July 7, 2025
Trump Administration Food Scorecard
By Michael F. Jacobson
In its first six months in office, the Trump administration has probably devoted more attention to food and agriculture policies than any previous administration. Several initiatives spearheaded by Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. promise to improve the public’s health. Many others, though, are undermining health, jeopardizing farmers’ livelihoods, and exacerbating hunger and suffering in the United States and abroad. Budget cuts, cancellation of contracts, and impoundments are crippling scientific research and regulatory actions, decimating scientific research at universities, and harming the environment.
What can we expect in the coming months? For starters, the Republican budget bill promises major budget cuts that will affect countless functions of government, few more important than SNAP, Medicaid, and USAID. And we will have greater clarity on how firings (some of which have been reversed), budget cuts, and demoralization affect public health and the creativity and dedication of federal employees. Two upcoming actions: the administration’s expected policy recommendations on children’s diets and health and the next edition of Dietary Guidelines for Americans.
Positive
(Dates shown are either when the events occurred or were reported in press accounts.)
2/13/25 – President Trump creates the President’s Make America Healthy Again Commission, which initially will “address the childhood chronic disease crisis.”
4/7/25 – RFK Jr. encourages bans on ultra-processed foods in schools and on the use of SNAP benefits to purchase sugar drinks.
4/8/25 –USDA more than doubled compensation (from $7 per chicken to almost $17) to egg farmers for bird-flu affected farms, a huge increase for farms that as many as 5 million hens.
4/9/25 – RFK Jr. set a two-year deadline for companies to eliminate food dyes (though he did not initiate rulemaking to effectuate a ban).
4/22/25 – Because food dyes can trigger behavioral problems in children, FDA said it will ban two dyes (that are no longer used); it called on industry to voluntarily stop using the other six dyes that are widely used within four years. RFK Jr. called dyes “poisonous” and “toxic.”
4/22/25 – RFK Jr. used his bully pulpit to criticize sugar. He said (with no hint of exaggeration), “Sugar is poison…and Americans need to know that it’s poison.”
5/19/25, 5/23/25 – USDA allows Nebraska, Indiana, and Iowa to bar sugar-drink purchases with SNAP benefits. 6/10/25: USDA did the same for Arkansas, Idaho, and Utah.
5/22/25 – MAHA releases report on children’s health with remarkably critical and often perceptive comments about the poor state of children’s health, ultra-processed foods, environmental toxins, and corporate practices.
Negative
(Dates shown are either when the events occurred or were reported in press accounts.)
3/2/25 – U.S. Department of Agriculture fires staff at the National Plant Germplasm System, a vast federal collection of seeds, roots, branches and stems that is a “living library” aimed at protecting against famine in the US and elsewhere.
3/7/25 – USDA eliminates the National Advisory Committee on Microbiological Criteria for Foods and the National Advisory Committee on Meat and Poultry Inspection, which include outside experts and are parts of the US food-safety system.
3/17/25 – Secretary of HHS Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. lauds Steak ‘n Shake for replacing vegetable oil with beef tallow, increasing the risk of heart disease.
3/17/25 – USDA allows poultry and pork processing plants to accelerate line speeds, making it harder for food-safety inspectors to examine every carcass.
3/17/25 – 89 Food and Drug Administration staffers, including key technical experts, were fired, making it harder to keep food safe, honestly labeled.
3/19/25 – USDA halts $1.5 billion program that helped small farms and producers provide food to food banks and schools.
3/20/25 – Administration halts the 30-landmark year-long Diabetes Prevention Program.
3/20/25 – FDA postpones for 2½ years the implementation of a rule (required by the Food Safety Modernization Act) designed to speed the identification of tainted foods.
3/27/25 – RFK Jr. will fire 10,000 HHS employees, including 3,500 at the FDA. It is unclear yet how many will be in the agency’s food division.
3/28/25 – Inspired by RFK Jr., Utah is first state to ban fluoridation of drinking water, which protects against tooth decay.
3/28/25 – Administration seeks to end the US Agency for International Development, which has provided billions of dollars annually in food and other aid to needy countries.
4/2/25 – Of the 3,500 FDA staff fired earlier, including many senior officials, the Human Foods division lost about 280 out of about 1,000 employees. Thousands more were fired at CDC, NIH, and other health agencies. 4/25/25 – NYT: Some food-safety scientists were offered their jobs back.
4/3/25 NPR: After RFK Jr. had promised “radical transparency,” HHS gutted the offices that handle media relations and Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests at FDA, CDC, NIH.
4/4/25: NYT: HHS rejects a Biden plan to require Medicare and Medicaid to cover obesity drugs.
4/7/25: NYT: RFK Jr. wages a three-day campaign in western states to end fluoridation of drinking water.
4/16/25 – Kevin Hall, the NIH researcher whose groundbreaking study found that a diet rich in ultra-processed foods leads to weight gain, was forced into early retirement.
4/23/25 – FDA commissioner Marty Makary falsely claimed that there “were not cuts to scientists, or reviewers, or inspectors. Absolutely none.”
4/24/25 – AP: USDA withdraws a plan to limit salmonella levels in raw poultry and prevent illnesses and deaths.
4/25/25 – Washington Post: RFK Jr. has said “When my uncle was president [1961-1963], 3 percent of Americans had chronic disease [such as heart disease, hypertension, liver cirrhosis, and other diet-related diseases]. Today, it’s 60 percent.” The figure of 3 percent is a gross understatement of the actual—about 45 percent—level.
6/26/25 – New York Times: Trump’s “big beautiful” reconciliation bill would cut almost $300 billion in SNAP benefits and stop at least a million people from receiving benefits. 7/1/25: The bill was passed by the Senate and is now awaiting House action (spoiler alert: it was adopted).
