MAHA report ‘not about actions,’ food policy expert says

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• Geoff Bennett:

  And for a deeper dive now on the implications of the MAHA report on our food system, we turn now to one of the nation's foremost food policy experts.

  That is Professor Emerita at New York University Marion Nestle.

  Welcome back to the "News Hour."

• Marion Nestle, Professor Emerita, New York University:

  Glad to be here.

• Geoff Bennett:

  All right, so now that this final report is out, what did it get right and where does it fall short?

• Marion Nestle:

  Well, first of all, it was a big surprise, because I keep thinking I have seen this before. It looks exactly like the report that Michelle Obama's task force reported in 2010.

  A lot of this is right. It's a report about intentions. It wants to make America's kids healthier again. It talks about color additives and closing the generally recognized as safe loophole, which are the two things that this administration has done so far that look like they're making real progress.

  And it talks about a lot of other things in very general terms. It's a report about intentions. It's not about actions. And what you wonder is, how on earth are they going to do these things? What do they plan to do? The word regulation is only mentioned once in the context of the generally recognized as safe loophole.

  They talk about really important issues like stopping marketing to children, but they do that in, we're going to investigate. We're going to explore. We're going to think about. We're going to maybe do something about food industry marketing of junk foods to kids, which I think would really make a big difference.

  And what's disappointing about it is that the things that would make a big difference aren't here.

• Geoff Bennett:

  Like what?

• Marion Nestle:

  They're either not mentioned.

  Well, the business about pesticides, for example. They really have pushed them and backed off on a lot of the things they were saying about pesticides. There's nothing here about regulating marketing to children. There's nothing here about getting ultra-processed foods out of schools or anywhere else. There's nothing regulatory in this.

  It's all intentional. We're going to — it's about research. Let's do more research. And I want to see action. What are they going to do? I want to know that. They haven't said.

• Geoff Bennett:

  We know that the secretary has leaned on debunked science in his anti-vaccine claims. How reliable is this report's data, in your view?

• Marion Nestle:

  Well, there's no data in this report. This is an intentional report. This is what we're going to do.

  The data were given in the first report. And some of the data made sense and some of it was hallucinated. So it's hard to say. But they keep talking about gold standard research. And my understanding of gold standard research is, these are long-term clinical trials with large numbers of people that take absolutely forever.

  So it's hard to know how that's going to happen when the research enterprise has been decimated and so many people have lost their jobs and we don't really have a research enterprise anymore. So it's quite unclear how any of this is going to work.

• Geoff Bennett:

  So I hear you say there's no data in this report. There's no process. There's no real mention of a regulatory framework. But there is this tension between MAHA's agenda and MAGA policies.

  So Kennedy's talking about healthy food access, but SNAP funding, food stamp funding has been cut. He points to the EPA on pesticides, but the administration has gutted its staff and the EPA budget. So how do you see those contradictions complicating Kennedy's ambitions?

• Marion Nestle:

  Well, my — the best example of that is that they want to promote farm-to-school programs. That was the first program that the Trump administration cut in the Department of Agriculture, a totally win-win program in which farmers gained and schools gained. And that program is gone.

  But I understand that Secretary Rollins says it's going to come back. That would be nice. I want to see the action. That's what really counts.

• Geoff Bennett:

  Marion Nestle, it's always a pleasure to speak with you. Thank you for your perspectives.