The vegetable lobby has had a good run. For decades, the conventional wisdom on brain health has been some variation of the same tired sermon: eat less meat, eat more plants, and maybe your aging mind will hold together long enough to remember where you parked the car.

A new study out of Sweden suggests that for roughly a quarter of the American population, that advice has been wrong — measurably, consistently, damagingly wrong.

Life is exhausting. Depletion is something else. And only one of them is fixed by a rib-eye.

Published in JAMA Network Open, the study tracked more than 2,000 Swedish adults over 60 for 15 years. Among carriers of the APOE4 gene — the strongest genetic risk factor for Alzheimer’s disease — those who ate the most meat showed slower cognitive decline and lower dementia risk than those who ate the least.

Among the those who ate the most meat, the elevated dementia risk associated with carrying APOE4 disappeared entirely.

The most feared dementia gene in medicine — at least in this cohort — effectively disarmed by the food that built the brain carrying it.

Brain drain

One in four Americans carries at least one copy of APOE4. Two-thirds of people with Alzheimer’s carry it. This is a massive slice of the country.

Tens of millions of Americans have been dutifully following brain-health guidelines that may be contributing to the very decline those guidelines promised to prevent.

This is what happens when nutritional science gets hijacked by ideology and the bill comes due 30 years later.

APOE4 appears to influence how efficiently the body absorbs and uses certain nutrients, particularly vitamin B12 — essential for nerve function and found almost exclusively in animal products. APOE4 carriers who ate more meat showed measurably higher B12 levels in their blood.

The gene also affects how the body processes fats and cholesterol — the building blocks brain cells require for fuel and structure. APOE4 is the oldest variant of the gene, one that likely predates agriculture entirely. Some bodies, it turns out, never got the memo about kale smoothies and the moral purity of eating like a rabbit.

Steakholders

None of this will surprise anyone who has eaten a quality steak and felt, within the hour, unreasonably capable.

That sudden clarity. The alertness. The faint, irrational optimism about existence — that’s iron talking. Heme iron, specifically, found in red meat and absorbed at rates far higher than the iron in spinach and lentils, which the body processes with all the urgency of a man skimming terms and conditions.

Roughly 40% of American women are iron-deficient. A significant portion of the population moves through daily life in a low-grade fog of fatigue and poor concentration they have simply come to accept.

Life is exhausting. Depletion is something else. And only one of them is fixed by a rib-eye.

Iron dome

The dietary culture most likely to produce iron deficiency is the same one celebrated as virtuous. Plant-based iron comes pre-sabotaged. Phytic acid in grains and legumes — the foods canonized by clean eating — actively blocks absorption before it reaches the bloodstream.

The demonization of red meat has been so thorough, so relentless, and so institutionally backed that an entire generation grew up believing a burger was more dangerous than a cigarette.

This was not an accident.

Decades of dietary guidelines, food pyramid revisions, and industry-funded nutrition research pushed animal products to the margins of the respectable plate, while carbohydrates and seed oils quietly took the center.

Early-onset dementia is rising in people who should be nowhere near it — men and women in their 30s and 40s, the first generations raised under the full weight of anti-meat orthodoxy.

Fabrice Coffrini/Getty Images

Nipped in the bud

Meanwhile, more parents are raising children on exclusively plant-based diets, motivated by love and a sincere belief that they are doing right by their kids. The research on what chronic iron deficiency, B12 absence, and inadequate animal protein does to a developing brain is not something the wellness industry tends to advertise. In several studies, it reads less like a dietary choice and more like an uncontrolled experiment conducted on people too young to consent.

Meat consumption has been falling for years. Alzheimer’s rates have been climbing for years.

No one in an official capacity has connected those dots — which is itself worth noting.

The Swedish study does draw one important line. Processed meats showed no protective benefit and were linked to higher dementia risk regardless of genetics.

Bacon, sausages, deli meats, the sweating cylinders of mystery protein rotating slowly at the gas-station counter — these are not the argument.

Fresh red meat and poultry, unprocessed and cooked with basic competence, are what drove the cognitive benefit.

Carnivores settled continents, built civilizations, and mapped the known world. Every civilization that ever amounted to anything ate meat.

The ones that didn’t aren’t around to argue the point.

California Republicans move to end daylight saving time — America’s dumbest tradition

Every March, without consent, the federal government steals an hour of sleep from hundreds of millions of people. Every November, it hands the hour back, as if that settles the debt. It doesn’t. The damage is already done. The bodies counted. The fender-benders filed with insurance.

This is the absurdity of daylight saving time: a policy dressed up as convenience that functions, in practice, as a twice-annual public health hazard. Two states — Hawaii and Arizona, apparently the adults in the room — do not participate.

The trade: preventable deaths in exchange for slightly earlier winter sunsets. It’s not a close call.

The carnage is well documented and almost comically avoidable. Heart attacks spike in the days after the spring shift. Strokes climb. Traffic fatalities rise during that first fog-brained week, when reaction times slow to something approaching drunk driving. Workplace injuries surge. Emergency rooms fill.

Physiological shock

The mechanism isn’t mysterious. The human body is exquisitely calibrated to light cycles, and ripping away an hour mimics the physiological shock of being flung across time zones overnight. Stress hormones spike. Melatonin craters.

The body’s rather elegant machinery gets jammed with a wrench — annually, on a schedule — by people who will never be held responsible for any of it.

If a pharmaceutical company produced a drug with this side-effect profile, the FDA would pull it from the market within a week.

Classroom chaos

Children absorb the worst of it. After the spring shift, school buses roll before sunrise, hauling kids whose biology insists it’s still the middle of the night. Adolescents — already sleep-deprived by group chats and the algorithmic abyss of TikTok — get hammered hardest. Attention fractures. Memory slips. Impulse control dissolves.

The classroom after the time change looks less like a learning environment and more like a hostage situation.

Billions get poured into fixing education, while a mandated sleep disruption quietly picks its pockets twice a year. The policy eats the investment. Test scores dip, classrooms destabilize, and learning suffers.

All to preserve someone’s evening tee time.

Mental health follows the same logic. Circadian misalignment fogs the mind. It destabilizes mood, amplifies anxiety, and deepens depressive episodes.

The human standard

Standard time — anchored to the sun rather than legislative preference — flips that script. Earlier morning light stabilizes serotonin, steadies metabolism, and synchronizes human rhythms with the environment humans actually evolved under.

The benefits aren’t philosophical. They’re measurable, reproducible, and stubbornly indifferent to the opinions of state legislators.

Enter California’s Senate Bill 1197.

What makes this legislation notable — beyond its merits — is who is championing it: Republican senators who actually read the research.

Not a talking point. Not a culture-war signal. Just data, reviewed and acted upon.

In a political climate where bipartisan cooperation on health policy feels about as common as a lobbyist who forgot to file paperwork, a group of Republican legislators looked at the peer-reviewed evidence on sleep disruption, cardiovascular events, traffic fatalities, and childhood cognition and reached the obvious conclusion: This is stupid, and we should stop doing it.

Photo by SAMUEL CORUM/AFP via Getty Images

Votes are in

California voters agreed back in 2018. Legislative inertia is the only thing standing between the state and sanity.

The science here isn’t complicated, contested, or politically inconvenient. Even Sacramento should be able to handle that.

The economic case is just as compelling. Productivity losses from post-shift disruption cost tens of billions nationally every cycle. Sick days multiply. Error rates climb. Health care spending ticks upward.

Sleep debt correlates with obesity, metabolic disorders, and long-term cognitive decline — costs that don’t show up in the week of the shift but accumulate quietly across years.

Opponents of the bill will likely invoke evening leisure — longer summer nights for golf, grilling, gender-reveal parties, and so on — as if that justifies annual cardiac events and crashed school buses.

An obvious trade

Standard time still delivers long summer evenings. Sunset in Los Angeles in late June arrives around 8 p.m. under standard time. Nobody’s barbecue is getting canceled. Nobody’s constitutional rights are being trampled.

The trade: preventable deaths in exchange for slightly earlier winter sunsets. It’s not a close call.

The federal government could authorize a national fix tomorrow. Congress has simply chosen not to. In the meantime, California’s bill offers a replicable model: well researched, cross-partisan, and focused on whether a policy actually helps people rather than whether it polls well in October.

Pass S.B. 1197. Encourage every statehouse still running this cruel charade to follow.

The science on this one isn’t contested or nuanced. It’s stacked, overwhelming, and pointing in one direction.

Let noon mean noon. Let light arrive when it’s supposed to. And let people sleep without the government scheduling their insomnia.

'Rogue' Biden judge blocks critical pieces of RFK Jr.'s vaccine reform

A federal judge appointed by former President Joe Biden obliged medical establishmentarians on Monday, blocking three critical elements of the Trump administration's vaccine reform.

Brian Murphy — a Boston-based U.S. district court judge who previously barred the Trump administration from swiftly deporting illegal aliens — paused Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s reconstitution of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, the federal panel whose vaccine recommendations become official policy at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

'How much embarrassment can this Judge take?'

In addition to freezing out Kennedy's ACIP appointees prior to their planned discussion of COVID-19 vaccines this week, Murphy also halted the health secretary's reform of the child vaccination schedule as well as Kennedy's May 2025 directive rescinding the recommendation that pregnant women and healthy kids get the COVID vaccine.

The shake-up

As of early 2025, all 17 members of the ACIP were Biden appointees.

Some of the members were brazen partisans. Oliver Brooks, for instance, made a habit of donating to Democrat candidates, including failed presidential candidate Kamala Harris, and called for research to be "intentionally antiracist." Noel Brewer, a 2020 Biden donor, similarly demonstrated a DEI-lensed preoccupation with race.

Most members had collected small fortunes in consulting fees and research support from some of the very pharmaceutical giants whose products the panel had recommended, prompting questions about the members' loyalties and commitment to public health.

JOSEPH PREZIOSO/AFP via Getty Images

Kennedy noted in a June 9 article, "The committee has been plagued with persistent conflicts of interest and has become little more than a rubber stamp for any vaccine."

"It has never recommended against a vaccine — even those later withdrawn for safety reasons," continued Kennedy. "It has failed to scrutinize vaccine products given to babies and pregnant women. To make matters worse, the groups that inform ACIP meet behind closed doors, violating the legal and ethical principle of transparency crucial to maintaining public trust."

On June 10, Kennedy announced that he had canned all 17 members of the ACIP, accused the panel of "malevolent malpractice," and vowed to appoint "highly credentialed physicians and scientists who will make extremely consequential public health determinations by applying evidence-based decision-making with objectivity and common sense."

Medical establishmentarians melted down over the removal of the Biden holdovers.

Susan Kressly, who was the president of the American Academy of Pediatrics at the time, said, "We are witnessing an escalating effort by the administration to silence independent medical expertise and stoke distrust in lifesaving vaccines."

Their fury was compounded when Kennedy announced whom he was appointing to the newly vacant panel — experts such as Dr. Robert Malone, an early pioneer in messenger RNA technology, and Dr. Cody Meissner, a professor of pediatrics at the Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth who ruffled feathers in 2021 by criticizing ruinous mask mandates for children.

In January, the Trump administration dealt those clinging to the status quo another upset, modifying the childhood immunization schedule.

RELATED: The Conspiracy Instinct

Photo by Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images

Whereas previously, the CDC recommended that kids get vaccines for 18 diseases — loading them up with twice as many doses as their European counterparts — the Trump administration reduced its list of vaccination recommendations for all children to jabs for the following 11 diseases: diphtheria, tetanus, acellular pertussis (whooping cough), Haemophilus influenzae type B, pneumococcal conjugate, polio, measles, mumps, rubella, human papillomavirus, and chickenpox.

The lawsuit

The American Academy of Pediatrics and other medical groups sued the administration in July over its termination of COVID vaccine recommendations for healthy kids and pregnant women, then amended their complaint to incorporate challenges to the ACIP shake-up and changes to the immunization schedule updates.

'We will keep appealing these lawless decisions.'

Judge Murphy echoed the plaintiffs' talking points in his ruling on Monday and said, "There is a method to how these decisions [about which vaccines to make available through insurers and government programs] historically have been made — a method scientific in nature and codified into law through procedural requirements. Unfortunately, the Government has disregarded those methods and thereby undermined the integrity of its actions."

Murphy questioned the qualifications held by the majority of current ACIP members but spared his fellow Biden appointees who previously served on the panel from such scrutiny.

He also said that the ACIP, as currently staffed, violates Congress' requirement that such committees "be fairly balanced."

Murphy, opting for stays over injunctions, stayed Kennedy's appointments of new ACIP members, all votes taken by the new ACIP members, and the January changes to the childhood immunization schedule.

The response

The medical groups behind the lawsuit celebrated Murphy's ruling.

Andrew Racine, president of the AAP, called it "a historic and welcome outcome for children, communities, and pediatricians everywhere."

"This decision effectively means that a science-based process for developing immunization recommendations is not to be trifled with and represents a critical step to restoring scientific decision-making to federal vaccine policy that has kept children healthy for years," added Racine.

"Today's ruling is a win for public health and reaffirms that national vaccine policy should be guided by rigorous, evidence-based science, not politics," said Jason Goldman, president of the American College of Physicians. "Scientific consensus and overwhelming evidence demonstrate that vaccines are safe and effective."

The HHS said that it will appeal the ruling.

"We look forward to this judge’s decision being overturned just like his other attempts to keep the Trump administration from governing," wrote HHS spokesman Andrew Nixon.

Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche noted, "We will keep appealing these lawless decisions, and we will keep winning. The question is, how much embarrassment can this Judge take?"

Dr. Robert Malone said that the "rogue judge" had "inserted himself between the elected executive branch and its constitutional authority to govern."

Malone, who faced years of abuse for questioning the safety of mRNA vaccines and the severity of COVID-19, emphasized that "the political timing of this ruling is impossible to ignore" and that "the practical consequences of Monday's ruling are serious."

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5 steps to reset your body's clock to God's natural design

Unless you live in Arizona — one of the few places that skip the ritual — you’re probably feeling it this week.

The curse of daylight saving time.

Even sitting in the shade exposes your body to light far stronger and more natural than indoor lighting. Our bodies need bright days — and dark nights — to stay in rhythm.

That groggy, slightly awful feeling on Monday morning wasn’t in your head. Research has linked the shift to increases in car accidents, workplace injuries, and even heart attacks in the days that follow. No bueno.

But the bigger problem may not be the clock change.

It’s that modern life has pulled us away from the natural rhythm our bodies were designed to follow.

Because the truth is simple: Your body runs on sunlight — not the clock on the wall.

The God-given clock inside you

Nearly every organ in the human body operates on an internal timing system.

This biological cycle — known as circadian rhythm — follows roughly a 24-hour pattern tied to the rising and setting of the sun.

For most of human history, that rhythm governed daily life.

The sun rose.
People woke up.
The day unfolded in natural light.
Night fell, and darkness signaled the body to wind down.

Then electric lights arrived. And screens. And climate-controlled buildings where many of us spend nearly the entire day indoors.

And the signals that once kept our internal clocks synchronized with the natural world faded away.

The result? Many researchers now believe modern humans are living in a constant state of circadian disruption.

And that disruption may affect far more than sleep.

This isn’t new science, by the way (info links coming below). But because the solution is simple, free, and impossible to turn into a pill — and because most physicians receive no training in it — many people have never heard about it.

That is finally starting to change.

The circadian rule

The principle behind circadian health is remarkably simple: The more your daily life aligns with the sun’s natural rhythm, the better your body functions.

The more you fight that rhythm, the more your health eventually pays the price.

This isn’t mystical new age nature worship. It’s biology.

God created your eyes with specialized receptors that detect different wavelengths of light. Those signals travel directly to the brain, triggering hormonal changes that regulate:

Alertness;
Sleep;
Metabolism;
Mood; and
Immune function.

Light literally tells your body what time it is.

Which means the kind of light you see — and when you see it — matters more than most people realize.

A simple daily light routine

You don’t need to overhaul your life to benefit from circadian alignment. Start with something simple. (And remember, lose the sunglasses!)

1. Sunrise — the most important light of the day

First morning light offers your body perhaps the most powerful circadian signal.

Sunrise light contains a high concentration of red wavelengths. When this light enters your eyes, those receptors God designed at the back of your retina go to work, signaling to your brain that the day has begun. That signal triggers a cascade of hormonal changes:

Cortisol rises, helping you wake up and feel alert.
Your internal clock starts the day’s metabolic rhythm.
And about 12 hours later, your body begins preparing to release melatonin — the hormone that helps you fall asleep.

In other words, morning light sets the schedule for the entire day.

Try this: Greet the sun.

Go outside for 15-20 minutes near sunrise(no sunglasses, or any glasses or contacts, if possible).
You don’t need to stare at the sun — just let your eyes take in the morning sky (even on cloudy days, the circadian signal is still there).
I like to listen to a Bible passage and meditate on the beauty He created around me.

2. The morning UVA window

About an hour after sunrise, another important type of light becomes more prominent — UVA light.

Unlike the stronger UVB light that peaks later in the day, UVA light is gentler but still biologically powerful. Research suggests morning UVA exposure helps:

Support hormone balance;
Improve mood and energy (much like good food does);
Improve gut microbiome; and
Prepare the skin for stronger sunlight later in the day.

Try this: Take a morning sun walk.

Take a 20-to-30-minute walk outdoors roughly an hour after sunrise.
Let your eyes and skin soak in the natural light (again, no glasses).

3. The midday vitamin D window

So you’ve been out twice today, once at sunrise and then for a “UVA walk” — and you might be congratulating yourself on getting some vitamin D.

But you actually didn’t get any yet.

The only time your body can naturally produce vitamin D is when your skin absorbs UVB light, which happens midday.

This varies greatly depending on time of year and location — winter offers a far shorter window if any at all, and you get more UVB the closer you are to the equator. Here in the U.S., if you’re not in a southern border state, you may not have any UVB for a few mid-winter weeks.

But midday sunbathing is the only natural way your body can produce vitamin D and all its related metabolites, which are not part of your vitamin D supplement. (It’s a shame modern medicine has so effectively terrorized people from even going outside midday.)

Actual sunbathing, where you minimize clothing and maximize exposure, should be done only after being out in the earlier morning light, which as mentioned primes your skin for the stronger rays.

Note that sunscreen defeats the purpose of this and is not needed, if you start with just a few minutes (less than five) and very gradually increase your daily exposure. When exposure builds gradually, the skin develops what researchers call a “solar callus” (the rest of us call it a tan).

This is how to be sunburn-proof.

Try this: Get direct midday sun.

After a few days of increasing your morning sun time, take your lunch outside for a few days.
Spring is a great time to start this because the UV light is more gentle than it will be in summer.
Get the MyCircadian or Circadian app to help you know when UVB light is available in your area.

4. Bright daylight throughout the day

Sunlight isn’t just one thing.

It’s a spectrum. A rainbow of different colored light. More red early and late in the day, more blue midday, and every hue in between, all of which send different signals to your body’s internal clock.

Which leads to a surprisingly simple piece of advice: Spend more time outside.

Even sitting in the shade exposes your body to light far stronger and more natural than indoor lighting. Our bodies need bright days — and dark nights — to stay in rhythm.

Be outside as often as you can.

Try this: Take regular sun breaks.

People used to take a smoke break at work — take a sun break.
Every time you get up to use the bathroom or grab a drink or whatever, spend an extra 60 seconds to pop outside.
Look for ways to take your inside tasks outside.
Take meetings and calls outside.
Take your laptop outside.
Eat meals or snacks outside.
Take a book outside.
And if you must scroll on your phone — do it outside.

5. Sunset — your body's evening signal

Just as sunrise tells your body the day is beginning, sunset helps confirm that it’s ending. The warm light of dusk signals the approach of nighttime.

After sunset, however, modern life introduces a problem — bright artificial light.

Screens, LED lighting, and overhead lights emit strong blue wavelengths that can confuse your circadian system.

To your brain, that blue light looks like midday sunlight, which means the body delays melatonin production — making sleep harder.

Try this: Watch the sunset and dim the lights.

Spend 5-10 minutes outside at sunset enjoying God’s original work of art — a new one every night.
Consider dining outside during sunset.
After sunset, dim indoor lights.
Soft lamps and/or incandescent bulbs are better than bright overhead lights.
Staring at a fire is better than staring at the TV.
Reading a book is better than scrolling on your phone.
Bathing by candlelight is better than using harsh bathroom lighting.

Caroline Seidel/Getty Images

Living by the sun

Making small changes as in the above routine can gradually bring your internal clock back into sync with the natural world.

Long before electric lights, smartphones, and daylight saving time, the sun quietly set the rhythm of human life.

Our bodies never forgot that rhythm.

And the more closely we align with that rhythm, the more we may rediscover something modern life has made easy to forget: God designed us to live by light — spiritually and physically.

Apps to help

The Circadian app or MyCircadian both help you identify what the sun is doing in your precise location so you can optimize when you go outside. D Minder helps you target safe UVB exposure.

Further information

Many voices in the circadian health space argue that our bodies evolved to sync with the sun. But Christians understand that this rhythm reflects design, not accident. Chelsea Blackbird, aka the Christian Nutritionist, often discusses these topics on her podcast.

Circadian health is often linked to the emerging field of “quantum biology.” A few experts worth following include:

Dr. Martin Moore-Ede: “The Light Doctor” is a former professor at Harvard Medical School, and he’s a leading expert on circadian medicine.
Sarah Kleiner is the creator of the MyCircadian app recommended above. Lots of information can be found on her website, and she also has a regular podcast with Carrie Bennett, another good source for quantum biology/circadian information.
Zaid Dahhaj is author of The Circadian Classroom, a newsletter with a tremendous amount of scientific information that he makes easier to understand.
Nikko Kennedy writes about circadian principles as they apply to pregnancy, childbirth, and postpartum in Brighter Days, Darker Nights.
Ryan Brown offers a lot of interesting research-based information, like this article on light’s impact on diabetes. Ryan healed his own autoimmune condition using circadian principles (as did quite a few of the people now sharing this information).
Dr. Jack Kruse is a neurosurgeon and health educator. Follow him on Facebook, X, or Instagram. (He recently posted some interesting information on how circadian principles apply to fertility.
Dr. Alexis Cowan is a “light biologist” who studies how sunlight shapes human health.
And if you like getting your information from easy-to-absorb, beautiful graphics on Instagram, Danielle Hamilton is a great follow.

MAHA is sick: RFK’s FDA is drifting the wrong way

If Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. wants to be true to his word and “Make America Healthy Again,” he must reform the Food and Drug Administration. Dr. Vinay Prasad, whose actions thwart medical freedom, endanger the unborn, and compromise patient choice, needs to go now, not at the end of April.

Prasad is a “Bernie Sanders acolyte” who “doesn’t think patients can be trusted to make their own healthcare decisions,” as Allysia Finley put it in the Wall Street Journal. Prasad disparages the 2018 right-to-try law, which give terminal patients access to experimental treatments, calling it “terrible” and “disingenuous,” written by people who “want to weaken the FDA.”

MAHA won’t survive as a slogan alone. Behind the facade of RFK’s rhetoric is an ideological agenda at odds with key conservative values.

Prasad claims that dying patients already have access to drugs through the FDA’s expanded-use programs and blames drug companies as the “major barrier” to unapproved drugs, downplaying the government’s role in blocking patient choice.

His personal crusade against faster drug approvals has chilled medical innovation. When Prasad originally resigned in July, months into his FDA tenure, amid backlash, the market predicted a shift toward a more patient-centric “right-to-try” approach, potentially cutting the bureaucratic red tape stifling cell and gene therapies and patient access.

Prasad’s pro-abortion record is even worse. He proudly identifies as “pro-choice” and progressive, a stance fundamentally at odds with pro-life conservatism. His appointment to the FDA’s Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research overseeing drug development that affects pregnant women and unborn children is a direct threat to the culture of life.

Prasad consistently casts abortion as a medical issue rather than a moral issue. He also fiercely defended mifepristone, the abortion pill, when a Texas judge tried to suspend its FDA approval. Prasad called the court’s intervention a “dangerous precedent,” and applauded the Supreme Court for preserving access to the drug, framing the issue purely as protecting “FDA authority” and “scientific integrity.” To pro-life voters, that posture reads less like neutrality and more like a commitment to keeping the abortion drug regime insulated from challenge.

Small-government promises are colliding with Prasad’s big-government dogma. Conservatives assumed RFK Jr. and his FDA appointees would shrink regulatory excess in support of President Trump’s innovation agenda, but they have done the opposite. Prasad came in with a “stringent regulatory mindset.” Rather than trusting patients to weigh risks for themselves, he has tightened the FDA’s grip with paternalistic, ideological rules. He has sidelined MAHA’s promise and expanded oversight instead.

Prasad’s policies have often expanded the FDA’s reach in ways that could seriously harm timely access to treatments. He is imposing tougher requirements on industry, insisting on larger trials and refusing to rely on surrogate endpoints for approvals, which means more delays and more red tape before new solutions can reach the public.

Photo by JOSH EDELSON/AFP via Getty Images

The internal dynamics under Prasad reflect a top-down, bureaucratic rigidity and are under formal investigation, with the FDA retaining an outside investigator to examine workplace complaints alleging a toxic environment. Instead of signaling healthy reform, Prasad’s authoritarian rule of CBER is run on control and fear of pushback, where staff worry that dissent will be punished and experienced voices are pushed out or sidelined. Rather than “draining the swamp,” this approach fortified an insider bureaucracy loyal to Prasad’s agenda.

When the FDA held a meeting on a Commissioner’s National Priority Voucher drug, the voting members were top leaders like Prasad, not the scientists who reviewed the application. Career reviewers were excluded from the vote entirely, a major break from the FDA’s long-standing practice of empowering these staffers to make the final scientific call in order to shield approvals from political pressure.

The paradox for conservatives is obvious. Kennedy and Prasad earn plaudits for pulling back certain excesses, including scaling down aggressive vaccine promotion. Yet at the same time, they are building a larger, more controlling FDA bureaucracy in other domains — one that constricts medical freedom, slows innovation, and keeps pro-life concerns at arm’s length.

MAHA won’t survive as a slogan alone. Behind the facade of RFK’s rhetoric is an ideological agenda at odds with key conservative values. Conservatives who cherish medical freedom and rapid innovation find themselves at odds with Prasad’s FDA. A few welcome policy tweaks cannot obscure the reality of an expanding bureaucracy and pro-abortion policies.

With the 2026 midterms fast approaching, continuing this pattern will hurt Republicans and erode the trust of voters, handing Democrats an easy narrative about broken promises. Such an outcome would leave MAHA dead and MAGA mortally wounded. We must do better.

HHS official sounds alarm on America’s chronic disease crisis: ‘The most drugged country in the world’

White House senior adviser Calley Means is on a mission — and he’s been leading this mission alongside Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and the MAHA movement.

“So you and RFK Jr. came in with this singular mission to make America healthy again, which — I don’t think, you know, it’s like it’s not a crazy mission. Overhauling the food system is the key tenet of this, and I think — you correct me if I’m wrong — kind of your key focus,” Gonzales says.

“We’re at HHS right now. This is the largest budget of any government department in human history. We have a $2 trillion budget, and you look at that — 90% of that is chronic diseases tied to food. We in America have the highest rates of diabetes, obesity, heart disease, cancer, Alzheimer's," Means tells Gonzales.

“This is what’s costing lives. It’s what’s shortening lives. It’s what’s causing issues for day-to-day Americans. And it’s bankrupting our budget. And it’s a multitude of factors, but these are external factors that are causing this increasing rate of chronic disease, which is devastating the country, particularly our kids,” he continues.

And he points out that this chronic disease epidemic has nothing to do with a lack of pharmaceuticals, as we are “the most drugged country in the world.”

Means also explains that this is why it’s so important that RFK Jr. has such an important role in the Trump administration.

“He’s the most important person. He’ll go down as the most important person in the history of modern public health, because he’s brought light to these simple things,” Means tells Gonzales.

“I don’t disagree with you. I mean, he is one of my own personal heroes,” Gonzales agrees.

However, while Gonzales and Means both see the importance of shining a light on the chronic disease epidemic in America and how it relates to our environment and food supply, others appear to be blinded by politics.

“Why do you think that we can’t be bipartisan about something as simple as keeping America healthy?” Gonzales asks Means.

“Trump derangement syndrome, I think, is the most pernicious and incurable condition impacting much of the American populace. It’s defining American politics,” Means answers.

“And the simple reality is Trump derangement syndrome has led Democrats to passionately defend artificial food dyes. It’s led Democrats to now be the party of ultra-processed food. It’s led Democrats to — I couldn’t believe this — passionately argue that we should maintain government funding for soda on food stamps,” he continues.

“My hope and our prayer here at HHS is this does become bipartisan,” he adds.

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Bill & Hillary Finally Testify on Epstein ... Do They Think We’re Stupid?

Trump's MAHA pick for surgeon general has Big Pharma-backed lawmakers shook

President Donald Trump announced in May that he was nominating Dr. Casey Means to become surgeon general.

Trump said that Means, a tech entrepreneur and Stanford-educated doctor who has long criticized the exploitative nature of the health care system, has "impeccable 'MAHA' credentials" and would help Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. "reverse the Chronic Disease Epidemic, and ensure Great Health, in the future, for ALL Americans."

It became painfully clear over the course of Means' nomination hearing on Wednesday that some lawmakers are anxious about her MAHA views on vaccines and other profitable pharmaceuticals.

'Devil's in the details.'

Chairman Bill Cassidy (R-La.) — whom Open Secrets indicated has raised over $1.3 million from the health professional industry and $712,000 from the pharmaceutical/health product industry in campaign contributions since 2019 — noted that "some [parents] have been scared to vaccinate their children because they've been told incorrectly that vaccines cause autism."

Cassidy asked Means whether she believes "vaccines, whether individually or collectively, contribute to autism."

Means, who told lawmakers that she thinks vaccines "save lives," responded, "The reality is that we have an autism crisis that's increasing, and this is devastating to many families, and we do not know as a medical community what causes autism."

Means noted that the Trump administration is investigating the matter and suggested that "until we have a clear understanding of why kids are developing this at higher rates, I think we should not leave any stones unturned."

Cassidy rushed to suggest "there's been a lot of evidence showing they're not implicated."

While Means accepted such alleged evidence exists, she emphasized that "science is never settled."

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) — who ranks in Open Secrets' "Top 20 Member Recipients of Money from Pharmaceuticals / Health Products, 1990-2024" — similarly pressed the issue, trying unsuccessfully to get Means to refute Kennedy's July 2023 assertion "that autism comes from vaccines."

Photo by Andrew Harnik/Getty Image

In her questioning, Sen. Lisa Blunt Rochester (D-Del.) focused on one vaccine in particular: the hepatitis B shot, which the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention under previous administrations recommended for all American children but as of this year recommends only on an individual basis.

Means has suggested in years past that "hepatitis B vaccine at birth is a crime."

When Blunt Rochester generalized her concern and asked whether Means thought it was "unethical and dangerous" to hypothetically withhold life-saving vaccines from children, Means noted, "I don't believe that Dr. Jay Bhattacharya or the HHS would be interested in withholding" them and stressed that the "devil's in the details."

Democratic Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.), who has received over $600,000 from the health professional industry since 2019, grilled Means over her past criticism of hormonal birth control and its overuse — which has been linked to increased risk of breast and cervical cancers and other medical issues.

After Murray concern-mongered over Means' suggestions that hormonal birth control is consumed "like candy" and poses "horrifying health risks" to women, Means said, "I'm curious if you're aware of what the side effects of hormonal contraception are."

Means suggested further that while such medication should be "accessible to all women," women should be having thorough conversations with their doctors to ascertain "whether they are higher risk for side effects when prescribed the medication."

Kennedy noted at the time of Means' nomination that she "will help me ensure American children will be less medicated and better fed — and significantly healthier — during the next four years. She will be the best Surgeon General in American history."

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RFK Jr. enlists Mike Tyson to 'speak out against baked goods'

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has teamed up with former boxer Mike Tyson to battle the proliferation of processed foods in America — but not everyone is thrilled with the Trump administration’s choice of role model.

“I had a sister that died from obesity. So when they heard my story, they used me for the commercial, and it was just me telling the truth. People shouldn’t be surprised to see because I’m one of the most healthiest people on the planet,” Tyson told Lara Trump, while sitting with Calley Means and RFK Jr. on Fox News.

“So they should think that I will want to be a participant in this, and I’m affected of course not only by my sister, but by my daughter and by my friends. You know, they just can’t stop picking up the food because the ultraprocessed food is a narcotic more than it is anything, a nutritionist,” Tyson added.

While BlazeTV host Stu Burguiere respects Tyson’s dedication to health, he’s not among those thrilled with the team up.

“Mike Tyson’s considerably older than me. The fact that he could even last in a ring for five minutes with a guy in his what, 20s or 30s, pretty freaking impressive to me. He’s in great shape,” Stu comments.

“But what I’m going to focus on a little bit more is the fact, the fact, that Mike Tyson is a convicted rapist. Mike Tyson is a convicted rapist. Not a guy who got #metoo-ed because people were like, ‘Hey, I think he did something wrong once. He made a bad joke,’” he continues. “No. Mike Tyson went through a trial, was convicted of rape, and then went to prison for rape.”

“Tyson really is a one of one when it comes to convicted rapists speaking out against baked goods. There’s really no other examples of this happening in our entire society, maybe worldwide, because ... we don’t typically use them later on to advertise products,” he says.

“They’re not typically government spokespeople for food movements,” he adds.

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Once A Pariah, RFK Jr. Might Be Deciding Factor In Democrats’ Defeat

'Cross-cutting issue'