RFK Jr.’s push to rein in ultraprocessed foods and artificial dyes has hit its biggest roadblock yet: the White House. As The Wall Street Journal reports, internal clashes have stalled three separate efforts at the heart of the Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) food agenda.
The main fight is over a definition. Health officials want processed food classed as ultraprocessed if it contains ingredients such as artificial colors, nonnutritive sweeteners or chemical preservatives, with some exemptions. White House staffers worried that would cover most grocery-store food and hand ammunition to lawyers already suing food companies.
At a tense July meeting, Kennedy aide Calley Means accused White House officials of catering to special interests. Mark Paoletta, the White House lawyer overseeing regulatory review, saw the rule as new red tape and a potential boon to the trial bar. The White House nixed an August unveiling days before HHS’s splashy event — dye-monster posters and all — then blocked a second try.
Two other initiatives are stuck, too. A USDA school-meals rule, toughened at Means’ insistence in ways that roughly quadrupled its projected $2 billion cost, stalled amid worries it’s unworkable for schools. The White House also blocked a letter in which Kennedy endorsed former FDA commissioner David Kessler’s petition to declare certain refined carbohydrates unsafe.
Industry isn’t sold on the concept. “Categorizing a set of foods by the way they’re processed I think is wrongheaded and also can lead to outcomes that are the opposite of maybe what some people have intended,” said General Mills CEO Jeff Harmening.
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Others see the delays as costly. “We have the shortest lifespans of any wealthy country,” said Jerold Mande, chief executive of the nonprofit Nourish Science and a former FDA and USDA official. “It’s an urgent problem that the MAHA movement and RFK Jr. came to power saying they were going to address, and they’ve had a decidedly mixed record.”
