Influential leaders of Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s “Make America Healthy Again” movement are sounding the alarm about EPA’s proposed changes to its chemical evaluation rule.
MAHA Action, an advocacy group with personal ties to Kennedy, over the past week has started rallying its followers to oppose the Trump administration’s proposed changes to the EPA framework used to assess the risks of existing chemicals under the Toxic Substances Control Act.
“This is absolutely not in alignment with MAHA,” Alexandra Muñoz, an activist with a doctorate in molecular and genetic toxicology, said last Wednesday during MAHA Action’s weekly media webinar.
The push comes as EPA continues to speed through its industry-friendly deregulatory blitz, disillusioning any health advocates about the influence MAHA, a movement dedicated to exposing the real factors driving childhood chronic disease built on decoupling government science from industry influence, has over the agency’s policy decisions.
MAHA has environmental roots, stemming from Kennedy’s four-decade career as an environmental attorney and activist. But the movement’s leaders have largely put their energy toward reforming the nation’s food and pharmaceutical systems — two industries Kennedy has more direct control over at the Health and Human Services Department, which includes the Food and Drug Administration.
“It’s incredibly important right now that we let the EPA know that we are watching them, we are watching that they’ve taken the suggestions of industry to create this rule and that we are very much opposed to it,” Muñoz added about the TSCA framework rule.
Also speaking during the event were Mehmet Oz, television’s “Dr. Oz,” now the administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services; actor Russell Brand; and Jillian Michaels, nutrition podcaster and former host of the TV competition show “The Biggest Loser.”
EPA’s proposed changes to the rule, unveiled late September, mirror the first Trump administration’s framework, which spelled out a more narrow review process for existing chemicals.
“The EPA is supposed to determine whether a chemical poses an ‘unreasonable risk’ to health without considering costs or industry influence. This proposal would blur that line and make it easier for corporations to hide behind the process,” MAHA Action posted Tuesday to its Facebook page.
The comment section is filled with supporters pledging to “STOP CHEM.” Other respondents pledged to accept the post’s call to action: Voice opposition to the proposed TSCA framework changes before the public comment period closes Friday.
“We’re not for banning things, but we are absolutely not for giving an incentive to companies poisoning the American public,” Tony Lyons, president of MAHA Action, said during another media call Wednesday while encouraging viewers to submit comments to EPA.
‘An about-face’?
Despite EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin’s membership in the White House’s interagency MAHA Commission and repeated praise for the movement, there is little evidence of MAHA policies taking shape at the agency.
In many ways, EPA — particularly its chemicals office, led by four Trump appointees who jumped to the agency directly from jobs lobbying for, representing or advising chemical companies — represents the antithesis of MAHA’s push against “corporate capture.”
And some advocates point fingers at EPA as the reason the MAHA Commission took a softer tone on pesticides and environmental chemicals in its September report compared to its first report released in May, which singled out the chemical industry revolving door.
The White House has not disclosed the authors of either report, but Nancy Beck, a former American Chemistry Council employee, now the principal deputy assistant administrator of the Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention, was among a select few officials invited to the administration’s first MAHA staff meeting.
The second MAHA report “basically got captured,” said John Klar, a farmer and attorney in Vermont affiliated with MAHA Action.
“It got polluted,” Klar added. “But that isn’t the end of the game. Maybe it’s just the beginning.”
EPA spokesperson Brigit Hirsch in response to questions about the agency’s role in the MAHA report said, “The Trump EPA is committed to upholding gold standard science.”
“President Trump has selected highly qualified individuals committed to protecting human health and the environment to lead EPA’s chemical safety program,” Hirsch said in an email. “These individuals are leaders in their respective fields who are guided by the law and the science as well as ethical standards.”
Klar — who originally joined the MAHA movement as an anti-pesticides, pro-regenerative agriculture advocate — is among the growing group of activists now also targeting industrial chemicals regulated under TSCA.
The TSCA framework appears to be “an about-face of what their actual priorities are in terms of making America healthy again,” said Kelly Ryerson, who founded the advocacy group American Regeneration.
“I think that we’re at a tipping point now where voters are going to be looking to see — whether it’s Congress, whether it’s the administration — what decisions they’ve made on these issues that are now finally getting more mainstream coverage,” said Ryerson, aka @glyphosategirl on social media.
She added, “I think that there is ultimately going to be a price to be paid when that happens.”
“I’m incredibly concerned about what’s going on with the EPA right now, and I’m actually, quite frankly, upset that MAHA is not really actively addressing it or talking about it,” said Courtney Swan, one of Kennedy’s allies and a nutrition influencer who goes by @Realfoodology.
One chemical lobbyist, granted anonymity to speak candidly, said MAHA’s focus on TSCA is “long overdue.”
“I think they’re certainly right to focus on the TSCA framework rule,” the lobbyist said. They brushed off concerns about MAHA influence at EPA; “MAHA’s Washington efforts have been far from successful.”
‘Not taking no for an answer’
MAHA faces an uphill battle in influencing EPA’s chemical policies.
While activists are pushing for a more robust review process, Trump administration officials have put expediting the new chemical review process as one of their top priorities.
“We’re the gatekeeper of new chemicals. We want to open the gate,” Lynn Dekleva, deputy assistant administrator for EPA’s Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention, said at a conference last month.
Two weeks ago, MAHA activists met with some of EPA’s highest chemical safety officers, including Beck; Kyle Kunkler, OCSPP deputy assistant administrator; and Doug Troutman, OCSPP assistant administrator nominee currently serving as a senior adviser to Zeldin.
Klar, the Vermont farmer, said he left the meeting “disgruntled, but I’m not disenchanted.”
“Their stone silence was not exactly encouraging,” Klar said. “But we’re not taking no for an answer. … I’m just going to double and triple my efforts.”
Muñoz, who was also at the meeting, asked the EPA officials to extend the TSCA framework deadline. They declined.
“EPA recognizes the importance of having inclusive and participatory rulemaking processes and, as noted in the proposed rule, is already providing 45 days for the public to provide input. Extending the comment period will delay finalizing this rule and the goals of the amendments,” said Hirsch.
The EPA spokesperson confirmed the Oct. 20 meeting took place, adding that the agency “values and actively seeks feedback from all of our stakeholders, regardless of their affiliations.”
Reach the reporter on Signal at eborst.64.
