Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. told employees of his new department Tuesday that "nothing is going to be off limits" from review, including pesticides and ultraprocesssed foods.
During his first address to the department, Kennedy set the tone and blueprint for the agency under his leadership. He said the template for the department will be “unbiased science,” and that he stands ready to subject any belief or suspicion he has expressed in the past to this same standard.
The department's review will run from the childhood vaccine schedule to "glyphosate, other pesticides, ultraprocessed foods, artificial food additives," and other products, he said.
Kennedy's comments came the day after the Food and Drug Administration's top human foods administrator, Jim Jones, announced his resignation. Jones was selected to serve as the FDA's first deputy commissioner for human foods and was instrumental to reorganization efforts of the foods program.
Jones cited "indiscriminate" layoffs of 89 staff members in the food division as the reason behind his resignation, which was first reported by Food Fix. FDA regulates 80% of the U.S. food supply. Meat and poultry are under the purview of USDA.
“I was looking forward to working to pursue the department’s agenda of improving the health of Americans by reducing diet-related chronic disease and risks from chemicals in food,” Jones said in a resignation letter. However, he said the new administration's "disdain" for the people needed to make these changes demonstrated it would be "fruitless for me to continue in this role."
Steven Grossman, former executive director of the Alliance for a Stronger FDA, said Jones had rare support from both consumer and industry groups. He said the deputy commissioner's departure, along with lay-offs in the HFP, would make it more difficult to upgrade FDA's food chemical safety program and other food safety improvement efforts.
In Tuesday's speech, Kennedy referenced President Donald Trump’s recent executive order establishing the Make America Healthy Again Commission to study the decline in American health. He said the panel would convene representatives of different perspectives, and study factors that were previously “taboo or insufficiently scrutinized.”
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Kennedy said the federal government should commission research that satisfies “all stakeholders” and uses protocols everyone agrees to ahead of time.
“Let’s all depoliticize these issues and reestablish a common ground or action and renew the search for existential truth with no political impediments and no preconceptions,” Kennedy said in his address.
Under Trump’s order establishing the MAHA Commission, USDA Secretary Brooke Rollins and EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin will also contribute to the panel’s work.
Kennedy’s skepticism toward pesticides, ultra-processed foods and food additives are not new. Ahead of his confirmation, some lawmakers representing agricultural districts raised issues, particularly with his critiques of pesticide use in U.S. agriculture.
While some senators have insisted that Kennedy will be a friend to agriculture and farmers, many ag economists and farmers are still not convinced.
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