{"id":914,"date":"2025-07-29T10:30:00","date_gmt":"2025-07-29T10:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/audiomateria.com\/?p=914"},"modified":"2025-08-01T19:12:37","modified_gmt":"2025-08-01T19:12:37","slug":"is-maha-losing-its-battle-to-make-americans-healthier","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/audiomateria.com\/index.php\/2025\/07\/29\/is-maha-losing-its-battle-to-make-americans-healthier\/","title":{"rendered":"Is MAHA losing its battle to make Americans healthier?"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\n\tPresident Donald Trump\u2019s health and environmental agencies are pursuing very different agendas on pollution and human health.\t<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

On a Friday evening this July, the Trump administration announced<\/a> it would lay off all of the health research scientists at the Environmental Protection Agency. Hundreds of investigators who try to understand how toxic pollution affects the human body would be gone.<\/p>\n

That wasn\u2019t a surprise. The EPA \u2014 which had a founding mission to protect \u201cthe air we breathe and the water we drink,\u201d as President Richard Nixon put it<\/a> \u2014 has been busy dismantling policies that are in place to ensure environmental and public health. <\/p>\n

The New York Times reported<\/a> earlier this month that the agency is drafting a plan that would repeal its recognition of climate change as a threat to human health, potentially limiting the government\u2019s ability to regulate greenhouse gases. EPA administrator Lee Zeldin has relaxed existing standards for mercury and lead pollution \u2014 two toxins that can lead to developmental problems in children. And the EPA has postponed its implementation of new Biden-era regulations that were supposed to reduce the amount of dangerous chemicals Americans are exposed to. <\/p>\n

Meanwhile, House Republicans are attempting<\/a> to grant widespread liability relief to pesticide companies and restrict EPA regulation of PFAS \u201cforever chemicals\u201d<\/a> through provisions that have been tucked into the spending bills currently moving through Congress. (Democrats, for their part, have offered<\/a> opposing legislation that would protect an individual\u2019s right to sue over any harm from pesticides.)<\/p>\n

This collective assault upon America\u2019s environmental regulations targets not just the environment, but human health as well. Which means it sits oddly with the work of another Trump official whose office at the Department of Health and Human Services is just a 15-minute walk from EPA headquarters: Robert F. Kennedy Jr<\/a>, whose Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) movement<\/a> seeks to, obviously, make Americans healthier<\/em>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

But Kennedy hasn\u2019t spoken up about these contradictions \u2014 and his supporters are beginning to notice<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In response to the pro-pesticide industry proposals in Congress, MAHA leaders wrote a letter<\/a> to Kennedy and Zeldin voicing opposition to a bill that they believe \u201cwould ensure that Americans have no power to prevent pesticide exposure, and no path to justice after harm occurs.\u201d In the letter, they also urged the EPA to ban two pesticides \u2014 atrazine and glyphosate \u2014 that have been linked<\/a> to birth defects and liver and kidney problems. <\/p>\n

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What you\u2019ll learn from this story:<\/h2>\n