MAHA’s Goal Is Not Health
Robert Kennedy’s movement promises more privatization.
Written by Derek Beres Published 5/17/25
What is MAHA actually trying to accomplish?
Not Robert F. Kennedy’s wistful rhetoric about improving America’s health, a thesis so complex and far-reaching that distilling it to a soundbyte proves impossible. More like: how is a movement that’s simultaneously about individual responsibility and corporate oversight going to accomplish anything in the most deregulatory administration in American history?
Also: how is a movement that ignores the social determinants of health and loathes the concept of universal health care going to positively impact the most vulnerable populations, which already suffer the worst health outcomes?
My prediction: once the “toxin” in vaccines is “proven” to cause autism, the people in the “autism registry” will begin receiving information about “better ways to manage autism.”
That pitch will only be accessible to those who can already afford to be healthy. Understanding it helps pull back the reality of Kennedy’s activism and the intention of those surrounding him.
Actual legislation would contradict the administration's free market ethos.
It’s impossible to separate MAHA from MAGA. Kennedy’s acronym is both a rip-off and a pick-me plea to the Trump administration—one that worked. While some claim that Kennedy’s seeming obsession of health is a “sharp departure” for Trump, working within the confines of the administration’s deregulatory ethos severely limits MAHA’s stated goals. Plus, I’m not sure how dissimilar those goals actually are, as both MAHA and MAGA worship free market principles and promote soft eugenics.
Two of Kennedy’s best ideas—ending the pharmaceutical lobby and banning DTC pharma advertising in America—will likely never be accomplished because of those principles. Republicans have greatly benefited from the biggest lobby in Washington for generations. They’re not going to turn off that faucet. To be clear, Democrats love that cash flow as well, so the notion of any party ending it is absurd.
Still, Kennedy loves talking big about taking industry to task. His agency’s actions dictate otherwise. Slashing the quarter of the federal workforce predominantly focused on public health initiatives shows how much concern MAHA actually has for health. Kennedy’s victory tour about food dyes is a marketing ploy, not a legislative declaration: the move is completely voluntary. If food companies decide to forget about it by 2027, no harm, no foul.
Actual legislation would contradict the administration's free market ethos. Yet even here, MAHA can’t get its messaging straight. As Dr Jessica Knurick points out, natural food dyes are more expensive and more allergenic than synthetic dyes, so their implementation is likely to cause more problems than they solve. The free market favors common sense solutions, which Kennedy seems incapable of understanding: natural dyes will cost more and likely harm more people. Despite MAHA activists screaming about the “toxicity” of synthetic dyes, this too is more hyperbole than science.
At least issues with food are of concern to many Americans. Casual observers of public health experienced whiplash from Kennedy’s seemingly sudden focus on vaccines and autism. Longtime critics knew this was inevitable, given Kennedy’s decades-long anti-vax activism. Yet so-called MAHA Moms have to now wonder why their champion asked a known anti-vaxxer to lead a study into the cause of autism, ignored the research of actual experts, and then threw autistic people, especially children—his nonprofit’s name is Children’s Health Defense, of all ironies—under the bus.
Such discombobulation is natural if you’ve only consumed MAHA’s marketing content. In the context of MAGA, though, this propaganda makes perfect sense. The forces behind both acronyms want to shift as much public money into private coffers as possible, letting citizens duke it out in an increasingly inaccessible free market.
If an “environmental toxin” is the “cause” of autism, non-pharmacological solutions will be the response. (Putting aside Kennedy’s confidence in a predetermined cause, which is not how the “gold-standard science” he promised works.) He’s already shown this thinking when falsely claiming vitamin A interventions help treat measles; the therapy sent children to the hospital with vitamin A toxicity. The same logic will likely be applied to autism. He even compared measles with autism, further solidifying a link in his movement’s mind.
As with his conspiratorial wellness base, Kennedy seems hellbent on overturning evidence-based medicine—only he’s now in a position to accomplish it. He threatened to blackball researchers who helped bring FDA-approved pharmaceuticals to market. He’s said he doesn’t think “health comes in a syringe.” When pressed by Bernie Sanders about universal healthcare, Kennedy aligned with free market principles: let people fend for themselves.
Meanwhile, Kennedy advocates for raw milk and drops tinctures of methylene blue into his water. He’s not against every pharmaceutical given his use of testosterone replacement therapy, though he remains suspicious of non-cosmetic interventions. He claims supplements are being “suppressed” despite the fact that the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act of 1994 (DHSEA) effectively removed what little oversight existed for that industry.
That’s why far from fixing America’s health, Kennedy and the band of contrarian doctors and wellness influencers hired under his purview are set to destroy it. Just like MAGA leans on Project 2025 for textual counsel, MAHA has its own playbook.
Supplements have long been an ideal monetization stream for wellness influencers.
MAHA relies on a well-worn marketing strategy: identify a devil and position your solution as the savior. In this case, both are chemistry.
Any chemical used in the food manufacturing process (including fertilizers and fortified nutrients) are “toxic.” So too are chemicals in the form of pharmaceutical products—except cosmetic enhancements: vaccines bad, Botox and TRT, no problem. Meanwhile, chemicals in the form of supplements are positioned as the ultimate response to the deluge of chemistry everywhere else.
Kennedy has surrounded himself with wellness influencers that parrot this message. Nearly everyone on the MAHA congressional panel sells wellness accoutrements:
Calley Means co-founded a company that hires doctors to write letters of medical necessity so consumers can use HSA and FSA money to buy supplements and other wellness tchotchkes; last year, the IRS issued an alert warning consumers that “some companies are misrepresenting the circumstances under which food and wellness expenses can be paid or reimbursed under FSAs and other health spending plans.”
Casey Means co-founded Levels, a continuous glucose monitor subscription service geared toward biohackers, and has endorsed numerous supplements through affiliate deals.
Jason Karp sold his wellness snack company to Mondelez International, one of the world’s largest producers of ultraprocessed foods, then started another one.
Mikhaila Fuller has her own supplements line.
Alex Clark has affiliate deals with supplements companies.
Vani Hari (Food Babe) has her own supplements line.
Jillian Michaels has affiliate deals with supplements companies.
Max Lugavere has affiliate deals with supplements companies.
Brigham Buhler’s telehealth company sells supplements.
Courtney Swan has affiliate deals with supplements companies.
Grace Price has deals with wellness brands.
Supplements have long been an ideal monetization stream for wellness influencers. Since they’re basically unregulated and completely untested, they make perfect foils for pharmaceuticals without the burden of all those pesky clinical studies. The influencer economy is powered by charisma and marketing, not science.
The “don” of functional medicine
Which brings us to Mark Hyman.
Hyman is the “don” of functional medicine, a pseudoscience category of alternative medicine that claims to be searching for the “root cause” of disease. He believes most diseases—cancer, autoimmune disease, asthma, depression, autism, ADHD, to name a few—can be attributed to a made-up condition called leaky gut, which is related to intestinal permeability (a real thing) but way leakier (a not real thing).
Hyman doesn’t appear concerned about those pesky details that get in the way of a sales funnel. He’s an extremely good marketer, as the NY Times reports:
“In 2023, Dr. Hyman’s combined businesses brought in $28.8 million in revenue, he said, and his supplement company alone has 300,000 customers.”
The same article flags Hyman’s close relationship with Kennedy, who allegedly “supports greater insurance coverage for diagnostic tests.”
Let’s revisit my prediction: once the “toxin” in vaccines is “proven” to cause autism, the people in the “autism registry” will begin receiving information about “better ways to manage autism.”
Now the pieces come together:
Kennedy is a longtime anti-vaxxer.
We can be nearly certain vaccines will be the “cause” of autism, given that Kennedy has flagged it “must be an environmental toxin.”
Kennedy believes supplements are being suppressed and diagnostic tests should be covered more broadly.
Hyman is one of his closest friends and trusted advisors.
Enter Hyman’s latest venture, Function Health, a diagnostics subscription service that conducts hundreds of tests that are most often followed by recommendations for supplements. And if you want to use pre-tax money, Hyman’s “Ultrawellness Store” is on Calley Means’s website.
The pieces fit like fingers into a glove. Hyman aligns with Kennedy that autism must be caused by an environmental toxin, as he wrote this in 2010:
“Today most people believe that Autism is a genetic brain disorder. I’m here to tell you that this isn’t true. The real reason we are seeing increasing rates of autism is simply this: Autism is a systemic body disorder that affects the brain. A toxic environment triggers certain genes in people susceptible to this condition.”
Just last month, Hyman told Bari Weiss the following when she asked if there’s a connection between autism and vaccines:
I think they can be a trigger. Triggers are basically things that are the straw that broke the camel’s back. So if you’re basically healthy, you can be resilient, but if you load up a kid who’s not been born by vaginal birth, who’s not been breastfed, whose gut and immune system are underdeveloped, who’s had lots of antibiotics, who get colds and sore throats and earaches all the time, and they’re compromised, and they have genetics that make them susceptible to various injuries, then yeah, it might be that trigger that caused an immune irritation that led to some brain inflammation, and autism is an inflammatory disease. So I’m not saying that vaccines cause autism. I’m saying that they’re part of a collection of insults that these kids might be susceptible to, and that’s really what we have to look at in a very different way.
Function Health provides that “different way.” Hyman has long dabbled in selling supplements for autism. While there are no clinical indications specific to autism on Function’s website, the pieces to make that speculative leap already exist: metabolic health, inflammatory markers, immune regulation, nutrient deficiencies.
The beauty of functional medicine as a marketing tool is its vagueness. Blood tests offer the appearance of science without the burden of actual science. Dr David Gorski frames the matter succinctly, replying to Dr David Robert Grimes’s excellent breakdown of the topic:
“‘Functional medicine’ is the worst of both worlds: the over-testing and overtreatment of every lab abnormality to which conventional medicine can be prone combined with pure quackery from alternative medicine.”
Redirecting taxpayer money from public health initiatives and social services to a diagnostics lab and supplements pipeline.
The recent flood of at-home blood tests weaponize small fluctuations in lab values to shuffle consumers into supplements downlines. This has become big business, as Hyman proves. In June 2024, tech-utopian VC firm Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) led the $53 million Series A funding round for Function Health. Casey Means was among the investors. While a16z has gone silent on the new round, Redpoint Ventures is leading a $200 million Series B round on a $2.5 billion valuation.
VC-funded healthtech companies are not in this game to make people healthy. First and foremost, they have to make their investors money. As a Function Health subscription costs $499 annually, a lot of consumers will be required to help those investors get a return.
One thing that would certainly help that goal is a private-public government partnership with a company like Function Health. This isn’t a new playbook: states have shuffled taxpayer money into private religious education under the banner of “school choice” for decades. The Trump administration, with its absolute disdain for public education, is expediting that goal.
Which is why, yet again, MAHA is just a MAGA rip-off. Redirecting taxpayer money from public health initiatives and social services to a diagnostics lab and supplements pipeline using a propaganda tagline (“Make America Healthy Again”) will support the for-profit wellness crowd that helped elevate Kennedy to his position, making his inner circle even wealthier. And once again, vulnerable populations, already exploited by free market healthcare, will suffer most.
