Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is using his central role in Donald Trump’s transition team to preach for policies he says will improve the nutritional value of American food. But as the U.S. again faces a swirl of foodborne illness, his public proposals give no sign of what he and Trump would do to strengthen the federal agencies that oversee food safety — agencies that experts say are underfunded and understaffed, leading to public health crises.
“You can’t really separate food safety and nutrition. The two go hand in hand,” said former director of the FDA Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition Susan Mayne. Some of the most nutritious food products, like produce, are also “some of the highest risk from a food safety perspective,” she said.
Despite reportedly gunning for a cabinet position running one of the two departments in charge of food quality in the U.S., Kennedy’s concerns with food safety appear not to focus on existing safety regulation enforcement issues. Instead, his food improvement platform has centered on removing ultra-processed foods and food additives from the American diet, which he says lead to chronic disease.