Press release

August 13, 2025

Defend Public Health Releases Alternative to RFK Jr.’s Fake “MAHA” Agenda

WASHINGTON, D.C. – With the public release of Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s “MAHA Strategy” delayed and because his May 2025 “Make America Healthy Again” report fundamentally mischaracterized or ignored key issues in U.S. public health, Defend Public Health today released an alternative to Kennedy’s distorted and unreliable approach. DPH’s report is titled Improving the Health of Americans Together: An evidence-based framework for addressing the root causes of illness in the U.S. 

“Public health can’t wait, so we felt it was important not to let RFK Jr. set an agenda based on distortions and distractions,” said Elizabeth Jacobs, Ph.D., University of Arizona Professor Emerita of Epidemiology and a founding member of Defend Public Health. “Tens of thousands of scientists, healthcare providers, and public health practitioners would love to be part of a real agenda to improve the health of Americans, but RFK Jr. keeps showing he has no clue how to do it. You can’t build a public health agenda on pseudoscience while ignoring fundamental problems like poverty and other social determinants of health. We’ve put together strategies that could truly help children and adults stay healthier, and that’s the conversation Americans need to be having, not Kennedy’s fake ‘MAHA.’”

Improving the Health of Americans Together (IHAT) centers on these action items:

  • Ensure food safety, security and access. Administration actions have cut food safety inspections, increased risks of avian flu, led to crops going unharvested, and cut access to healthy food for low-income Americans. These changes must be reversed, and a proactive agenda to increase access to healthy foods, including in “food deserts,” must receive priority.
  • Improve opportunities for physical activity. Exercise reduces multiple health risks, but economic and social conditions, often related to poverty and other social determinants of health, make exercise nearly impossible for millions. The administration must fund and promote strategies to make physical activity affordable and accessible for all.
  • Ensure equitable access to vaccines. Vaccines have saved over 154 million lives globally in the past 50 years, but all this progress has been endangered by RFK Jr.’s anti-vaccine bias. Access to vaccinations for all U.S. residents should be expanded and  fully funded by the federal government, and decisions about vaccine recommendations must be made by qualified experts.
  • Expand access to healthcare. In 2023, 28% of Americans had to delay or forgo medical or dental care due to cost, a number that will increase thanks to the recent reconciliation bill. Health coverage should be expanded, not reduced, and the U.S. should move toward a system that covers all.
  • Support comprehensive sexual and reproductive healthcare access. Care must be safe, affordable, and comprehensive, including contraceptive care, cancer screenings, STD and HIV testing and treatment, and prenatal care. We must redouble efforts to reduce maternal mortality. The Hyde Amendment, which has impeded access to reproductive care for Black women (who suffer disproportionately high rates of death in childbirth), must be repealed. Gender-affirming care must be available to all who need it, and policies discriminating against transgender people must end.
  • Fully fund scientific research and public health. Most of the life-saving treatments developed in recent decades have their roots in NIH- or NSF-funded research that has now been brutally cut. These cuts must be immediately restored, including funding for research cancelled in the administration’s misguided war on “DEI;” institutions and the patients enrolled in cancelled studies must be compensated for the harm done to them.
  • Build strategies for clean air.  Clean air, both indoors and outdoors, is critical for health. The government should promote strategies like HEPA air filtration and masking with N95 respirators or similar, which have been shown to cut disease transmission. Efforts to curb air pollution must be strengthened, not cut back as the administration has done.
  • Combat scientific misinformation. The federal government, once a source of reputable health information, is now leading the spread of misinformation. This must end, and social media companies must more actively work to reduce misinformation. Education at all levels must teach media and information literacy to equip Americans with the skills to spot mis- and disinformation.
  • Reduce gun violence. Gun violence is now the number one cause of death for children in the U.S., and leaves too many with prolonged mental and physical health challenges. A variety of proposals, including tightened background checks and safe storage requirements, could reduce this needless carnage.
  • Strengthen pandemic preparedness. Create an independent, fully-staffed Office of Pandemic Preparedness Policy staffed by individuals vetted for relevant knowledge, training and expertise, not political appointees. Expand pathogen research, remove unnecessary restrictions on such research, and restore U.S. support for international disease control efforts.
  • Replace Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. as Secretary of Health and Human Services. Kennedy has proven to be an entirely destructive force and a major source of misinformation. He must resign or be removed from office.

     

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Defend Public Health is an all-volunteer network of public health researchers, healthcare workers, advocates and allies fighting to protect the health of all from the Trump administration's cruel attacks on proven, science-based public health policies. We believe that everyone has the right to what they need for a healthy life, regardless of race, ethnicity, religion, disability, sexual orientation, gender or gender identity.
DefendPublicHealth.org