MAHA Is Fracturing
Big Food, Big Pharma, Big Ag, Big Chemical, and the very predictable art of crushing anything that threatens the machine
Are You Done With MAHA?
That is the question I keep hearing.
Are you done with MAHA?
And honestly, I get why people are asking.
MAHA has fractured. There is no question about it. What started as a very simple and, I think, very important premise — let’s make people healthier — has turned into the usual American political food fight, except somehow with more seed oils, more lobbyists, and more people screaming at each other online as if that has ever improved anyone’s mitochondrial function.
The original idea was great. Let’s talk about chronic disease. Let’s talk about why kids are sicker. Let’s talk about food. Let’s talk about chemicals. Let’s talk about pesticides, dyes, ultra-processed food, vaccine safety, insurance, pharmaceutical influence, school lunches, childhood obesity, metabolic disease, and why every third child seems to need an inhaler, a steroid cream, an allergy plan, a stimulant, or a specialist.
I am all for that.
I have always been all for that.
Heck, I’m a doctor. I know, shocking. Sometimes we like health.
And I have not given up hope that things can improve. I really haven’t. I know that sounds naive, and maybe it is. Maybe I am the guy at the end of the movie still saying, “Maybe the dinosaur is friendly,” while everyone else has already run screaming from the island.
But I am disheartened by a lot of what I have seen.
Because the more you watch, the more obvious it becomes that the government is not some neutral referee trying to help your family. It is a giant machine. And that machine has owners. Big Food. Big Ag. Big Chemical. Big Insurance. Big Pharma. Big Whatever-Else-Can-Afford-A-Lobbyist.
And those groups do not show up to Washington with a homemade sourdough loaf and a dream. They show up with money, power, lobbyists, lawyers, captured agencies, revolving doors, and enough influence to make your head explode.
The Good Part: We Are Finally Talking About It
Let’s start with the good, because there is real good.
The conversations are out in the open now.
That matters.
For years, if you talked about food dyes, people rolled their eyes like you were wearing a tinfoil hat made from organic hemp. If you questioned ultra-processed food, you were told calories are calories. If you asked about pesticide exposure, you were dramatic. If you asked about vaccine safety, you were labeled. If you asked why kids are so chronically sick, you were told genetics, bad luck, or maybe parents just need to try harder.
Now people are talking.
Parents are talking about ingredients.
Doctors are talking about metabolic health.
Podcasters are talking about seed oils, pesticides, glyphosate, food additives, childhood obesity, vaccine injury, and pharmaceutical influence.
Even politicians are talking about chronic disease, which is refreshing, although also terrifying because politicians can take a good idea and somehow turn it into a 900-page bill that funds the exact opposite thing.
But the conversation is a win.
A big one.
For years, many of these topics were pushed to the fringe. Now they are mainstream. Parents are reading labels. They are asking questions. They are taking their kids to farms. They are trying to buy better food. They are pushing schools. They are questioning why the food system is so broken. They are asking why “healthcare” often means waiting until someone is sick and then handing them a prescription.
That is not nothing.
That is huge.
If MAHA did nothing else but make it socially acceptable to talk about the fact that our kids are drowning in a toxic food and chemical environment, that alone matters.
But conversation is not the same as change.
And that is where things get frustrating.
The Machine Always Protects Itself
Here is the part that becomes obvious the longer you watch.
It does not seem to matter who is in office. The machine wins.
Big Food wins.
Big Ag wins.
Big Chemical wins.
Big Insurance wins.
Big Pharma wins.
They have the money. They have the lobbying. They have the relationships. They have the agency capture. They have the revolving door. They have the consultants. They have the think tanks. They have the “experts.” They own the media. They have the ability to make something look like public health while quietly making sure nothing too disruptive happens.
It is almost impressive, in the way a raccoon breaking into a locked trash can is impressive. You do not approve, but you have to acknowledge the skill.
Anytime someone seems to push too hard against the official corporate-friendly message, they seem to get isolated, removed, replaced, sidelined, or publicly fed into the wood chipper of respectability politics.
MAHA has had a revolving door feeling from the beginning. People in. People out. People fired. People leaving. People appointed. People attacked. People suddenly quiet. Public health positions unfilled. Committees shifting. Rule changes half-announced. Policies floated, walked back, softened, sued, stayed, delayed, or turned into “voluntary industry agreements,” which is Washington for “please promise not to do the bad thing too much while we all pretend this is reform.”
And this is one of the most frustrating parts. So much of what gets celebrated as change is not actual change.
A company agrees to reduce dyes.
A company agrees to phase something out.
An agency says it is reviewing something.
A committee says it is looking into something.
A politician says they are very concerned.
A hearing is held.
Everyone claps.
And then you read the fine print and realize your child’s cereal is still glowing like a nuclear sunset and the “voluntary commitment” has the enforcement strength of a pinky promise at recess.
Deregulation Is Not Health Freedom
This is where MAHA gets very confusing.
Because if the goal is health, then why do so many policy moves seem to go backward?
More chemical deregulation. More industry-friendly rules. More flexibility for companies. Less aggressive enforcement.
More “let the market decide,” which sounds nice until you remember the market decided kids should be eating blue-dyed cereal, drinking liquid candy, and watching cartoon characters sell them diabetes in a box.
Health freedom is not the same thing as corporate freedom. This is an important distinction. Parents having the freedom to make informed decisions is good. Families having access to local farms, homeschooling, medical choice, vaccine choice, clean food, and alternative health approaches is one conversation.
Corporations having the freedom to put whatever they want into food, spray whatever they want on crops, market junk to children, poison the environment, and then sponsor the conference about childhood wellness is another conversation.
Those are not the same thing.
But somehow they often get bundled together.
And then parents are told this is freedom.
No. That is not freedom. Freedom is a mother being able to feed her child real food without needing a trust fund.
Freedom is knowing what is in the products your child uses.
Freedom is not having to become a part-time toxicologist to buy shampoo.
Freedom is not needing a PhD in food labeling to understand whether your child’s snack is food or a chemistry project with a mascot.
Freedom is informed consent.
Freedom is transparency.
Freedom is accountability.
Freedom is not letting the largest companies on earth write the rules and then calling it liberty.
The Government Is Not MAHA
This is probably the hard truth.
The government is not MAHA.
The government is a machine.
And the machine is funded by big corporations.
There are some good people inside it. I truly believe that. There are people who care. There are doctors, scientists, parents, staffers, researchers, and advocates who are genuinely trying. I am not cynical about everyone. I am cynical about the system.
Because the system is not designed for truth. It is designed for power.
The system is not designed to ask, “What would make children healthier?”
It is designed to ask, “What can pass, what can be funded, who will be angry, who will donate, who will sue, who will lose money, and how do we make it look like we did something without upsetting the wrong people?”
That is not health.
That is choreography.
And once you see it, it becomes very hard to unsee.
It is like realizing the magician is not magic. He just has a very expensive smoke machine and a lobbyist backstage.
Why People Are Frustrated
People are frustrated because they thought this was going to be different.
They thought MAHA meant we were finally going to take on the forces making people sick. They thought there would be meaningful reform. They thought there would be accountability.
They thought someone would stand up to Big Food, Big Pharma, Big Ag, Big Insurance, and Big Chemical and say, “Enough.”
And to be fair, there have been moments that felt promising. There have been conversations we never used to have. There have been hearings, reports, statements, and public pressure. There has been a shift in what parents feel comfortable asking.
But parents are not stupid.
They can see when the language changes but the incentives stay the same. They can see when the movement talks about real food but then cuts supports that help families buy real food. They can see when politicians talk about chronic disease but keep protecting the industries driving it.
They can see when people talk about vaccine safety but remove or silence the people willing to ask hard questions. They can see when public health says it cares about children but leaves families stuck between processed junk, unaffordable groceries, chemical exposure, impossible school systems, and insurance companies that treat pediatric care like an accounting error.
At some point, people start asking: is this real, or is this just another slogan?
Am I Done With MAHA?
No.
But I am much less interested in the branding.
I am not done with the mission.
I am not done with the idea that children deserve better.
I am not done with the belief that chronic disease is not inevitable.
I am not done pushing for cleaner food, safer products, better informed consent, better vaccine safety research, more honest medicine, more transparent policy, and less corporate capture.
I am not done trying to help families.
But I am increasingly done believing that a giant federal machine owned by corporate interests is going to suddenly wake up one morning, stretch, sip some organic coffee, and say, “You know what, maybe we should stop letting the food and pharmaceutical industries write health policy.”
That seems unlikely.
I would love to be wrong.
Truly.
I would love to be embarrassingly wrong.
I would love to write a future article titled, “Well, I Was Wrong And The Government Fixed Everything,” although I suspect that article will be published shortly after my toddler voluntarily asks for steamed kale and then puts himself to bed.
The Real Option: Opt Out Where You Can
So where does that leave families? This is the part that matters.
You cannot control everything. You cannot fix Washington from your kitchen. You cannot personally dismantle corporate capture between school drop-off and soccer practice.
You cannot make every agency honest, every food clean, every school healthy, every doctor open-minded, every insurance company fair, and every politician brave.
If you try, you will lose your mind. And your family still needs dinner.
So the practical answer is not to obsess over every headline until your nervous system is cooked. The practical answer is to opt out where you can.
Not perfectly. Not dramatically.
Not in a “move to the woods and churn your own butter while homeschooling 14 children by candlelight” kind of way, unless that is your thing, in which case please invite me over because the butter sounds excellent.
I mean small, real choices.
Buy from farmers when you can. Go to the farmers market. Grow herbs. Cook more at home. Prioritize protein. Reduce ultra-processed food. Filter your water. Read labels. Get outside.Let your kids play in dirt.
Homeschool if that is right for your family. Choose schools carefully if it is not.Build community. Know your neighbors.
Ask better questions at the doctor. Do not outsource your thinking to mainstream media. Do not let every headline steal your peace.
Protect your family’s rhythm. Protect your child’s sleep. Protect your dinner table. Protect your ability to think.
Because the system is big, but your home still matters. Actually, your home may matter most.
Do Not Let The Machine Steal Your Joy
This is the part I have to remind myself too. It is very easy to get angry every day.
There is always something. Another chemical. Another bill. Another agency failure. Another corrupt incentive. Another ridiculous headline. Another expert saying something that makes you wonder if they have ever met a human child.
If you are not careful, you can spend your entire life furious at the machine. And the machine will keep running.
Meanwhile your kids are growing up.
So yes, be informed. Yes, push back. Yes, speak out. Yes, vote. Yes, call out hypocrisy. Yes, demand better. Yes, support people trying to make change.
But also go outside. Take your kids to a farm. Make dinner. Put your phone down. Laugh with your family. Get sunlight. Go for a walk. Teach your child where food comes from. Let them climb a tree. Have friends over.
Build a life that is not dependent on the approval of broken systems.
That is not giving up.
That is refusing to let the machine own your whole nervous system.
The Movement Is Bigger Than The Government
MAHA, if it means anything, cannot just be a political slogan.
It has to be a family-level, community-level, school-level, farm-level, dinner-table-level movement.
Your home can change faster than Washington. Your pantry can change faster than Congress. Your child’s bedtime can change faster than an agency rulemaking process.
Your family’s habits can shift before the next election cycle. That is where the hope is.
Not because policy does not matter. It does.
But because if you put all your hope in the system, you will be disappointed every time the lobbyists show up with better catering.
So, Are You Done?
I am not done.
But I am clear-eyed.
I am grateful that these conversations are finally happening.
But I am not naive about how hard this is.
Big corporations do not roll over because parents get organized or the secretary of HHS changes.
They fight.
They lobby.
They rebrand.
They survive.
So we have to be smarter.
You can choose your community.
You can choose to live in a way that makes your family harder to manipulate.
That may not fix the whole machine.
But it does something.
And sometimes, doing something real in your home is worth more than waiting forever for Washington to pretend it found a spine.
Love this- and great reminder like others said- be proactive and give attention but not to the point it steals our joy. Thank you!
Phew! Needed this reminder to not let it steal my joy & sanity. Thank you.