Trump’s Health Czar: Are His Food Policies Bizarre?

By nominating Robert F. Kennedy for Secretary of Health and Human Services, president-elect Donald Trump followed through on his promise that Kennedy would have a substantial role in shaping America’s food policy.[1] Trump plans to give Kennedy full authority to “go wild” on food policy to reduce Americans’ development of chronic illnesses.[2] Kennedy’s tentative plans to “make America healthy again”[3] include reducing pesticide-intensive agriculture and banning certain food additives.[4] He also signaled that he intends to reform the Food and Drug Administration (“FDA”) to ensure Americans have access to safe and healthy food.[5] Kennedy’s proposals have received significant backlash from public health officials and agricultural sector groups who claim that his policies “are not based on science” and could “upend the existing US food system.”[6] But how do Kennedy’s proposed food policies compare to other countries that exhibit top marks for their food systems? An analysis of the European Union’s (“EU”) food policies suggests that Kennedy’s proposals to reduce pesticide reliance and ban certain food additives to combat chronic illness are not as unfounded as critics suggest.[7]

The US restricts pesticide use far less than the EU because of the US’s regulatory structure. While the EU primarily relies on non-voluntary (agency-initiated) product cancellations, the US almost exclusively relies on voluntary (industry-initiated) product cancellations.[8] The US relies on voluntary cancellations because the Environmental Protection Agency—the regulating body for pesticides—must undergo a resource-intensive, time-consuming process to ban pesticides without the industry’s consent.[9] Conversely, voluntary cancellations have minimal procedures.[10] This imbalance fuels the US’s reliance on voluntary cancellations and gives the pesticide industry significant authority to regulate itself.[11] As a result, the US currently uses around seventy pesticides that the EU has banned for violating EU safety standards.[12] These EU-banned pesticides accounted for more than twenty-five percent of the US’s total pesticides used in 2016, a trend that likely remains constant in 2024.[13] Although there is conflicting evidence on whether repeated exposure to pesticide residue on food may cause chronic illnesses,[14] Kennedy’s proposed approach to pesticide reduction more closely resembles the EU’s focus on non-voluntary cancellations to protect consumer health.

Similarly, the US restricts food additives far less than the EU because of the US’s regulatory structure. The EU has a proactive approach, allowing food additives only after the industry proves the products do not cause harm.[15] Meanwhile, the US primarily follows a risk-based approach, permitting most food additives unless there is evidence of harm.[16] Although the US requires that new food additives or existing food additives used in novel ways undergo premarket review, many other food additives that companies self-certify as “Generally Recognized as Safe” (“GRAS”) ingredients undergo no review.[17] For GRAS ingredients, companies can conduct their own studies, certify that the ingredients cause no harm, and release them into the market without notifying the FDA or providing the FDA with the company’s findings.[18] Critics have noted that companies exploit GRAS review as a loophole to introduce products into the market that should undergo premarket review.[19] Further compounding the problem, the FDA lacks the resources to revisit most approved food additives’ safety, which hinders the FDA’s ability to ban products despite new information indicating that a food additive causes harm.[20] As a result, the US permits food additives that the EU has deemed unsafe and unlawful.[21] The EU has identified many of these US-approved food additives, like dyes, emulsifiers, and preservatives, as carcinogens or suspected contributors to other chronic illnesses.[22] Independent studies have corroborated the EU’s findings.[23] In sum, Kennedy’s emphasis on banning certain food additives more closely mirrors the EU’s proactive approach to food regulation.

Although critics challenge Kennedy’s food policies, his proposals closely resemble the EU’s consumer-first approach to food regulation. Claims that Kennedy’s food policies are void of scientific backing lack merit and ignore research focused on the long-term effects of consuming pesticide residue and certain food additives. Whether Kennedy’s policies are economically feasible in the US represents another issue, but he could look to the EU as a case study to achieve his goals.

Nickolas G. Erickson is a staff member of Fordham International Law Journal Volume XLVIII.

[1] See Mary Whitfill Roeloffs & Sara Dorn, RFK Jr. HHS Cabinet Nomination: Trump’s Pick Gets High Marks In New Poll, Forbes (Nov. 24, 2024, 12:25 PM), https://www.forbes.com/sites/maryroeloffs/2024/11/24/rfk-jr-cabinet-nomination-news-trumps-hhs-pick-gets-high-marks-in-new-poll/; see also Marcia Brown, Grace Yarrow & Brittany Gibson, A world without seed oils and pesticides? The food industry braces for RFK Jr. era., Politico (Oct. 31, 2024, 2:56 PM), https://www.politico.com/news/2024/10/31/trump-rfk-food-pharma-00186513 [hereinafter Politico: Bracing for RFK].

[2] See Grace Yarrow, RFK Jr.'s ag future?, Politico (October 28, 2024, 10:00 AM), https://www.politico.com/newsletters/weekly-agriculture/2024/10/28/rfk-jr-s-ag-future-00185752 [hereinafter Politico: RFK’s Ag Future]; see also Nathaniel Weixel, RFK Jr.’s new bully pulpit sends public health shock waves, The Hill (Nov. 10, 2024, 12:00 PM), https://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/4981959-trump-robert-kennedy-health-agencies/.

[3] Make America Healthy Again, https://www.mahanow.org/ (last visited Nov. 13, 2024).

[4] See Politico: Bracing for RFK, supra note 1 (discussing how Kennedy seeks to ban seed oils and ultra-processed foods, which are saturated with food additives).

[5] See Politico: RFK’s Ag Future, supra note 2.

[6] Politico: Bracing for RFK, supra note 1.

[7] Global Food Security Index 2022, https://impact.economist.com/sustainability/project/food-security-index#introduction (last visited Nov. 13, 2024) (placing EU countries in the top five while ranking the US thirteenth worldwide after assessing food affordability, availability, quality and safety, and sustainability).

[8] See Nathan Donley, The USA lags behind other agric. nations in banning harmful pesticides, 18 Env’t Health 44, 50 (2019) [hereinafter USA Lags Behind].

[9] See id.; see also Pesticide Cancellation Under EPA's Own Initiative, U.S. Env’t Prot. Agency, https://www.epa.gov/pesticide-tolerances/pesticide-cancellation-under-epas-own-initiative (last updated Oct. 24, 2024) (describing procedures for non-voluntary cancellations).

[10] See Voluntary Cancellation of a Pesticide Product or Use, U.S. Env’t Prot. Agency, https://www.epa.gov/pesticide-registration/voluntary-cancellation-pesticide-product-or-use (last updated Jul. 22, 2024) (describing procedures for voluntary cancellations).

[11] See Nathan Donley, How the EPA’s lax regulation of dangerous pesticides is hurting public health and the US economy, Brookings (Sep. 29, 2022), https://www.brookings.edu/articles/how-the-epas-lax-regulation-of-dangerous-pesticides-is-hurting-public-health-and-the-us-economy/.

[12] See USA Lags Behind, supra note 8, at 50.

[13] See id. at 52.

[14] Compare Agneta Åkesson et al., Ass’ns between dietary pesticide residue mixture exposure and mortality in a population-based prospective cohort of men and women, Sci. Direct (Nov. 23, 2023),  https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0160412023006190 (describing how their study yielded “no indications that dietary exposure to pesticide residue mixtures was associated with increased mortality” but warned that their results “need to be interpreted with caution.”), with Md Faruque Ahmad et al., Pesticides impacts on human health and the env’t with their mechanisms of action and possible countermeasures, Sci. Direct (Apr. 4, 2024), https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2405844024051594#sec3 (describing how “[e]ating pesticide-contaminated food items, especially those heavy in fat, might increase one’s exposure to pesticides overall and may have an adverse effect on liver health.”), and Matthew Thorpe & Rachael Ajmera, Are Pesticides in Foods Harming Your Health?, Healthline (Jun. 13, 2023),  https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/pesticides-and-health#inadequate-limits  (discussing how “chronic health effects of pesticides may not be detectable by the types of studies used to establish safe limits.”), and  Yu-Han Chiu et al., Ass’n Between Pesticide Residue Intake From Consumption of Fruits and Vegetables and Pregnancy Outcomes Among Women Undergoing Infertility Treatment With Assisted Reproductive Technology, PubMed Cent. (Oct. 30, 2017),  https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5814112/#:~:text=Higher%20consumption%20of%20high%E2%80%93pesticide,associated%20with%20adverse%20reproductive%20consequences (noting that consuming pesticides at allowable ranges “may be associated with adverse reproductive consequences.”).

[15] See EU vs. US Food Reguls.: Understanding the Key Differences, RDR Glob. Partners (Dec 15, 2023), https://rdrglobalpartners.com/blog/eu-vs-us-food-regulations-understanding-the-key-differences.

[16] See id.

[17] See Daniel G. Aaron, The Fall of FDA Review, 22 Yale J. Health Pol'y, L. & Ethics 95, 154 (2023).

[18] See Rachel Harrison, How a Legal Loophole Allows Unsafe Ingredients in U.S. Foods, NYU (Aug. 8, 2024),  https://www.nyu.edu/about/news-publications/news/2024/august/legal-loophole-unsafe-ingredients.html.

[19] Kimberly Kindy, Food additives on the rise as FDA scrutiny wanes, Washington Post (Aug 17, 2014), https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/food-additives-on-the-rise-as-fda-scrutiny-wanes/2014/08/17/828e9bf8-1cb2-11e4-ab7b-696c295ddfd1_story.html.

[20] See Harrison, supra note 18.

[21] See, e.g., Food Reguls. in Eur. vs. the US, Tilley Distrib. (Mar. 22, 2023), https://www.tilleydistribution.com/insights/food-regulations-in-europe-vs-the-us/; supra note 15.

[22] See, e.g., id.

[23] See, e.g., Kindy, supra note 19; Carol Torgan, Food Additives Alter Gut Microbes, Cause Diseases in Mice, Nat’l Insts. of Health (Mar. 16, 2015), https://www.nih.gov/news-events/nih-research-matters/food-additives-alter-gut-microbes-cause-diseases-mice; 7 Additives in our processed food that are banned outside the U.S., Levels (Feb. 5, 2024), https://www.levels.com/blog/seven-additives-in-our-processed-food-that-are-banned-in-other-countries.

[1] Tarah Wheeler, In Cyberwar There are No Rules, FOREIGN POLICY (Sept. 12, 2018), https://foreignpolicy.com/2018/09/12/in-cyberwar-there-are-no-rules-cybersecurity-war-defense/.

[2]Significant Cyber Incidents, Center for Strategic and International Studies (2004).

[3] Wheeler, supra note 1.

[4] Id.

[5] See James Andrew Lewis, A Note on the Laws of War in Cyberspace, Center for Strategic and International Studies (April 25, 2010), https://www.csis.org/analysis/note-laws-war-cyberspace.

[6] Cyber Strategy, Dep’t of Def., at 8 (2023).

[7] Wheeler, supra note 1.

[8] Id.

[9] Katitza Rodriguez, The UN General Assembly and the Fight Against the Cybercrime Treaty, Electronic Frontier Foundation (Sept. 26, 2024), https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2024/08/un-general-assembly-and-fight-against-cybercrime-treaty.

[10] Id.

[11] Maggie Miller, White House Agonizes Over UN Cybercrime Treaty, Politico (Sept. 27, 2024) https://www.politico.com/news/2024/09/26/un-cybercrime-treaty-white-house-russia-00181271.

This is a student blog post and in no way represents the views of the Fordham International Law Journal.