Elizabeth Frost grew up in conservative rural Ohio, in the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains, and watched the opioid epidemic wreck her community. Her father fought an addiction to OxyContin. A cousin died from complications related to an overdose.
When she first heard Robert F. Kennedy Jr. speak, she told ABC’s 7.30, “This man was laying out corporate capture and corporate influence more eloquently than I’d ever heard someone do it before.” She said she prayed on it and felt a conviction to do everything she could to get him elected. She joined his presidential campaign.
That campaign ended when Kennedy dropped out to endorse President Donald Trump. Frost called it “a blind side and a gut punch,” but like many loyal supporters she followed him to the Republicans.
Disappointment inside the movement
Kennedy, an environmental lawyer and one-time presidential candidate, led the Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) movement, which promised to take on Big Food, Big Agriculture and Big Pharma. Now US Secretary of Health and Human Services, he has disappointed some of the people who backed him on that pledge.
Frost pointed to a program that gave vouchers to low-income seniors for fresh local fruit and vegetables. Its funding dried up. She also objected to what she saw as a cosy relationship between the White House and big business. “I don’t think that that reads to anyone in MAHA as what they wanted,” she said. She believes the administration is constraining Kennedy: “I think he is playing a game that has to be played if he wants a seat at the table.”
Since moving MAHA voters into Trump’s camp, Kennedy has fired the entire vaccine advisory board. He also presided over a crisis at the Centers for Disease Control in which four senior officials quit in protest. Measles, eliminated in the US in 2000, has returned, with more than 4,000 confirmed cases this year. Some MAHA supporters backed his vaccine moves. Others think his focus on vaccine scepticism has pulled attention from more pressing issues.
The glyphosate fight
One of those issues is glyphosate, the herbicide in the weed killer Roundup. Its manufacturer faces tens of thousands of lawsuits in the US. The World Health Organization declared glyphosate a probable carcinogen a decade ago, but regulators, including those in Australia and the US, say it is safe when instructions are followed.
Kennedy sued the maker of Roundup before he entered politics. That is how he met Kelly Ryerson, an online influencer known as “The Glyphosate Girl.” She told 7.30 she is not sure anyone is more distressed about pesticides than Kennedy. “That person is still there, but he can’t act on it,” she said.
Since Trump returned to the White House, his administration has expanded domestic glyphosate production and given companies that make it a liability shield. More than 200 MAHA activists sent Trump an open letter warning that the issue could cost Republicans the House majority in the coming midterm elections. Ryerson said she has received hundreds of emails from people who now regret their vote.
Democrats move in
Ryerson says her own vote is up for grabs: “I actually don’t care which party it is.” Some Democrats are courting people like her. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez says she has met with MAHA figures and sees public frustration over corporate food corruption and toxic chemicals as a non-partisan issue. Abdul El-Sayed, the Michigan Democratic Senate nominee, released a health policy agenda last month that attacks Kennedy for breaking promises to voters.
The recent MAHA summit in Washington, DC, did little to settle nerves. It featured fewer of the women who built the movement and more of the men who have taken it over. Speakers included Environmental Protection Agency head and Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins, who drew criticism for saying glyphosate was “proven safe when used correctly.” Corporate sponsors ranged from peptide and psychedelic sellers to Walmart. Bloomberg reported that some sponsors got a private dinner with speakers, including Trump administration health officials.
Frost still thinks the movement will last. “I think that MAHA as a movement will probably take many forms in its lifetime,” she said, “but I think the ethos, the excitement and the drive behind it is what will be here to stay.”
