Background (numbers refer to citations at the end)

The Trump administration’s Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) commission set an important goal, albeit one ironically similar to Michelle Obama’s Let’s Move” campaign: end childhood chronic disease.[1] Unfortunately, hallucinated references in the report suggested that at least some of it had been written by AI, thereby detracting from its scientific credibility.[2]

Trying to achieve this goal is surely difficult within the context of drastic staff reductions in the HHS and USDA agencies responsible for food policy, and of the deliberate undermining of public confidence in basic public health measures like water fluoridation and vaccination; these actions will harm child health, not improve it.

Also, policies of EPA (approving PFAS, encouraging coal-burning power plants), of USDA (eliminating farm-to-school programs [3], cutting school meal budgets), and of presidential executive orders (glyphosate[4]) directly oppose MAHA goals.

MAHA promises

In September 2025, the commission outlined its strategies.[5]  Here are its main promises about food, and my understanding of what has been done about them to date.  [Stat lists non-food ones as well.  I wrote about its report here]

1. Issue the 2025-2030 dietary Guidelines for Americans (DGAs)[6] and new food guide.[7] Accomplished. I wrote about them here.  They have some strengths (eat real food; limit ultra-processed foods), but are undermined by errors, inconsistencies, and ideological interpretations of inconvenient science. More recent recommendations of the American Heart Association better reflect scientific consensus.[8]
2. Eliminate petroleum-based food colors. Accomplished, but voluntarily. To date, 27 food companies have agreed to replace these dyes with those derived from plant sources.[9]  Voluntary could mean that the change won’t last; these foods will still be highly processed.
3. Establish post market review of chemical additives in food. In progress, but no rulemaking or regulation as yet.
4. Define ultra-processed foods (UPFs) for research and policy. In progress, but rumored to be held up.
5. Develop a front-of-pack nutrition information logo. In progress, but rumored to be held up. RFK Jr has stated that the FDA is working on one with traffic light colors. We haven’t seen it yet.
6. Close the GRAS (generally recognized as safe food additive) loophole. In progress, but no rulemaking as of yet. [10]   It is hard to know how the FDA will do this, given that it has lost 20% of its staff.[11]
7. Improve nutrition and safety standards for Infant Formula. In progress.[12]  Operation Stork Speed is supposed to review nutrition standards and test for heavy metals, but says nothing about microbial safety, a huge issue right now.  The FEA is checking for heavy metals, and isn’t finding much.  A program to monitor foods in general for heavy metals has been announced.  Microbial safety?  I’m not hearing much about stronger regulation of infant formula.
8. Promote breastfeeding. Nothing on this. 
9. Improve quality of food served to veterans. In progress. Presumably, this will happen as a result of the dietary guidelines, but I’ve not seen rules.
10. Serve healthy food in hospitals.  In progress. A letter was sent to hospitals saying that federal benefits would be withheld if they did not comply.[13] And HHS has just urged hospitals to take ‘Make Hospital Food Healthier’ pledge.  This is voluntary, and it is not clear whether or how tit will be enforced. Also, medical schools have been asked to increase hours devoted to nutrition instruction, and some have agreed. Again, this is voluntary.[14] 
11. Set guidelines to limit the direct marketing of UPFs to children. Nothing on this.
12. Promote whole, healthy foods across its 16 nutrition programs. In progress. Presumably, this will happen as a result of the dietary guidelines, but no rules yet.
13. Encourage state SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program) waivers.  Accomplished (maybe). The USDA has approved waivers for 23 states as of July 2026.[15]  These ban the use of federal SNAP dollars for sugar-sweetened beverages and, in some states, candy and other sweets. Will the waivers improve the diet and health of participants?  We don’t know yet.  But since July 2025, SNAP enrollments have dropped by 10% overall and by much greater percentages in some states; losses include more than 800,000 children in the 13 states that report these data.[16]  Advocates expect the waivers to make participation even more difficult.[17]  Furthermore, the state SNAP waivers are being litigated, and some have been blocked.  The waivers may not last.
14. Provide MAHA Boxes to SNAP participants. I’ve heard nothing on this yet.
15. Food Deregulation: Remove restrictions on whole milk sales in schools, allowing full-fat dairy options alongside reduced-fat alternatives. Accomplished.[18]  Will this make a difference to kids’ health?  I doubt it.
16. Education campaign based on the updated dietary guidelines. Nothing on this yet.  NOTUS reports: “the White House killed an RFK Jr. ad campaign. He can blame Kristi Noem: Trump officials abruptly canceled the health campaign focused on processed food and diabetes over cost and image concerns.

Comment

This administration counts much of the work in progress as MAHA wins,[19] but the actual accomplishments seem limited.  The promises most likely to make a real difference to child health—regulation of ultra-processed foods and marketing to kids, better food in schools, a major education campaign—are either held up, ignored, or still waiting for rulemaking.

When I said something like this to Calley Means at the Aspen Ideas Festival (see yesterday’s post), he pointed out that MAHA has had only had a year and a half to get things done, whereas advocates like you, Marion, had been trying to do these things for decades and failed.  We did fail, but MAHA has (or had) the power. I hoped they would be able to use it .  Their inability to do is is disappointing, as is their taking credit for actions they haven’t yet taken.

References

[1] The MAHA Report: Make Our Children Healthy Again: Assessment. May 2025. https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/WH-The-MAHA-Report-Assessment.pdf.

[2] Jacobs P.  Trump officials downplay fake citations in high-profile report on children’s health.  Science.  May 30, 2025.  doi: 10.1126/science.zmgabo5.

[3] Brown M.  USDA cancels $1B in local food purchasing for schools, food banks. Politico, March 10, 2025. https://www.politico.com/news/2025/03/10/usda-cancels-local-food-purchasing-for-schools-food-banks-00222796

[4]  The White House.  Promoting The National Defense by Ensuring an Adequate Supply Of Elemental Phosphorus And Glyphosate-Based Herbicides.  Executive Orders, February 18, 2026. https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2026/02/promoting-the-national-defense-by-ensuring-an-adequate-supply-of-elemental-phosphorus-and-glyphosate-based-herbicides/

[5] MAHA.  Strategy Report: Make Our Children Healthy Again. September 2025.   https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/The-MAHA-Strategy-WH.pdf

[6] HHS, USDA.  Dietary Guidelines for Americans, 2025-2030.  chrome-extension://efaidnbmnnnibpcajpcglclefindmkaj/https://cdn.realfood.gov/DGA.pdf.

[7] USDA.  Real food wins.  https://realfood.gov/.

[8] Lichtenstein AH, Khera A, Anderson CAM, et al. 2026 Dietary Guidance to Improve Cardiovascular Health: A scientific statement From the American Heart Association. Circulation. 2026;153(18):e1285-e1295. doi: 10.1161/CIR.0000000000001435.

[9] FDA.  Tracking Food Industry Pledges to Remove Petroleum Based Food Dyes. June 16, 2026.  https://www.fda.gov/food/color-additives-information-consumers/tracking-food-industry-pledges-remove-petroleum-based-food-dyes.

[10] HHS.  HHS Secretary Kennedy Directs FDA to Explore Rulemaking to Eliminate Pathway for Companies to Self-Affirm Food Ingredients Are Safe.  March 10, 2025.  https://www.hhs.gov/press-room/revising-gras-pathway.html

[11] Akst J.  FDA hiring 2,200 people to staff up after last year’s DOGE cuts. BioSpace, June 24, 2026.  https://www.biospace.com/fda/fda-hiring-2-200-people-to-staff-up-after-last-years-doge-cuts

[12] HHS.  HHS, FDA Announce Operation Stork Speed to Expand Options for Safe, Reliable, and Nutritious Infant Formula for American Families.  March 18, 2025. https://www.hhs.gov/press-room/operation-stork-speed.html.

[13] HHS Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services.  Letter to Hospital/CAH Providers.  Hospital nutrition service obligations in light of updated federal nutrition guidelines.  March 30, 2026.  https://www.cms.gov/files/document/qssam-26-03-hospital-cah-original-release-2026-03-30.pdf.

[14] HHS.  Secretary Kennedy Announces Historic Development in Nutrition Accreditation Standards, New Medical School Pledges. June 8, 2026.  https://www.hhs.gov/press-room/secretary-kennedy-announces-historic-development-nutrition-accreditation-standards-new-medical-school-pledges.html

[15] USDA. SNAP food restriction waivers. Undated.  https://www.fns.usda.gov/snap/waivers/foodrestriction

[16] Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. SNAP Tracker: People Are Losing Food Assistance as the Republican Megabill Is Implemented. June 22, 2026.  https://www.cbpp.org/research/food-assistance/snap-tracker-people-are-losing-food-assistance-as-the-republican-megabill

[17] Food Research & Action Center.  SNAP food restriction waivers. Undated. https://frac.org/snap-restrictions

[18] USDA.  Whole Milk for Healthy Kids Act of 2025 – Implementation Requirements for the National School Lunch Program.  January 14, 2026.  https://www.fna.usda.gov/nslp/wmfhka-implementation

[19] HHS.  Celebrating Big Wins of the Trump Administration.  Undated.  https://www.hhs.gov/hhs-big-wins-maha/index.html

[20] Wallace-Wells D.  Has the MAHA Movement Given Up?New York Times, July 3, 2026. https://www.nytimes.com/2026/07/03/magazine/maha-movement-survival-rfk.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share

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Washington Post reporter, Tim Carman, contacted me for comment about a speech he heard made by RFK Jr’s top food advisor, Calley Means, in which Means made patently false charges about my work.  From Carman’s report, MAHA Mondays at the Great American State Fair miss one obvious problem:

Means suggested her research had been bankrolled by sugar and tobacco industries, the latter of which once owned major food companies. The industries “funded her to say that basically the base of our diet should be carbs,” Means said. He added that the report made Americans afraid of foods other than grains.

These charges surprised me for two reasons: (1) Anyone even remotely familiar with my work would know these statements could not possibly be true, and (2) I am not MAHA’s enemy. I support parts of its agenda, and am on record as calling for coalition-building around common objectives.

Means began making the false claims on June 30, when we were on a panel at the Aspen Ideas Festival, moderated by Corby Kummer.  You can watch the session here and make your own decision about how it went.

I would have let the whole thing go, except that Calley Means followed it up with his speech at the Great American State Fair on July 6.  Tim Carman sent me a transcript of Means’ remarks:

In the 1980s, a group called the Sugar Research Council paid her to do a lot of research. And they really funded her to say that basically the base of our diet should be carbs, and the base our diet to be grains, and we should fear fat. And really, we should fear a lot of natural foods in favor of grains. And her research, she claims credit for being the architect of the 1992 food pyramid. And I told her, when we talked last week, I think it’s actually demonstrable that the dietary guidance from the 1990s has been the most destructive public health document in modern history, because they put grains and carbs at the base of the pyramid. And they didn’t differentiate whole grains or refined grains. Why did they do that? That was directly prompted by the food industry, which at the time was the cigarette industry.

Carman asked: “Any of this true?”

Good grief no. Not only are these statements false; they are spectacularly false.

Let’s take them line by line.

Means: In the 1980s, a group called the Sugar Research Council paid her to do a lot of research.

False. In the 1980s, I was teaching nutrition to medical students at the University of California San Francisco (UCSF) school of medicine and running a nutrition education program funded by NIH and, later, by the John Tung Foundation.  To avoid conflicts of interest, I have a long-standing policy of not taking payments from food companies.  The policy is posted on this site here.

Means: And they really funded her to say that basically the base of our diet should be carbs, and the base our diet to be grains, and we should fear fat.

False.  Here, I think he must be referring to the Sugar Research Foundation (SRF) which funded researchers at Harvard who wrote a skewed review of diet and heart disease in the New England Journal of Medicine in 1967; the review downplayed sugar, and emphasized fat. The SRF’s role in this research was exposed in 2016 in JAMA Internal Medicine by Cristin Kearns, Laura Schmidt and Stanton Glantz: Sugar Industry and Coronary Heart Disease Research: A Historical Analysis of Internal Industry Documents.  I wrote the commentary on this study: “Food industry funding of nutrition research: The relevance of history for current debates.”  I also wrote about both pieces on this site.

Means: And really, we should fear a lot of natural foods in favor of grains.

False.  Here, I think, he must be talking about my role as managing editor of the 1988 Surgeon General’s Report on Nutrition and Health. The report summarized the research consensus of that time.

“Fats and cholesterol. Reduce consumption of fat (especially saturated fat) and cholesterol.  Choose foods relatively low in these substances, such as vegetables, fruits, whole grain foods, fish, poultry, lean meats, and low-fat dairy products.”

“Complex carbohydrates and fiber: Increase consumption of whole grain foods and cereal products, vegetables (including dried beans and peas), and fruits.”

The National Academies’ even more comprehensive report, Diet and Health: Implications for Reducing Chronic Disease Risk, made similar recommendations in 1989.

Means: And her research, she claims credit for being the architect of the 1992 food pyramid.

False. I have never claimed such responsibility; I had none. My only role in the 1992 pyramid was to work closely with a reporter for the New York Times, Marian Burros, to expose how the meat industry induced the USDA to suppress the pyramid when it was about to be released in 1991.  I devoted an entire chapter of my book, Food Politics, to providing the evidence for this.

Means: And I told her, when we talked last week, I think it’s actually demonstrable that the dietary guidance from the 1990s has been the most destructive public health document in modern history,

True.  This is what he said and, I assume, is what he thinks.

Means:  because they put grains and carbs at the base of the pyramid. And they didn’t differentiate whole grains or refined grains.

False. The USDA’s pyramid brochure said: “Choose a diet with plenty of grain products, vegetables, and fruits which provide needed vitamins, minerals, fiber, and complex carbohydrates, and can help you lower your intake of fat.”

It also says, “Here are some selection tips: ☛ To get the fiber you need, choose several servings a day of foods made from whole grains, such as whole-wheat bread and whole-grain cereals. ☛ Choose most often foods that are made with little fat or sugars. These include bread, english muffins, rice, and pasta… ☛ Baked goods made from flour, such as cakes, cookies, croissants, and pastries, count as part of this food group, but they are high in fat and sugars.”

Means: Why did they do that? That was directly prompted by the food industry, which at the time was the cigarette industry.

Misleading. Yes, the cigarette industry owned Kraft Foods and other food companies at that time, and taught those companies how to use the tobacco playbook to promote unhealthy products (as we only recently learned).  But the major food industry influences on dietary guidelines and food guides in the 1980s and 1990s were the meat and dairy industries, as I describe in Food Politics. As far as I can tell, they still are, as witnessed by the 2025-2030 guidelines and inverted pyramid.

But that’s not all.  Calley Means said on Instagram: “At @aspenideas, I spoke with @marionnestle – an architect of the 1990s U.S. Dietary Guidelines that led to an explosion of refined carbohydrates and ultraprocessed food in the American diet.”

Misleading again.  I was indeed a member (although hardly the architect) of the 1995 Dietary Guidelines Scientific Advisory Committee.  Here is what the 1995 guidelines said about grains.

“Most of the calories in your diet should come from grain products, vegetables, and fruits These include grain products high in complex carbohydrates—breads, cereals, pasta, rice—found at the base of the Food Guide Pyramid, as well as vegetables such as potatoes and corn. Dry beans (like pinto, navy, kidney, and black beans) are included in the meat and beans group of the Pyramid, but they can count as servings of vegetables instead of meat alternatives.”

Doesn’t this look a lot like what the 2025-2030 guidelines say about grains?  I think it does.

Yes, the 1995 guidelines did not say anything about reducing intake of ultra-processed foods.  How could they? The term was not coined until 2009.

So: Why on earth is Calley Means attacking my work?

I can only speculate.  I see the underlying issue in our current food problems as the food industry having profits to stockholders as its primary fiduciary responsibility, as I have described for decades in my daily newsletter foodpolitics.com, and in my books, most notably,

• Food Politics: How the Food Industry Influences Nutrition and Health
• Soda Politics: Taking on Big Soda (and Winning)
• Unsavory Truth: How Food Companies Skew the Science of What We Eat.

In making false charges, could Calley Means possibly be attempting to deflect attention from the difficulties MAHA is confronting in implementing its agenda? (I will say more about that tomorrow).  Means seems to view me as an appropriate target for deflection.  Obviously, I disagree.

MAHA’s agenda appears to be running up against the pushback that inevitably happens when you do something that might threaten food industry profits. See, for example:

• Food Dive: As MAHA clashes with courts, is RFK Jr’s food policy agenda on life support?
• Food Fix: Major MAHA policy plans now seem less imminent
• New York Times: Has the MAHA movement given up?
• Rolling Stone: Are MAGA and MAHA Heading for Divorce?

A final comment

Reasonable people can disagree about elements of nutrition policy. But reasonable people cannot invent a history that did not exist.

If Calley Means or anyone else believes that I have misrepresented the science or the historical record in my lengthy body of work, show me the evidence. I will be happy to consider it.

That’s how Gold Standard Science works.  Otherwise, it’s just name-calling.

Addition

I was just sent this link to Vanity Fair’s article about Calley Means.

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This will be a Food and Nutrition section panel.  Details to follow.

I learned about this one from a National Pork Board story in SciTechDaily: Animal vs. Plant Protein: Scientists Found a Surprising Nutritional Difference.

A 2023 Purdue University study found that two ounce equivalents (oz-eq) of animal-based protein foods supplied more bioavailable essential amino acids (EAA) than the same two oz-eq amount of plant-based protein foods. Essential amino acids are especially important because the body cannot make them on its own. They must come from food, and they help support muscle and whole-body protein building.

It wasn’t much work to figure out who paid for the study.

Advice to get most of your protein from plant sources does not go over well with animal food trade associations like the National Pork Board (which is sponsored by USDA, by the way).

The study: Connolly G, Hudson JL, Bergia RE, Davis EM, Hartman AS, Zhu W, Carroll CC, Campbell WW. Effects of Consuming Ounce-Equivalent Portions of Animal- vs. Plant-Based Protein Foods, as Defined by the Dietary Guidelines for Americans on Essential Amino Acids Bioavailability in Young and Older Adults: Two Cross-Over Randomized Controlled Trials. Nutrients. 2023; 15(13):2870. https://doi.org/10.3390/nu15132870

Conclusions: The same “oz-eq” portions of animal- and plant-based protein foods do not provide equivalent EAA content and postprandial bioavailability for protein anabolism in young and older adults.

Funding: This research was funded by the Pork Checkoff and the American Egg Board—Egg Nutrition Center. The supporting sources had no role in study design; collection, analysis, and interpretation of data; writing of the report; or submission of the report for publication.

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Nick Freudenberg.  Fighting for New York: Activism for Health and Social Justice.  Columbia University Press, 2026.

I wrote a blurb for this book, happily:

A roadmap for health activists, Fighting for New York illustrates each step needed for successful advocacy through campaigns conducted by a wide range of city-based community organizations since the 1960s.  These stories should inspire any reader to join the movement to make health justice a reality.

It’s about groups in New York City that worked or are still working on campaigns to improve health or achieve other social objectives, what they did that worked and did not work, and why such campaigns are worth doing.  Some of the campaigns he discussed are about food, some not.  All have lessons to teach.

Some excerpts.

On why these campaigns are worth studying:

Campaigns such as Lunch for Learning’s win in making school lunches free for all public school students in New York or the Committee to End Sterilization Abuse’s successful advocacy for new rules to protect women from sterilization abuse in the city’s public hospitals, launched coordinated activities carried out over time with the goal of changing specific policies, programs, practices, or ideas that widened health inequities. By considering these campaigns as an appropriate subject of study — a useful unit of analysis, in the language of researchers — activists and scholars can define characteristics of more and less successful campaigns. (p. 37)

On getting kids fed in schools:

School food campaigns also strengthened democracy and civic engagement. Thousands of parents and children participated in rallies, signed petitions, and learned about city politics, with the added benefit of winning their goal of free lunches throughout the school system and showing that activism could make a difference. Lunch for Learning also taught a lesson in government accountability. When Mayor de Blasio hesitated to implement universal free lunches in 2017, activists widely distributed a video of de Blasio endorsing universal free lunches at a 2013 Mayoral forum on food policy organized by CFA and other food justice organizations. This message reminded the Mayor that his 2017 re-election campaign might benefit from support from parents of school children and activists supporting universal free lunches. (p. 162)

On strategies:

More broadly, urban health justice movements could bring together activist groups working across issues to identify the common beliefs that encourage or deter activism for health and to design coordinated multi-faced strategies to build support for more favorable attitudes. Right wing movements and their patrons in the United States have used this strategy successfully in recent decades. (pp. 288-9)

More on strategies:

How could urban health justice movements provide a framework for making wise strategic and tactical choices on aligning health, social justice, and democracy?  I suggest three ways to help activists answer these questions. First, activists should root their campaigns and messages in people’s daily lives. Lead poisoning, for example, is experienced as a health problem for children. It is also experienced as a social justice problem. The parents of lead poisoned children may have difficulty getting a landlord to follow the law that requires cleaning up the apartment or testing for lead to prevent poisoning in the first place. Other tenants in the building may resent landlords’ failure to clean up buildings where children have previously been poisoned or the city’s failure to enforce housing laws. Between 2017 and 2022, New York failed to collect $1.07 billion in fines from landlords for housing law violations and unpaid property taxes, a sum that could have repaired thousands of apartments to prevent poisoning.

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I’ve been collecting items on microplastics, for which research is finding increasing evidence for harm to human and environmental health.  Here are some relatively recent examples of what’s out there on this topic.

NOTE:  Today and Tomorrow: NIH is holding a hybrid Workshop on Micro[nano]plastic Measurement for Population Studies: link to registration is here.

Should we be worried about microplastics?  

• How big a problem are microplastics? The first global study of its kind quantifies the problem in the food and drink industry… Read more
• Microplastics and plastic bottles: How worried should we be?  The issue of microplastics and nanoplastics are increasingly coming into consumer consciousness… Read more

How do microplastics get into food?

• Research: Ultra-processed foods are a key driver of the global plastics pollution crisis: Rob Ralston, Katherine Sievert, Kim Anastasiou, Joe Yates & Jennifer Clapp. Comment | 09 April 2026 Nature Food 7 | doi:10.1038/s43016-026-01341-0.
• Microplastics are ‘widespread’ in cheese: here’s how this happens: Cheese is ripe in microplastics, a groundbreaking study revealed… Read more
• BBC News: Study Identifies Microplastics in Majority of Commercial Pet Foods: Researchers at the universities of Sussex and Exeter found microplastics in 16 of 19 pet food brands, with higher exposure linked to feeding patterns. The findings highlight potential food system contamination and prompt calls for regulatory testing. Read More

What’s needed?

• Food and Water Watch: 250+ Health Professionals Call on EPA to Monitor Microplastics in Drinking Water:  Over two hundred and fifty doctors, nurses and other health care and public health professionals and organizations sent a letter to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) urging the agency to add microplastics to the Sixth Unregulated Contaminant Monitoring Rule (UCMR 6) and monitor for these contaminants in our drinking water.
• IFT’s Food Technology Magazine:  Can Food Packaging Go Plastic-Free? The authors detail the environmental drivers, emerging materials, and research priorities shaping the transition from fossil-derived plastics to bio-based and circular solutions for food packaging. Read More
• Beverage Daily: 6 ways to keep microplastics out of food and drink: Microplastic contamination poses significant risks for consumers… Read more

And what is the EPA doing about this?  Nothing, alas.

• EPA Fails to Take Meaningful Action on Microplastics: Food & Water Watch condemns EPA for failing to include microplastics in proposed drinking water monitoring program. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has released a draft of the Sixth Unregulated Contaminant Monitoring Rule (UCMR 6), which sets forth which contaminants the agency will require monitoring for in drinking water. The draft rule shows that EPA does not plan to require monitoring for microplastics over the next five years.

An article in Food Business News caught my eye: The companies most exposed to consumer UPF concerns. 

The article is based on an analysis by BNP Paribus, which tracks the effects of the new dietary guidelines on the food industry.

It looked at the percent of 12 food companies’ products that are ultra-processed (Nova 4 classification).

I had to look up Flowers Foods; they make popular bread brands.

Food Business News reports sales data:

Nova 1 products

• Outsell Nova 4 by 7%.
• Sales up 15% in yogurt, 10% in frozen meals and vegetables, 2.5% in fruit snacks and candy, 2% in nut butters and cereal/granola.

Nova 4 products

• Sales up approximately 2% in yogurt and less than 1% in cereals/granola
• Sales down 2.5% in nut butters, 2% in frozen meals and vegetables, and less than 2% in fruit snacks and candy

Comment

This could indicate a trend toward healthier diets, depending on what else people are eating.

It’s hard to know whether these trends are due to the new Dietary Guidelines, which recommended limits on ultra-processed foods, to the effects of GLP-1 drugs, or to inflation.

Whatever the reason, major food companies making lots of ultra-processed foods seem to be vulnerable right now.

I’m guessing they will be reformulating their products as soon as they can.

My days of having small children are long past, but my heart breaks for families trying to decide what to feed infants who cannot be breastfed.

Powdered infant formula is the least expensive option.  Unfortunately—and tragically these days—it is not sterile.

Ordinary bacterial contaminants are not a problem.  Pathogens are.

In recent years, there have been all too many illnesses and deaths among infants unknowingly fed contaminated formula.

What got me started was an article in the Wall Street Journal: “The Baby Formula Probe Produced a Pile of Evidence. Then the DOJ Dropped the Case,”

The Justice Department spent years investigating Abbott Laboratories over how it managed a baby formula facility where potentially deadly bacteria was discovered and suspected of causing infant deaths, worsening a national shortage.

Some prosecutors believed they had evidence to criminally charge the company under a law they have used to pursue other businesses for allegedly selling contaminated foods, according to people familiar with the matter. Some supervisors also thought it was a good case, they said. Top decision makers instead closed the probe, the people said, opting for a lighter-touch option: clawing back money the company earned from selling formula through federally funded nutrition programs. The outcome, which hasn’t been previously reported, illustrates how the Justice Department under President Trump has moved away from strict approaches to corporate enforcement and raised the bar for punishing companies. Trump in an executive order last year called for minimizing the use of criminal sanctions, where civil penalties could be used instead.

And then, KFF Health News and USA Today co-published “A Mom Said Infant Formula Killed Her Baby. The Manufacturer Closed the File.”

When doctors, hospitals, parents, or others alert manufacturers that babies got sick or died while receiving infant formula, what happens next is left largely to manufacturers such as Abbott Laboratories and Mead Johnson Nutrition, giants of the industry…Under federal rules, if a complaint about an infant formula — such as a report of an adverse event — shows a possible health hazard, the company must investigate. But it doesn’t always have to inform the government agency that oversees the safety of infant formula. A company must complete an investigation and notify the Food and Drug Administration within 15 days only if it finds “a reasonable possibility of a causal relationship between the consumption of an infant formula and an infant’s death.” If that happened even once over more than a quarter century, the FDA could find no record of it, according to information obtained through public records requests.

I was curious to know what food safety lawyer Bill Marler, who represents victims of food poisonings, had to say about all this.  Plenty, starting with The Fox Has Been Guarding the Henhouse for Years: Infant Formula Makers Decide for Themselves Whether Baby Deaths Get Reported to the FDA.

The headline finding should stop every parent, pediatrician, and member of Congress in their tracks…Here is what KFF Health News found when it asked the FDA, through the Freedom of Information Act, for every such notification manufacturers had submitted since January 1, 2020: none. The reporters then asked the agency to search all the way back to January 1, 2000. Again: no responsive records.…This is not an academic problem for me. I currently represent families in two infant botulism outbreaks tied to powdered infant formula — the November 2025 ByHeart outbreak that sickened at least 48 infants across 17 states, and the spring 2026 Nara Organics outbreak that so far has sickened three. In those cases, we have dug deeply into the same regulatory framework KFF Health News just exposed…The adverse event reporting system for infant formula is not a system at all. It is an honor code — for an industry that litigation has shown may not deserve it.

On his Publisher’s Platform, Marler writes: Mr. Abbott, You Are Not Going to Jail After All

Four years ago, I wrote two posts with titles I meant: “Mr. Abbott, you are going to face criminal sanctions” and, a few weeks earlier, “Mr. Abbott, you are going to jail for manufacturing tainted infant formula.” I was wrong. Not about the facts — about the willingness of this Justice Department to do anything about them….A DOJ spokeswoman explained that this Justice Department “does not believe in regulation by prosecution”….There are two details in the Journal’s reporting that should make every parent’s stomach turn. First, even if DOJ had wanted to prosecute, the office that does this work — the Consumer Protection Branch — was being disbanded as a cost-cutting measure, the same branch that put away the executives behind the Peanut Corporation of America salmonella outbreak. Second, one of Abbott’s defense lawyers — a former deputy attorney general — reportedly urged the incoming administration to overhaul that very office and strip it of its ability to bring criminal cases at all. Read those two sentences together and ask yourself who is writing the rules now.

Why is this happening?  500,000 Reasons to Drop a Criminal Investigation

Here is why the families I represent — and every parent who lived through the 2022 [Abbott formula] shortage — should be furious.

Abbott gave $500,000 to President Trump’s inaugural fund. Public Citizen has documented that Abbott was one of 58 corporations facing federal investigations or enforcement that together poured some $50 million into the inauguration…And then there is the stock. As Common Dreams reported this week, the President’s own annual financial disclosure…shows that Trump began buying Abbott stock in late September of last year and picked up roughly $500,000 worth of Abbott shares over the course of 2025. The buying happened while his Justice Department was still sitting on a criminal case against the company.

$500,000 into the inauguration. $500,000 in stock in the President’s own portfolio.

As Marler is careful to say, “No court and no investigator has found that the donation or the stock purchases caused this case to be dropped. What is undisputed is the sequence: the money, and then the vanished prosecution. Whether one caused the other is a question no one in a position to answer has been willing to answer.”

I’d say it sures gives the appearance of conflicted interest if not bribery and corruption at the highest levels of government.

Excuse me, but we are talking about helpless newborn and very young infants here, utterly dependent on formula as their sole source of nourishment.

Cases of contaminated formula may be rare, but they have affected commercial, alternative, and organic brands, and their consequences are devastating (take a look at the case studies in Marler’s letter of support for the Infant Formula Safety Modernization Act of 2026).

Congress needs to pass this act, and right away.  And is needs vigorous enforcement.

Legal slaps on wrists will not stop food safety violations.

In the meantime, the safest formula is the liquid form, pasteurized to kill spores as well as living pathogens.   Otherwise, powdered formula is a risk, a small risk, but finite.  You do not want your infant to be one of the unlucky ones.