RFK Jr. claims to want healthy food, but demonizes the science that makes it possible

It’s been an… interesting couple of weeks, to put it mildly. Donald Trump nominated RFK Jr. as Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), an agency focused on protecting public health and providing human services.

The HHS Secretary is integral in shaping health policy, managing public health crises, and administering Federal health and human services programs. If confirmed, he would oversee numerous critical Federal agencies, including Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Food and Drug Administration (FDA), Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), National Institutes of Health (NIH), Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), and Administration for Children and Families (ACF).

While I’ve covered his anti-science history previously, there has been a recent and concerning phenomenon in which media outlets and even scientists and health professionals are both sides-ing RFK Jr.

I’ve seen a concerning amount of statements to the effect of

I am here to correct that, because:

RFK Jr. does not want to make food healthy.

In fact, RFK Jr. has made a lot of money by scaring people away from affordable and health foods, including fresh fruits and vegetables.

RFK Jr. profits off of civil lawsuits demonizing safe and nutritious farming methods and food crops.

RFK Jr. started his legal career filing lawsuits regarding pollution and renewable energy. That snowballed into frivolous civil lawsuits about [chemicals] writ large. Civil lawsuits against companies tend to be successful because they pit a plaintiff with an emotional (albeit often unproven) story about health harms against the perceived evil corporate monolith. And since RFK Jr.’s only expertise pertains to the law, he thrived here.

He set his sights on conventional farming and genetic engineering tools for agriculture. He has spent nearly 30 years undermining food crop-growing methods, while spreading complete fallacies. His actions have caused these lies to become entrenched in our society, and guess what? They do the opposite of improving access to healthy food.

If RFK Jr. wanted to make food healthy, he would stop lying about the harms of conventionally grown fruits and vegetables.

Have you heard claims like conventional produce is “toxic” and covered with harmful pesticides? Or that these pesticides cause a myriad of health issues like cancer, infertility, and autism? Or that conventional farming destroys soil health or soil microbes? Or that GMOs are a ploy to spray more pesticides? Or that GMOs or glyphosate cause obesity?

Spoiler: these lies all came from RFK Jr.

It’s time to discuss the facts about how your food is grown.

Farmers grow food crops to feed millions of people. To ensure crops don’t get destroyed by pests – pathogens, insects, and other plants (weeds) – farmers must control those pests. How do they do that? With pesticides – chemicals that kill a target group of organisms (that suffix -cide is the clue there). Whether you’re talking about conventional farming or organic farming, ALL farming uses pesticides.

Yes, organic farming uses pesticides.

Organic pesticides are merely pesticides that have not been chemically modified from the structure in which they exist in nature. They are not inherently safer, more effective, better for farmers, or the environment. Many organic pesticides are less effective and have worse impacts on non-target species and the environment. Conventional pesticides often harness what we know about nature AND use science to improve upon the chemistry.

To control fungal pathogens on blueberry plants like mummy berry and anthracnose fruit rot, farmers use fungicides.

Copper sulfate is used in organic farming at 1-4 lbs per acre of land. The LD50 (50% lethal dose: the concentration at which half of a group of animals in a toxicity study die) of copper sulfate is 300 milligrams per kilogram of body weight (mg/kg). Mancozeb is used in conventional farming at 1.5-3 lbs per acre of land. The LD50 of mancozeb is 8,000 mg/kg. A lower LD50 means a lower exposure is toxic, whereas a higher LD50 means the substance is less toxic.

Mancozeb is 26 times less toxic than copper sulfate. What’s more, copper sulfate is also less effective at controlling fungal pathogens so it needs to be applied more frequently during a given growing season, up to 6 times per growing season, whereas mancozeb is typically applied twice. Copper sulfate also persists in groundwater and can bioaccumulate and have toxicity impacts on fish, other species, and can be harmful to farmers at high exposures.

Organic farming uses many pesticides. They are not inherently safer, but they are less regulated.

Why doesn’t RFK Jr. mention that organic farming uses “toxic pesticides”? Well, because it goes against his decades-long ploy to make money by scaring people about chemicals.

Ironically, conventional pesticides are more stringently regulated for safety. Both classes must comply with the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA), but conventional pesticides are regulated, monitored, and assessed by the EPA and they must provide extensive data on toxicity, environmental impact, and efficacy before approval.

The USDA releases a residue report annually which assesses trace levels compared to safety thresholds, and pretty much every year, 99.5% of products tested are below those benchmarks.

Organic pesticides fall to the USDA National Organic Program (NOP), which doesn’t require the safety testing EPA does. Many organic pesticides have no tolerance safety level set, and volume of those pesticides used in organic farming aren’t even recorded.

Organically-grown foods are not more nutritious, but they are double the price.

Most people say they buy organic because they want to avoid pesticides. We’ve established that’s false. The next reason people say they buy organic is because they believe it is healthier. Well, that’s also false.

Decades of data and studies assessing organic versus conventional food items demonstrate there is no nutritional benefit. The appearance of health is crafted with clever marketing and the help of anti-science activists like RFK Jr. and his organization Children’s Health Defense, Vani Hari (Food Babe), and groups like the EWG and Consumer Reports.

Organic foods are not pesticide-free or more nutritious. They are, however, more expensive. Organically-grown foods cost farmers roughly 5-13% more to produce (often because they need to use higher quantities of pesticides or intensive soil tilling practices and industrial equipment), but you, the consumer, is charged between 50% and 300% more for those organic products compared to their conventional counterparts.

Organic farming is more profitable than conventional farming.

That’s right. Organic farming is 22-35% more profitable than conventional farming. So profitable that the organic farming industry (yes, this is an industry) has grown exponentially in the last 20 years. It is worth $231 billion dollars in 2023 and is projected to grow over 13% year over year. In the US alone, the market has exploded: from $13 billion in 2005 to over $56 billion in 2020.

When you purchase organic products, you’re contributing to an industry fueled by pseudoscience.

RFK Jr. scares people away from safe and nutritious conventional foods.

RFK Jr. has demonized conventionally grown produce, which is safe, nutritious, uses tightly regulated pesticides, and is more affordable. His claims run the gamut: he claims “pesticides” (but just the ones used in conventional farming) cause obesity, autism, cancer, and infertility.

None of these are true, but when people, particularly those of lower socioeconomic status, are bombarded with claims that conventional foods are covered in harmful “toxic chemicals,” they buy and consume fewer fruits and vegetables. If RFK Jr. actually cared about decreasing the consumption of “processed foods,” don’t you think he would encourage people to eat more affordable conventionally grown fruits and vegetables?

RFK Jr’s rhetoric dissuades people from eating conventionally grown fruits and vegetables, which is antithetical to advocating for healthy foods.

Adequate consumption of fruits, vegetables, and fiber is a major contributor to overall health, unlike the claims RFK Jr. makes about trace pesticide residues or food colorings. Deficiencies in these food groups and nutrients can increase risk of cardiovascular disease, certain types of cancers, GI isses, and overall immune system function and health. Most Americans already don’t eat enough fruits and vegetables, much of that a result of the anti-science rhetoric spread by RFK Jr.

RFK Jr directly profits from anti-pesticide activism, which is why he will not advocate for more affordable nutritious foods.

RFK Jr.’s organization, Children’s Health Defense (CHD), brings in a lot of donor money by spreading fear about pesticides, GMOs, and “Big Ag.” CHD’s revenue has surged in recent years. In 2020, CHD’s revenue more than doubled to $6.8 million. In 2022, it reached $23.5 million dollars.

That is a LOT of money. CHD profits by fear-mongering, especially about chemicals, and omits any sort of actual context. It also undermines the very Federal agencies that RFK Jr. would be overseeing, so you can imagine what he would do to them in order to continue his grift.

RFK Jr. won’t encourage people to eat affordable and health produce, because he profits off the opposite.

If RFK Jr. did a 180 and walked back the years of lies about conventional pesticides, he would lose some of that money. He would lose donor support, and he might lose credibility among the people who believe that he actually cares about health (just to be clear, he doesn’t). So while he may get on TV and claim he wants to reduce pesticide use and increase access to healthy foods, decades of evidence demonstrate that isn’t true.

But screaming about singular food ingredients like a food coloring you’d consume at miniscule quantities that have nothing to do with actual health outcomes is a great way to foment outrage among the public and keep up the facade of lies. And every mainstream media outlet is falling for it.

Look at what RFK Jr. has done, not what he says. Don’t fall for his lies.

Dr. Andrea Love, a microbiologist and immunologist, provides the facts (and the data!) on science and health topics. Follow Andrea on X @dr_andrealove

A version of this article was originally posted at Immunologic and has been reposted here with permission. Any reposting should credit the original author and provide links to both the GLP and the original article.