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
Feb
24
2026
60 Minutes: RFK Jr on non-regulation of ultra-processed food
On February 15, CBS News’ Bill Whitaker interviewed RFK Jr, former FDA Commissioner David Kessler, and journalist Michael Pollan about ultra-processed foods and what to do about them.
As far as I am concerned, this is the money quote:
This is classic RFK Jr: put everything on personal responsibility, never mind how hard it is for people to resist eating unhealthfully in today’s food environment.
As I explained last August, David Kessler gave RFK Jr a gift. He sent him a letter presenting a Citizen’s Petition arguing that if the FDA wanted to help people reduce consumption of ultra-processed foods, all it had to do was to define ultra-processed foods as Not GRAS.
The FDA is required to respond to citizens’ petitions within 180 days.
During the 60 Minutes program, RFK Jr said:
We will act on– on David Kessler’s petition. And the questions that he’s asking are questions that FDA should’ve been asking a long, long time ago.
“Act on?” What does this mean?
Will the FDA act to regulate ultra-processed foods?
I will believe it when I see it.
Food Industry Comments (thanks to the invaluable Hagstrom Report)
