if we are not very careful, we could be heading next. And let's start with the fact that some of Maha's big wins so far have been wildly oversold.

For instance, Coke recently announced that it'd start selling drinks made with cane sugar. And when Steak and Shake announced it'd offer Coke with that instead of corn syrup. RFK retweeted their post with, "'Maha is winning,' despite Marion Nestle referring to Coke's news as, -"nutritionally hilarious." -$1.50.

He's also made a big deal out of getting rid of synthetic food dyes, something prominent Maha influencers testified about at a Senate roundtable.

Many of the things discussed today, I think there is a nuanced debate. But with artificial food dyes, they have shown all over the world that they can use colorants that come from fruit. This is the Canadian version. This is the brightness of the Canadian version, just for visibility. And this is the brightness of artificial food dyes. So of course, Kellogg and other food companies will argue children prefer this over this,

just as they would prefer cocaine over sugar.

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Okay.

First, I don't think kids like cocaine more than sugar. I don't even think you could get a kid to do cocaine unless you told them it was sugar. And honestly, if what you're concerned about is kids liking cocaine, the food you need to focus your attention on is Pixie Stix,

a candy that seems to be explicitly designed to teach them how to do a line in the bathroom. I mean, it comes in a straw. And the theatrical gasp there when the colorful fruit loops are revealed is a bit over the top.

Guys, they're called fruit with two O's loops. And their mascots are rainbow-nosed toucan. Let's not get too shocked that the colors aren't natural. Now, I should say, there is literature to support that synthetic food dyes can impact neurobehavior in some children. And given that there is no real need

to keep them, why not take them out of foods? Totally fine. And when the U.S. dairy industry agreed to voluntarily remove synthetic dyes from ice cream, RFK touted it as another maja win. Though, you should know, experts have said

small moves like that won't actually move the needle when it comes to Americans' health, which does make sense because removing dyes doesn't address the fundamental issue with ice cream, which is that it is ice cream. A product with generally high sugar and fat content, not to mention the other issues it presents,

like the awkward conversation every parent's forced to have the first time their child asks to know the meaning behind Ben and Jerry's caramel sutra. Well, you see, son, when two people truly love but have grown quite tired of each other, they can rediscover an emotional spark deep in the raw power of prolonged mutual orgasm.

It was... It was something I was kind of planning on never having to explain to you, but it turns out the ice cream boys couldn't think of another pun on the word caramel, so here we are. But making a big deal out of narrow wins is part and parcel of this movement.

Here is one of her early hits.

Oh, hi there! I'm the food babe.

and stress, and well-being.

about love, betrayal, and meatballs, but the point is,

because Subway is still Subway.

But those investigations have sometimes led to her

wasn't her most impressive work,

warning about Chick-fil-A's frozen lemonade.

such as heart disease and type 2 diabetes.

that contain trans fats.

made with Trevonnie's lemon cookie protein.

But I'd argue he isn't.

to join the winning campaign. and I just had this strong vision of him standing with Trump.

that you can't quite put your finger on.

than in a sweat tent with RFK.

I'd rather be in Scottsdale.

Scottsdale.

is that he used to be involved in rigging it. Here is what he says he did there.

to the American Diabetes Association.

we're not gonna accept money from Coke. but for an unspecified coalition that they funded

And I probably could have saved us a whole lot of time

if I'd just said that at the start.

And you're like, almost done with it.

as an isolated incident. And look,

but the Means' take it much further.

about the root cause of diseases. We are being lied to that cancer is random, that dementia is random, that kidney disease is random, that all these issues that are killing us are random. They're not. They're all exploding. And they're all tied, essentially, to food.

Right, apparently, they're all tied to food. And according to The Means' book, food is a massive part of maintaining good energy. It actually contains a long list of processed foods, which they say should be avoided as strongly as if they were illicit drugs, which includes instant oatmeal, granola bars, crackers, packaged bread,

canned soup, and flavored yogurt. And look, I am not a scientist, despite my glasses and the many hours I spend doing surgical procedures on mice. But... I don't think it's quite that simple. Most medical experts will tell you, it's not that health outcomes can't be impacted

by personal behaviors or diet, but health is complex, and its components are personal, genetic, environmental, and systemic, on top of which, sometimes, and this is a technical term, shit just happens, and it's out of your control. And while the book mentions other factors, its relentless focus on metabolic health

suggests that if you can simply maintain good energy, not only can you enjoy the natural state of fertility that is your birthright, but you can live relieved of the nagging anxiety the precipitous physical or mental decline awaits you, or you'll develop a disease that runs in the family.

But it is hard not to read that and feel like if you're having trouble conceiving or if you develop a genetic condition, it's somehow your fault. And for what it's worth, for all the means, there's abundance of caution around processed foods.

There are other areas where they are worryingly lax. For instance, Casey doesn't seem to favor restrictions on selling raw milk, saying, I want to be free to form a relationship with a local farmer, understand his integrity, look him in the eyes, pet his cow, and then decide if I feel safe to drink the milk

from his farm, which traditionally, is not how you decide if milk is safe to drink, it's how you decide if you want to fuck a dairy farmer. And... and it's worth noting, raw milk can carry dangerous pathogens such as salmonella, E. coli, and listeria, and is currently at the center of an outbreak in Florida

that's sickened at least 21 people, including six children under the age of 10. And Casey's also shared some pretty concerning takes on vaccines. Like when she appeared with her brother on Joe Rogan's podcast and said this.

It's like with vaccines, it's like, yeah, I bet that one vaccine probably isn't causing autism. But what about the 20 that they're getting before 18 months? Like, we don't look at it in synergistic, you know? And so that's a big problem.

Yeah, that's not great. In fact, I will go so far as to say that that is the most obviously horse shit thing Casey Means has said since claiming that that smoothie was, mm, really good... on the Meat Juice Farmcast, hosted by what appears to be Pinterest's final boss. That feels really dangerous. As to the fact that her brother on that same podcast said,

COVID was a foodborne illness, and if you were metabolically healthy, you did not die of COVID, which I hope you know is just not true. So, that is worrying. And it's worth noting that while the means is correctly identified conflicts of interest

in medicine and public health as a real concern, it is not like they are without potential conflicts of their own. Not only does Casey's newsletter have sponsors from supplements and products tied to the wellness industry, she also co-founded a company called Levels. This is her photo, prominently featured

on the website today. The company promotes glucose monitoring for non-diabetic, healthy individuals. Despite the fact, research has found little evidence such monitoring provides health benefits for people without diabetes. And while it's been reported that she's left the company,

all of this has understandably raised questions about whether Levels could benefit from this administration's health guidance and policies. Because if, say, the government started to push those monitors and means did not fully divest, she would stand to benefit. And you'll never guess what, RFK,

despite spending years warning his followers that wearable devices like glucose monitors were part of a sinister plan to surveil and control Americans, recently went before Congress to say this.

We're about to launch one of the biggest advertising campaigns in HHS history, to encourage Americans to use wearables. My vision is that every American is wearing a wearable within four years. I've personally had friends who've utterly changed their lives

just from wearing a glucose meter. And they've lost weight, they've lost their diabetes, diagnoses, and you see this happen again and again.

He's basically doing a product shill to Congress there. And at that point, he might as well just go full QVC and offer to pair each glucose meter with a free aroma diffuser if you call in the next ten minutes. And look, it would be one thing if these two were just private citizens hawking books

and products to a willing customer base, but Kali is a top advisor at HHS, and it bears repeating, Casey is poised to become the next Surgeon General. And they seem ready to place their understanding of health, which can be heavily and sometimes callously centered

on emphasizing individual responsibility, onto our public health system as a whole, which is a real concern. Just listen to Calley on C-SPAN earlier this year. He mentioned how every American is capable of improving their health outcomes

just by eating less processed food. And a pretty basic follow-up question from a caller set him off.

So, just to confirm, your question is how can lower income Americans possibly not poison their kids? Is that your question?

Well, her question was about food deserts.

And how are they supposed to get fruits and vegetables? Your question is a nihilistic question. Her question is what the left is saying. Her question, no. Her question is, how can lower-income Americans possibly not poison their children?

Well, ma'am, I think American mothers don't want to be poisoning their kids. I think Americans don't want to be poisoning themselves.

Okay, first, that was the most rancid delivery of, -"Ma'am," I think... --LAUGHTER I've ever heard. And second, she's asking a legitimate question there But the thing is, Cali wasn't done, and the more he talked, the clearer it became that there is a lot about how our food system works that he doesn't seem to fully understand.

The reason there are food deserts is because the fourth largest entitlement program in the country is rigged through tens of millions of dollars of lobbying spending by our food companies to be totally going to addictive, ultra-processed food like soda and Twinkies. That is what the $150 billion annually of our SNAP program does. So I will give you a little secret. If President Trump and Bobby Kennedy are able to take soda and Twinkies off of food stamps, the food deserts would disappear

because the food deserts are driven by the incentives of SNAP.

Okay, so look, we could talk about how food deserts came to be and why for many, your local dollar store may be the only grocery store in reach. We actually did talk about that two years ago. We could also talk about how increasing SNAP benefits will make it easier for families to afford fresh produce,

but that removing processed food from SNAP isn't likely to cause salad bars to instantly sprout up around the country. And while we are doing that, we should probably talk about how your general tone of condescension there makes you a pretty good candidate to be the next cover boy

for Condescending Prick magazine. But let's leave all of that aside and assume that Cali means just wants every family to have access to fresh, nutritious foods. Here's the thing about that. There's actually a program that's been trying to do that,

and guess what just happened to it.

Yes, we receive local shredded carrots, cucumbers, lettuce, because we feel that we need to support people in our own communities.

Jim Keaton runs the district's nutrition plan and says much of this produce comes from local growers under a USDA program that's been cut by the Trump administration. Some of that food is grown here at Pine Knot Farms about an

hour's drive from Riverside High. Linda Leach Hughes keeps the books.

How are you going to make America great again if you're taking food out of the mouth of babies, senior citizens, nursing homes, rehab centers, hospitals, all of these agencies that are dependent on federal dollars? How are you gonna make America great again?

Yeah, good point, Linda. And I love everything about that, from her precision in calling out this administration to the fact that she clearly takes absolutely no shit. And I'll just say this, in general, if there is a woman in charge of your office named Linda,

I bet it's run like the fucking Navy. If you walk in and Linda is at her desk, ponytail tight and quickbooks open, drop to your knees and praise the Lord, you are in good hands. But the point is,

this administration's canceled a billion dollars in funding for schools and food banks to buy food from local suppliers. And at the same time, it's made cuts to SNAP eligibility, meaning there are fewer recipients of free breakfast and lunch at school, which I guess is one way to accomplish Mher's goals. Kids can't eat any food dyes

if they're not eating anything. And that is the thing. Whatever cosmetic gains Maher has won since Trump took office have been more than offset by massive losses elsewhere. Which brings us to our final point, what comes next? Because it could be a lot.

We talked earlier this year about the massive defunding of scientific research that's occurred, but that is just the beginning. Recently, you may have seen that HHS is winding down its mRNA vaccine development activities, which could have a grave public health impact.

They've already revoked a contract to develop a vaccine against bird flu, and there are real concerns that this could impact the promising research into developing mRNA vaccines for other infectious diseases like HIV, or even using them to treat cancer. One infectious disease researcher has called this

the most dangerous public health decision I've ever seen made by a government body. And that's by no means the only attack on vaccines. In June, RFK fired everyone on the Advisory Committee for Immunization Practices, which meets regularly to establish vaccination recommendations.

They're a very important body because, among other things, insurers usually have to cover the vaccines that they recommend. Since then, RFK's announced the appointment of seven new members, only one of whom was a widely recognized expert in vaccines,

and some are a real who's uh-oh of crackpots. Including Robert Malone, who's claimed that millions of Americans were hypnotized into taking the COVID-19 shots, and is suggesting the booster shots cause a form of AIDS. And if that wasn't bad enough, which it very much is,

there may soon be a similar attack on an obscure but critical corner of our health system.

Health Secretary RFK Jr. is planning to fire every member of an influential task force that decides what preventive health services must be covered by insurance at no cost to patients. So that includes everything from cancer screening to HIV prevention.

Now, Kennedy the source says plans to oust all 16 members for being quote, too woke.

Oh, come on! Too woke? That doesn't even mean anything anymore. But I guess if that is the reason, we can look forward to the new members of that task force being Joe Camel, Kid Rock, J.K. Rowling, and a glass of water that somehow doesn't mind Hitler.

-$2,000. -$2,000. Suffice to say, this is a bleak time to be involved with public health. And I haven't even mentioned the horrific shooting at the CDC campus last week, where nearly 500 bullets were fired at six buildings by a man who apparently subscribed to conspiracies about the COVID vaccine. And it is frankly not ideal that RFK didn't issue

an official statement on it till this tweet the next day, which only came after he posted photos from the fishing trip he was on, which is just shockingly insensitive. You are the head of the agency. People need to hear from you in a crisis.

You can't be posting pictures of yourself holding fish like you're a dude on Tinder. Save those for your text to reporters. And beyond RFK's leadership of his own agency, it's worth noting that the administration that he's a part of is taking a buzz saw

to so many of Maha's stated priorities. And to be fair, that is something that some influencers who've been supportive of RFK in the past have been trying to point out.

What are the things about the Make America Healthy Again movement that concern you?

Like cleaning up our food in America is going to require more regulation and so I'm just not understanding how we're going to clean up our food through regulation in an administration that ran on deregulation. Right!

Regulation is the exact opposite of everything Trump stands for. He's about as likely to embrace regulation as he is to put an in this house sign on the White House lawn. Why would you think he would do that? And sadly, she is right to worry,

as this administration's unleashed some catastrophes for public health, from the projected $1 trillion in Medicaid cuts over the next decade, to Trump's EPA delaying implementing a new standard

to limit the dangerous chemical PFAS in drinking water, from $1 trillion in Medicaid cuts over the next decade to Trump's EPA delaying implementing a new standard

to limit the dangerous chemical PFAS in drinking water, to its efforts to rescind the long-standing finding that greenhouse gas emissions endanger human health, removing the legal foundation for all U.S. greenhouse gas regulations. And look, it is maddening

that for the first time in recent memory, there has been a genuine groundswell of support for a cleaner, healthier, less corporately controlled America, but it's taken this fucking form. Because for the final time, it is absolutely legitimate

to want America to be healthier, and there are clearly systemic problems when it comes to America's health. But these just aren't the solutions. Remember that major JAMA report that I mentioned earlier about increases to child mortality and illness? An editorial published alongside it

included a list of policy recommendations, including investing in anti-poverty measures, broadening health insurance coverage, investing in primary care, and passing firearm safety laws. Which is clearly pretty fucking far

from what this administration is doing. Instead, they are shredding the social safety net while elevating voices that push the responsibility for health down to the individual. I guess what I'm really saying here is, in its current form, Maha is not about making America healthy again.

At best, it is about laundering the reputation of an administration that is doing the exact opposite. And for those in this movement And for those in this movement I would argue that they should be going after these guys