National Nurses United

B elieving that childhood vaccines cause autism or that eating a lot of watermelon can act as a natural sun- screen may seem like just easily dismissible, crackpot conspiracy-theory thinking to registered nurses, but if you look closely at the underlying ideology of Robert F. Kennedy (RFK), Jr.'s Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) movement, you will uncover a deeper, more sinister agenda that not only seeks to destroy our nation's public health programs, but challenges the very concept and legitimacy of public health. This critical subject is covered in a National Nurses United continuing education class titled "Trust and doubt in public health," and we explore the main precepts here in this article. Much of what RFK, Jr. and MAHA push seems at face value to be common sense: promote health by limiting exposure to environ- mental toxins, exercising, and eating whole foods while limiting ultra-processed foods. But leaders of MAHA largely view these only as individual goals, meaning a person's health is wholly determined by their own choices, and what they personally did or did not do to stay or get healthy. So, for example, you would think that RFK, Jr. and other MAHA leaders would approve of greater government regulations banning the most harmful agricultural pesticides or to achieve clean air and water, but that is not the case. In November, the Environmental Pro- tection Agency approved new pesticides that contain PFAS "forever chemicals" for use on major U.S. food crops. That's just one example of many. In MAHA's worldview, it is up to the individual to "do their own research" and buy organic foods, install fancy reverse osmosis filtration systems to ensure safe drinking water, or outfit their houses with the latest HEPA air purification systems. Prominent leaders of the MAHA movement, such as U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. and Casey Means, the nominee for U.S. surgeon general despite never having finished her medical residency, have said on numerous occasions that with a healthy diet, exercise, and lifestyle, people can develop "per- sonal immunity" to infectious diseases. Their beliefs fly in the face of germ theory, the more than 150-year-old scientifically accepted idea that some diseases are caused by pathogenic microorganisms. Systemic barriers to health, such as whether a person's socioeco- nomic status prevents them from living in a neighborhood where it is safe to exercise outdoors or breathe the air, or where there are no groceries that sell affordable fresh fruits and vegetables do not factor into MAHA thinking. MAHA also treats people who are born with congenital conditions, diseases, or disabilities as problems that must be cured or as unfortunate cases that could have been prevented if parents had only made the correct or better choice while the baby was in utero—such as refraining from taking Tylenol (even though there is no clear evidence that Tylenol use during pregnancy neg- atively impacts the fetus and complex genetic and environmental factors are the cause of many developmental conditions and chronic diseases). "The areas of the United States that struggle with health need more support from the government and public health, like getting rid of food deserts, or supporting people in poverty," said Amber Wiehl, a perioperative RN and CNA/NNOC board member who has taken the CE class. "The average person has no time or way to study where all the food we eat or buy comes from. I need regulation from my government to make sure there are no E.coli outbreaks and things like that to make us sick. No single person can actually figure out all the things without the help of regulating bodies that special- ize in those different areas." RFK, Jr. and MAHA's insistence that a person's health is wholly dependent on their own choices ultimately carries moral overtones and judgment. MAHA says, if you develop a disease, you must have not done a good-enough job building your "personal immunity." You 18 N A T I O N A L N U R S E W W W . N A T I O N A L N U R S E S U N I T E D . O R G O C T O B E R | N O V E M B E R | D E C E M B E R 2 0 2 5

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