If you thought the MAHA movement was just mere window dressing for the Trump administration, you would be wrong. Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has been quietly and overtly DOGE-ing the department, streamlining functions, and most importantly, dismantling the food industry apparatus that has worked against Americans becoming healthy. 

After MAHA pressure and in light of the incoming Trump administration, Biden's FDA banned Red Dye No. 6 from the nation's food supply. Now, as HHS Secretary, Kennedy plans to continue this work. On Tuesday, the HHS and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced an even more targeted campaign to eliminate synthetic and petroleum-based food dyes from the nation's food supply.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and U.S. Food and Drug Administration today announced a series of new measures to phase out all petroleum-based synthetic dyes from the nation’s food supply—a significant milestone in the administration’s broader initiative to Make… pic.twitter.com/eFenYDBRly

— U.S. FDA (@US_FDA) April 22, 2025

FDA Commissioner Marty Makary gave the details on the food additives targeted and the phases, starting with two dyes within the next few weeks, and pinpointing six more to be eliminated by 2026.

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MAHA is happening. Today the FDA is:

1. Establishing a national standard and timeline for the food industry to transition from petroleum based food dyes to natural alternatives.

2. Initiating a process to revoke authorization of synthetic food colorings, including those not in… pic.twitter.com/iuTQ5x4nOe

— Townhall.com (@townhallcom) April 22, 2025

MAHA is happening. Today the FDA is:

1. Establishing a national standard and timeline for the food industry to transition from petroleum based food dyes to natural alternatives.  

2. Initiating a process to revoke authorization of synthetic food colorings, including those not in production, namely citrus red #2 and orange b within the coming weeks.  

3. Taking steps to eliminate the remaining 6 synthetic dyes on the market from the U.S. food supply, specifically red dye #40, yellow dye #5. Yellow dye #6. Blue dye #1. Blue dye #2 and green dye #3, by the end of next year.

Kennedy then joined Makary and NIH Director Dr. Jay Bhattacharya to reinforce the "Why" behind these actions. Kennedy echoed back to what he talked about after he was sworn in as HHS Secretary: the chronic disease epidemic and how it is especially impacting our children. Kennedy reinforced that 60 percent of American children have chronic disease versus three percent in the 1960s when his uncle, John F. Kennedy, was president. Kennedy presented the staggering amount we spend on chronic disease in our nation as "1.8 trillion dollars annually. It's bankrupting our nation. How are we going to maintain our global leadership with such a sick population?" Kennedy said.

Kennedy continued:

This is existential for our country and we have to address it. And one of the... when I met with, and I want to commend food companies for working with us to achieve this agreement or this settlement. When I went in a few months ago to meet with the food companies, I met with them about these petroleum-based dyes. I was talking to my staff about these petroleum-based dyes, and I said, if they want to eat petroleum they ought to add it themselves at home. They shouldn't be feeding it to the rest of us without our knowledge and consent.

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.@SecKennedy: "When I met with—and I want to commend the food companies for working with us... I was talking to my staff about these petroleum-based dyes, and I said if they want to eat petroleum, they ought to add it themselves... but they shouldn't be feeding it to the rest of… pic.twitter.com/gKElULAxy4

— Rapid Response 47 (@RapidResponse47) April 22, 2025

A powerful and salient point. Just as the children of tech entrepreneurs are often not allowed to use the very technology they shove in our faces, so the children of food executives are probably not allowed to shovel "Lucky Charms" down their throats every morning either. Kennedy spoke further, and dovetailed into one of the major problems with dealing with the food industries: their ability to pay for the science they want and market their toxic products to a wide and uninformed audience.

One of the problems is, these industries and all of these industries cast a dark shadow historically over this agency. And there are so many conflicts that we are now systematically eliminating that has allowed them to suppress the science [...] 

I would point out, there is part of the ideology of these diseases is a kind of media malpractice. A mass psychosis that has our media not talking about this. And one of the possible reasons for that is the amount of money that is coming from the pharmaceutical companies into our media and from these food companies, from the advertising. The advertising has, at least plays a factor, it's an extraordinary revenue stream in disabling their, their capacity or their inclination for skepticism and for critical thinking. So Americans don't know what they're eating, and they don't know the implications of those things.

Kennedy also announced that NIH Director Bhattycharya will narrowly target these additives in order to remove them from our food supply, as well as target the penchant of scientists to medicate diseases rather than encourage dietary changes to cure them.

We can't continue to exist like this. And the problem is this industry is making money on keeping us sick. As Jay pointed out, ADHD is associated with all these behavioral disorders. But those disorders are treated, not by changing our diet, but by providing medications to treat our kids. And they've been medicated and medicated and that is the only solution. 

Kennedy gave a shout-out to Dr. Mark Hyman and his book, "The 10-Day Detox Diet," which led into Kennedy's plan to address America's sugar addiction, calling it "poison." "It's disabling our population. Over those ingredients that we can't ban legally, we're gonna start informing Americans about what they are eating."

Kennedy then gave a shoutout to the MAHA Moms who have been the fuel to this movement. Kennedy applauded their resilience and persistence, letting them know they were instrumental in seeing these changes occur.

I want to say one other thing about the Moms. When I went and spoke for the first time, when I met with the heads of all the food industry companies, one of the things they said to us is that, the worst thing for us is if we have a patchwork of legislation in all these different states. Because then we are not capable of marketing nationally-distributed products because we're going to have different regulations in every state. They didn't want that, and that's one of the reasons they came to the table.

Kennedy pointed to the actions of Gov. Patrick Morrisey of West Virginia for leading the way on banning dyes and ingredients in the state. Kennedy mentioned other states with whom he was having conversations about taking the same actions, and how these conversations would not be happening had it not been for the MAHA Moms.

Those bans have given us leverage to make demands on the food companies.  And the only reason that those companies, that those states have banned these products is because of these ladies, and millions of more across the country—the Warrior Moms who have empowered the MAHA movement. And I just want to urge all of you, it's not the time to stop, it's time to redouble your efforts because we have them on the run now, and we are going to win this battle. And four years from now, we're going to have most of these products off the market or you will know about them when you go to the grocery store. So, I want to thank you.

Kennedy ended by paying homage to President Donald Trump, who hand-picked him for this role. Kennedy once again echoed back to the powerful analogy he gave at his swearing-in: A healthy person has a thousand dreams. A sick person only has one: to be healthy.

And finally, and most importantly, I want to thank President Trump. President Turmp often says that he's going to Make America Great Again. But he knows that he cannot make our country great again if our country is weak; if we're not healthy; if we don't have vigor; if we're not a robust people. He says that he's going to restore the American Dream. A healthy person has a thousand dreams. The sick person only has one. And right now there are 60 percent of people in this country who have only one dream: that they can make it through the day without pain, with energy, without having to take medications. And, we are going to change that for our country. And I want to thank the Moms and thank President Trump for his confidence in my leadership, and for allowing me to surround myself with such an extraordinary team of scientists who are gonna restore transparency to this agency, who are going to do replicated science, who are going to restore gold-standard science so we know what is in our food and we can eliminate it. Thank you very much. 

As many Americans are now saying, "This is what we voted for." MAGA and MAHA are now working hand-in-hand, as it should be.

The full press conference and remarks can be viewed below.

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Editor's Note: Thanks to President Trump and HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s leadership, we're on the path to Making America Healthy Again.

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