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Washington Bends to RFK Jr.’s ‘MAHA’ Agenda on Measles, Baby Formula and French Fries

Published

12 months ago

March 25, 2025

Washington Bends to RFK Jr.’s ‘MAHA’ Agenda on Measles, Baby Formula and French Fries

Babies are not ordinarily a fixture of closed-door White House meetings.

But when Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the health secretary, convened a group of women this month for a discussion on nutrition and other topics, a healthy-eating activist who calls herself “the Food Babe” was stunned to see President Trump’s press secretary with her eight-month-old on her lap.

While several female cabinet secretaries looked on, the press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, lamented that baby formula seems healthier in Europe than in the United States, where a recent study found that many varieties are laden with added sugars. Last week, Mr. Kennedy met with formula makers and announced a push to expand options for “safe, reliable and nutritious infant formula.”

The activist, Vani Hari, was thrilled. “It was such an amazing opportunity to see some solidification of the MAHA agenda across the different cabinets,” she said, using the initials for Mr. Kennedy’s “Make America Healthy Again” movement. She called the event “a dream come true.”

The gathering of “MAHA Moms,” as Mr. Kennedy calls the corps of influencers and activists who follow him, was one of a series of choreographed events held in recent weeks by Mr. Kennedy, who occupies a highly unusual place in Washington. The scion of a famous Democratic family, his embrace of Mr. Trump, his tendency to spin wild theories out of kernels of truth and his promotion of what critics say is quack medicine have made him one of the most polarizing figures in the cabinet, even as he has developed a loyal following of his own.

Yet even some critics of Mr. Kennedy applaud his focus on obesity and healthy eating. He makes powerful industries and civil servants uncomfortable, holding forth from his newly powerful perch as head of the Department of Health and Human Services on an eclectic menu of topics — offering up alternative remedy ideas one day while blasting industrial food companies the next.

Now companies and the government must contend with what might be called the Kennedy factor. So far, there has been little public pushback.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention posted information about vitamin A on its website after Mr. Kennedy promoted it as a measles treatment, to the consternation of public health officials who want him to advocate forcefully for vaccination.

A fast-food chain announced it had “RFK-d” its French fries by ditching seed oil for beef tallow, a type of rendered beef fat that is similar to lard, despite cardiologists who say it poses risks to the heart.

Infant formula makers, who came under scrutiny amid a shortage in 2022, said simply that they look forward to working with Mr. Kennedy. And after Mr. Kennedy instructed food executives to rid the food supply of artificial dyes, he followed up with a video message on social media: “They understand that they have a new sheriff in town.”

Mr. Kennedy declined an interview request.

It is far too soon to know whether Mr. Kennedy will make a real impact or whether these early steps are more posturing than substance. The Trump administration is taking actions that would seem to undermine his goals, such as disbanding an expert committee studying how to spare infants from a deadly bacteria that contributed to the decision in 2022 to temporarily shut down an Abbott Nutrition infant formula plant.

Mr. Kennedy could run into resistance from Congress. His disdain for the refined oils made from certain plants — seed oils like canola, soy and corn — and the ultra-processed foods that contain them has alarmed Republicans including Senator Charles E. Grassley of Iowa, whose farmer constituents receive subsidies from the government to grow the plants that produce the oils.

Mr. Kennedy opposes the subsidies. Mr. Grassley publicly instructed him to “leave agricultural practice regulations to the proper agencies,” including the Agriculture Department. Mr. Kennedy said he agreed.

“That’s talk; I want to see what the action is,” Marion Nestle, an emeritus professor of nutrition, food studies and public health at New York University, said of Mr. Kennedy’s ambitions to remake the food supply. “And if the only action is getting colors out of the food supply, that’s not enough.”

Public health experts still have serious concerns about Mr. Kennedy, whose skepticism of vaccines has colored his response to a Texas measles outbreak. Biomedical researchers say that if he really wanted to make America healthy, he would block Elon Musk’s Department of Governmental Efficiency from targeting the nation’s scientific enterprise by reducing jobs and cutting grants.

“I think he has to take the blame for it; he’s destroying science in America,” said Dr. Walter C. Willett, a pioneer in nutrition research at Harvard’s School of Public Health.

Yet so long as he is not talking about vaccines, Mr. Kennedy’s ideas are winning cautious support in some surprising places. Dr. Willett said he agrees with Mr. Kennedy that the National Institutes of Health should rebalance its research portfolio to spend more studying ways to prevent disease. Dr. Nestle praised him for taking on the food industry.

“When President Trump announced on Twitter that he was appointing R.F.K. Jr., he used the words industrial food complex,” she said. “I couldn’t believe that. It sounded just like me, and R.F.K. sounds just like me.”

At the height of the coronavirus pandemic, Mr. Kennedy was identified as one of the top spreaders of misinformation by the Center for Countering Digital Hate, which listed him as one of the “disinformation dozen.” His Instagram account was suspended in 2021, and reinstated in 2023 when he began his presidential bid.

Now, as the health department leader, Mr. Kennedy has a much bigger platform from which he can shape American attitudes and beliefs.

Some of his assertions, public health experts say, have been just plain wrong. Mr. Kennedy, for instance, told Sean Hannity of Fox News that immunity to the measles vaccine wanes over time and thus “older people are essentially unvaccinated.”

That contradicts the C.D.C. website, which says measles, mumps, rubella vaccines “usually protect people for life” against measles and rubella, but mumps immunity may decrease over time. Dr. William Schaffner, an infectious disease expert at Vanderbilt University, agreed, saying, “The data continue to support that measles vaccine protects the vast majority of people lifelong.”

Last week, Mr. Kennedy proposed banning cell phones in schools, an idea with bipartisan backing. But in addition to citing children’s mental health, he made another, unsubstantiated claim: that cell phones “produce electromagnetic radiation” that can cause cancer.

So far, Mr. Kennedy also appears to be largely ignoring government experts. He has not had any in-person or virtual briefings on measles from infectious disease experts at the C.D.C., according to two people familiar with the response to the Texas outbreak. Instead, he receives written reports from the agency.

An administration official said Mr. Kennedy meets daily with “career leadership” at H.H.S., the C.D.C.’s parent agency, to discuss matters including measles.

Health officials in Texas say Mr. Kennedy’s messages have been confusing. Dr. Katharine Wells, the director of public health in the city of Lubbock, said she is having trouble persuading parents to vaccinate their children because they think “vitamin A is protective, like the vaccine.”

But Kennedy allies were thrilled when the C.D.C. added a mention of vitamin A in its measles advisory on its website. Del Bigtree, Mr. Kennedy’s former communications director, lauded the move on a recent podcast. “My God,” he said, “do you see what a small step for mankind we just made?”

Mr. Kennedy is getting quiet advice from at least one person in the public health mainstream, Dr. Jeffrey D. Klausner, a professor at the University of Southern California who spent years with the C.D.C., including work on disease prevention in South Africa. Dr. Klausner, a neighbor of Mr. Kennedy’s in Los Angeles, said he is working to identify new members of the C.D.C.’s vaccine advisory committee, a panel Mr. Kennedy says is rife with conflicts of interest.

He said Mr. Kennedy has given him just one criteria: “He wants highly credentialed, unbiased people who can look at the science objectively.”

Despite his promise of “radical transparency,” Mr. Kennedy is offering Americans a highly curated version of himself. Like Mr. Trump, he speaks to the public largely through social media and Fox News.

In a sense, Mr. Kennedy is offering a new twist on Mr. Trump’s “Make America Great Again” slogan; he wants United States customers to be able to buy Froot Loops, the colored sugary cereal, with the same ingredients — dyes made from colored blueberries and carrots, instead of chemicals — used in Canada, and French fries to be cooked like they are in Europe.

Mr. Kennedy’s crusade against seed oils has caught the eye of executives at Steak ’n Shake, which says it will now cook its fries in Mr. Kennedy’s preferred frying agent, beef tallow — even though nutrition experts say there is no evidence that tallow, a saturated fat akin to butter, is healthier than seed oils.

“He says he’s following the science,” Dr. Willett said. “If you look at the scientific evidence, that doesn’t take you to the conclusion that beef tallow is better than seed oils.”

An Indianapolis-based restaurant chain, Steak ’n Shake announced the switch this month on social media with a picture of a ball cap in Mr. Trump’s signature MAGA red that declared, “Make Frying Oil Tallow Again.” Mr. Kennedy, who otherwise appears to be no fan of French fries, traveled to a Florida Steak ’n Shake with Mr. Hannity, of Fox, and picked away at a basket of them for the cameras.

“We’re very grateful to them for R.F.K.-ing their French fries,” he said.

Ms. Hari, the healthy-eating activist, called the Steak n’ Shake announcement “an interesting example of how we can make incremental changes to the food system to make it better than it was.” She said she intends to push Mr. Kennedy to make fast-food chains post all of their ingredients online.

Mr. Kennedy’s inner circle seems to be divided into two camps: those like Mr. Bigtree, who are drawn to him because of his stance on vaccination, and those like Ms. Hari and Calley Means, an author and health care entrepreneur, whose focus is nutrition and chronic disease. Mr. Means recently joined the White House as a special government employee to help carry out Mr. Kennedy’s agenda.

Mr. Kennedy has also inspired a MAHA movement in the states. On Monday, the governor of West Virginia signed legislation banning certain food dyes from school lunches.

Last week, Mr. Means was in Arizona, along with other Kennedy allies, to speak in favor of a “Make Arizona Healthy Again” bill that would ban certain chemicals from school lunch programs and prohibit candy, soda, chips and other junk foods from being purchased with the federal nutrition dollars formerly known as “food stamps.”

Helene Leeds, who with her daughter founded Step It Up, a weight loss program, also testified, and was identified as a “MAHA Mom” by the MAHA Alliance, a group that backs Mr. Kennedy’s agenda. The moniker gave her pause.

“It’s new for me to be called that,” she said. “I mean, absolutely, I stand for health in everything that I do.” She added: “I also look at myself as a MAHA leader.”

After the MAHA Moms meeting, the White House posted video of Mr. Kennedy and some of his guests on social media stumbling over how to pronounce food ingredients like riboflavin. Mr. Kennedy posted photos with a message to the women: “You got me where I am today, and I will not let you down.”

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Wheelchair curler Steve Emt’s path from drunk driver to three-time Paralympian

Published

8 hours ago

March 10, 2026

Press Room

Wheelchair curler Steve Emt’s path from drunk driver to three-time Paralympian

American Steve Emt competes in Sunday’s mixed doubles match against Italy, which the U.S. won.

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Anyone watching the Winter Paralympics has probably taken note of Steve Emt, who — along with Laura Dwyer — is representing Team USA in the Games’ first-ever mixed doubles event.

Their performance is one thing: The pair notched three dramatic, back-to-back wins in the round-robin tournament to reach the semifinals, marking the first time the U.S. has qualified for a medal round in wheelchair curling since the 2010 Paralympics.

After losing to Korea in the semifinals, Emt and Dwyer will face Latvia in the bronze medal match on Tuesday, in the hopes of winning the U.S. its first Paralympic medal in wheelchair curling.

But it’s their teamwork and attitude on ice that really set them apart. Emt, in particular, has charmed the internet, with his booming baritone delivering a steady stream of encouragement to his doubles partner and demands to the granite stones they’re sliding (“curl!” “sit!”).

“I have three older siblings. I was always on the basketball court getting beat up by them, so I had to assert myself on the court, around the kitchen table, everything,” he said when asked about his deep voice this week.

Steve Emt and Laura Dwyer celebrate during a match this week.

Steve Emt and Laura Dwyer have made sure to celebrate their wins, of which there have been many throughout this wheelchair curling mixed doubles round-robin tournament.

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While Emt, 56, is competing in a new event, he’s no stranger to the sport: The 10-time national champion and three-time Paralympian is the most decorated Paralympic curler in U.S. history.

But he didn’t know what curling was until he got recruited off the street just over a decade ago.

Emt, who is 6 feet, 5 inches tall, was enjoying a day in Cape Cod, Mass., in 2013 when a stranger with slicked-back hair approached and asked if he was local. Emt replied that he lived in Connecticut and suspiciously asked why.

Ted Hallock delivers a rock during a curling game at the Potomac Curling Club in Laurel, Md. Curling clubs often see a boost in interest following the Winter Olympics.

“He said, ‘Well, I train with the Paralympic rowing team here in the Cape. I saw you pushing up the hill back there. With your build, I could make you an Olympian in a year,’” Emt recalled, referring to his wheelchair. “And I heard ‘Olympics,’ I’m like: Let’s go. What the hell is curling?”

After their conversation, Emt drove home and did some research, confirming that curling was not related to weightlifting, as he originally suspected.

“I went back two weeks later and I threw my first stone, and it just bit me,” he said.

Before long, Emt was making the two-and-a-half-hour drive to Massachusetts to spend the weekend training with that stranger-turned-coach, Tony Colacchio. He made the U.S. wheelchair curling team in 2014 and competed at his first world championship in 2015. Emt made his Paralympic debut in Pyeongchang in 2018, five years after that fateful encounter.

Emt, speaking to reporters in October, said the sport of curling has changed him as a person, mellowing him out. But the existence of the sport as a competitive outlet for athletes with disabilities changed his life.

Inside a lab at the University of Utah, Sydney Peterson inspects containers of fruit flies. As part of her doctoral research, the Paralympian is using fruit flies to test the effectiveness of different drugs on certain genetic movement disorders.

Emt had been an all-star high school athlete, an Army West Point cadet and a UConn basketball walk-on before a drunk driving incident paralyzed him from the waist down at 25 years old.

“I’m a jock … I need to compete, and I didn’t have anything going on in my life,” Emt said. “Seventeen years after my crash, I had a hole, and then [Colacchio] came along and stalked me into the sport.”

By that point, Emt had spent years working as a middle school math teacher, a high school basketball coach and a motivational speaker. The latter has been his full-time job for almost a decade, taking him to over 100 schools across the country each year. He tells those teenagers about the chance Colacchio took on him, encouraging them to “be a Tony.”

“Go sit with that kid at lunch that’s sitting alone … smile [at] somebody in a hallway, get your heads out of your phones, get your heads out of the sand,” he continued. “We’re all going through something … and a simple ‘hello’ or ‘good morning,’ it could change their day. It could change somebody’s life.”

Why Emt now shares his story

This is the third Paralympics for Emt, who is already eyeing Salt Lake City 2034.

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Emt wasn’t always so willing to open up. For the first half a year after his 1995 crash, he told everyone a deer had run in front of his car rather than admit he had gotten behind the wheel drunk.

“I was lying to myself, I was lying to everybody around me,” he said. “I didn’t want kids to look at me in my hometown, in the state, and everyone around the country, as a drunk driver. I wanted them to look at me as a stud athlete and a great person.”

Emt had been a “stud athlete”: His talents in high school basketball, soccer and baseball made him a star in his hometown of Hebron, Conn., and earned him a spot on the basketball team at West Point.

The Differences Between The Olympics, Paralympics And Special Olympics

But he dropped out two years later, after his father’s sudden death from a heart attack. He went home to Connecticut and eventually enrolled at UConn, where he walked on to its storied basketball team, joining future NBA greats like Donyell Marshall. Emt says, with a chuckle, that he had 38.7 seconds of playing time in his two years.

Emt was wearing his Big East championship jacket the night of his 1995 accident, which he says left him for dead on the side of the highway. When he woke up from a coma a few days later, he learned he would never walk again.

And he didn’t want to tell people why, until a newspaper reporter approached him six months later wanting to tell his story — and encouraged him to be honest. He said the opportunity to “come clean” helped him accept what he’d done and forgive himself.

“That’s my label: Yeah I’m a curler, yeah I’m a speaker, yeah I’m a drunk driver,” he said. “I’m in a wheelchair because of a drunk driving crash, and I want you to know it and I want you to learn from me.”

Emt first got into motivational speaking about eight months after his accident, and has been doing it ever since. He calls it his therapy.

A man wearing a red hockey jersey and a red plaid winter hat tosses a blue cast iron skillet on an ice rink.

He says that and curling — which is about shaking hands with competitors instead of smack-talking them — has helped him slow down and appreciate the little things. Relocating to Wisconsin and the chiller pace of Midwest life has also helped. And he says he cherishes the platform that curling has given him.

“I want people to know: ‘Hey, when you’re ready to talk, I’m here for you.’ This is what I do, from my speaking to my curling, whatever it is, there are so many opportunities to be successful again,” he said. “When you wake up and you’re told you’re never going to walk again, it’s like, what do I do now? … And I just want people to know that there are so many avenues out there, so many things to do.”

Emt, the oldest Paralympian on Team USA, originally aimed to make it to three Games. But he’s now eyeing even more, as he’d like to compete on home turf in Salt Lake City in 2034 (two Games away).

“I’m going to be like 90 years old competing at the Paralympics,” he laughed.

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Map: 2.3-Magnitude Earthquake Reported North of New York City

Published

17 hours ago

March 10, 2026

Press Room

Map: 2.3-Magnitude Earthquake Reported North of New York City

Note: Map shows the area with a shake intensity of 3 or greater, which U.S.G.S. defines as “weak,” though the earthquake may be felt outside the areas shown. All times on the map are Eastern. The New York Times

A minor, 2.3-magnitude earthquake struck about 12 miles north of New York City on Tuesday, according to the United States Geological Survey.

The temblor happened at 10:17 a.m. Eastern in Sleepy Hollow, N.Y., data from the agency shows.

The Westchester County emergency services department said in a statement that it had not received any reports of damage.

As seismologists review available data, they may revise the earthquake’s reported magnitude. Additional information collected about the earthquake may also prompt U.S.G.S. scientists to update the shake-severity map.

Source: United States Geological Survey | Notes: Shaking categories are based on the Modified Mercalli Intensity scale. When aftershock data is available, the corresponding maps and charts include earthquakes within 100 miles and seven days of the initial quake. All times above are Eastern. Shake data is as of Tuesday, March 10 at 10:30 a.m. Eastern. Aftershocks data is as of Tuesday, March 10 at 2:18 p.m. Eastern.

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Ed Martin, outspoken Justice Department lawyer, is formally accused of ethical violations | CNN Politics

Published

20 hours ago

March 10, 2026

Press Room

Ed Martin, outspoken Justice Department lawyer, is formally accused of ethical violations | CNN Politics

Ed Martin, an outspoken Trump administration official, is facing attorney discipline proceedings in Washington, DC, for a letter he sent to Georgetown Law about its diversity programs, the district’s professional conduct investigator announced on Tuesday.

Martin is formally accused of violating his ethical codes as an attorney for telling Georgetown Law’s dean last year that his Justice Department office wouldn’t hire students because of the school’s diversity, inclusion and equity initiatives programs, according to the filing from Hamilton Fox, the disciplinary counsel for DC who acts as a quasi-prosecutor on attorney discipline matters.

Unlike unsolicited complaints, Fox’s formal disciplinary complaint kicks off professional conduct proceedings for Martin in which he will need to respond and could be sanctioned or ultimately lose his law license.

Fox’s announcement on Tuesday marks the first major bar discipline proceeding against a high-profile administration official or attorney supporting President Donald Trump during Trump’s second term. Several Trump lawyers faced disciplinary proceedings after the efforts to overturn Joe Biden’s victory in the 2020 presidential election, including Rudy Giuliani, who lost his law license.

“Acting in his official capacity and speaking on behalf of the government, he used coercion to punish or suppress a disfavored viewpoint, the teaching and promotion of ‘DEI,’” Fox wrote in the complaint. “He demanded that Georgetown Law relinquish its free speech and religious rights in order to continue to obtain a benefit, employment opportunities for its students.”

Martin was removed from the top prosecutor job in DC after senators made clear he would not be confirmed to the role, but has remained at the Justice Department in several roles, including as pardon attorney.

“Mr. Martin knew or should have known that, as a government official, his conduct violated the First and Fifth Amendments to the Constitution of the United States,” Fox wrote.

Martin is being represented by a Justice Department attorney, a source told CNN.

A spokesperson for DOJ attacked Fox’s complaint. “The DC bar’s attempt to target and punish those serving President Trump while refusing to investigate or act against actual ethical violations that were committed by Biden and Obama administration attorneys is a clear indication of this partisan organization’s agenda,” DOJ said.

Martin had sent the letter to Georgetown Law while serving temporarily as US attorney for DC, a prominent Justice Department position, and told the school his federal prosecutors’ office wouldn’t hire Georgetown’s law school students. It came at a time when the Trump administration was beginning to crack down on universities for their DEI efforts.

In his letter, Martin claimed a whistleblower told him that the school was teaching and promoting DEI.

Martin also violated attorney ethics rules by contacting judges of the DC court directly, Fox alleged, rather than going through official channels, once he was informed he was under investigation for his professional conduct. The DC Court of Appeals ultimately signs off on attorney discipline findings.

Early last year, Fox’s office had formally asked Martin to respond to a complaint it received by a retired judge regarding the Georgetown letter.

Martin instead wrote to the judges on the DC court complaining about Fox.

“In that letter, he stated that he would not be responding to Disciplinary Counsel’s inquiry, complained about Disciplinary Counsel’s ‘uneven behavior,’ and requested a ‘face-to-face meeting with all of you to discuss this matter and find a way forward,’” Fox wrote.

“He copied the White House Counsel ‘for informational purposes because of the importance of getting this issue addressed,’” Fox said.

The top judge in the DC courts told Martin the court wouldn’t meet with him about the disciplinary matter and that he would need to follow procedure.

With Fox’s complaint, there will now be several steps ahead of bar discipline authorities looking at Martin’s action, and Fox didn’t specify how Martin should be reprimanded or punished if the discipline boards and the court ultimately determine he violated his ethical codes.

Spokespeople for the Justice Department didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment on Tuesday morning.

In recent days, Attorney General Pam Bondi announced her office would have a more powerful role in reviewing attorney discipline complaints against Justice Department attorneys, potentially setting up an approach that could keep the department at odds with the bar on behalf of DOJ attorneys facing their own individual disciplinary proceedings.

CNN’s Paula Reid contributed to this report.