Information about the Aspen Ideas Festival is here. I am scheduled for a session, The American Wellness Paradox, currently scheduled from 11:00-11:50 a.m., at the East Lawn Tent. This will be a discussion with senior HHS policy advisor, Calley Means. Here’s the blurb on it: “Americans are spending more than ever on healthcare, supplements, wellness trends, and “clean eating,” yet rates of chronic disease and metabolic illness continue to climb. As skepticism fuels the rise of movements like MAHA, debates over what Americans should eat have become deeply cultural, political, and economic. Two influential voices with sharply different perspectives on nutrition and food science explore how food systems, farming practices, consumer culture, and the wellness industry collided to create one of the defining public health debates of our time.”
by Marion Nestle
Dec
18
2025
Today’s dysfunctional FDA: Could staff losses have something to do with it?
If you are wondering what’s going on at the FDA, and why everyone seems to be worried about its current leadership, take a look at this instructive post on X: “Nearly 90% of senior leaders who were at the FDA a year ago are no longer there.”
Comment: The FDA has lost its institutional memory. From the standpoint of RFK Jr, that is the point. He considered long-time FDA staff to be sold out to industry and corrupt. He has yet to prove that their replacements are up to the job.
