Robert F. Kennedy Jr. visited Harrisburg on Wednesday, giving an address that roped Pennsylvania’s agricultural prowess into his “Make America Healthy Again” agenda, particularly the recent revision of federal dietary guidelines.
But the most enthusiastic supporters weren’t exactly there to hear about the new food pyramid. Although not a perfect sample, most of those who spoke with PennLive said they had found out about the event through anti-vaccine networks, illustrating the line Kennedy has attempted to tread since being named the federal Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS) by President Donald Trump.
“This ‘take back your health’ tour is about telling the truth and recognizing the extraordinary leadership of legislators” who are supporting that agenda at the state level, Kennedy told the crowd of about 300 people in the Capitol Rotunda.
Kennedy was joined by about 30 Republican state lawmakers as well as state Treasurer (and presumptive GOP gubernatorial nominee) Stacy Garrity.
Several lawmakers mentioned ongoing bipartisan initiatives to improve Pennsylvanians’ diets, including a recent package of bills to crack down on artificial dyes and ultra-processed foods, as well as efforts to put whole milk in school cafeterias — now a federal law which Trump recently signed.
Americans “are facing worse health outcomes than ever before,” said Rep. David Rowe, R-Snyder County, who served as the event’s host. Rowe credited Kennedy for inspiring his own recent weight loss, and said Kennedy’s changes to the food pyramid were “bringing common sense back to the American diet.”
“Pennsylvania just makes sense” as a place for Kennedy to kick off his dietary improvement tour, Rowe said after the event. “We are the bread basket of the east.”
But for Kennedy’s critics, nutrition advice is just the tip of the iceberg. The impact of the food pyramid changes — putting more emphasis on meat and dairy and de-emphasizing refined grains — were of far less concern than Kennedy’s changes to vaccine schedules, which have been widely panned by doctors as baseless.
“RFK Jr. is as anti-scientific an ideologue as I’ve ever seen,” Rep. Arvind Venkat, D-Allegheny County, who is a medical doctor, told PennLive following Kennedy’s speech. “He has preconceived notions and he tries to shoehorn evidence into that narrative.”
Roughly two dozen protestors picketed on the Capitol steps before Wednesday’s event, with most of their signage opposing Kennedy’s anti-vaccine views and the Trump administration’s sweeping cuts to scientific research funding.
In a social media post during Kennedy’s speech, Gov. Josh Shapiro said the HHS Secretary has “ignored decades of science and spread misinformation about vaccines.” Shapiro pointed specifically to a Kennedy-appointed panel dropping the Hepatitis B vaccine recommendation for newborns.
In his Wednesday remarks, Kennedy said that past dietary guidelines were the result of “politicized science driven by the mercantile ambitions of the big food processing companies.” His revisions will “bring real food” back into American homes, Kennedy said, and “combat the root cause” of what he has described as an epidemic of chronic illness.
Kennedy’s belief in this phenomenon was at the center of some of his more grandiose claims. At one point, Kennedy said that “more than 40% of every taxpayer dollar collected now goes to largely preventable diet-based diseases,” an extremely high estimate given that total health expenditures – including all of Medicare and Medicaid – make up about a quarter of the federal budget, according to analysis from the Kaiser Family Foundation.
“He’s right to say that we have allowed too much junk food to come into our food supply,” Venkat said, but this is undercut by Kennedy increasing allowances for alcohol and saturated fats, for which Venkat said there is little to no scientific backing.
Most major medical agencies have had similar critiques. The American Medical Association and the American Academy of Pediatrics endorsed Kennedy’s food pyramid, praising the reduction of processed sugars — even as both have condemned Kennedy’s stance on vaccines, including him downplaying the danger of measles and misrepresenting how the vaccine works amid ongoing outbreaks of the disease across the nation.
Kennedy didn’t bring vaccines up during his speech, and only touched on the topic in response to a reporter’s question asking for his reaction to states — including Pennsylvania — moving to allow physicians to use state-level vaccine guidance due to concerns over the veracity of HHS information under Kennedy.
“Some states may choose to take a different pathway, and I think we envision that different people will be doing different things,” Kennedy said.
The vaccine issue was clearly at the forefront for many of those in attendance, some of whom told PennLive they had driven hours to see Kennedy because they believed his theories about vaccines causing disease.
Kennedy was involved “very early in the awareness that vaccines cause autism,” said Kathleen Tanenbaum, who came in from Allentown. Tanenbaum said she had found out about the event through a organization “primarily for people who know their children have been vaccine-injured.” The Pennsylvania Coalition for Informed Consent, which lobbies in support of exemptions to school and workplace vaccine requirements, had a table set up in the rotunda for Kennedy’s appearance.
(The Centers for Disease Control, under Kennedy’s authority, has claimed that science cannot rule out a link between childhood vaccinations and autism, even though voluminous studies point to better diagnostics, increased parental age, and a handful of other factors as the drivers of increased rates of the disorder.)
A few attendees were interested in the actual topic at hand. Naomi Whittaker, a Harrisburg-area OB/GYN, said she showed up because Kennedy’s emphasis on nutrition seems like “common-sense stuff.”
Whittaker said she’s had several patients who were told by other doctors that they would need IVF, but whose fertility problems could actually be solved by less invasive methods, and that she’s concerned about the “commoditizing of female bodies” by medical professionals eager to push costly treatments.
At one point in Kennedy’s speech, he was badgered by a heckler over the Trump-backed federal budget deal that will impose reductions to Medicaid coverage.
The heckler was ushered out by Capitol police, but the issue remains. Kennedy touted a plan by Trump to put $50 billion over the next five years into supporting rural healthcare facilities – although this would only make up for a little over a third of what they’re estimated to lose from the Medicaid changes.
“We’re hearing advice on how to fix rural health from someone that is in an administration that is actively working to defund all of the mechanisms to afford healthcare for every person across our commonwealth – rural or suburban or urban,” said Sen. Maria Collett, D-Montgomery County. “It’s devastating.”