A little over a year ago, General Mills, maker of Trix and Lucky Charms, promised to pull synthetic dyes from all its U.S. cereals and school foods by the summer of 2026, and from its whole retail line by the end of 2027. Kraft Heinz made the same pledge days earlier, while Nestlé USA, Conagra, and Tyson followed with similar commitments.

Nobody forced them. They read the room.

The room had changed because of one man: Robert F. Kennedy Jr. The Secretary of Health and Human Services has transformed how Americans think and talk about health policy. For years, Washington rightly worried about access to affordable care, especially in troubled federal programs like Medicare and Medicaid. Kennedy took on a bigger task: making Americans healthier.

This can’t be done without tackling our chronic disease crisis, especially among children. Backed by a presidential order to “Make America Healthy Again,” Kennedy and his colleagues have rolled out sweeping plans to do just that. Their approach rests on gold standard science, better economic incentives, and private-sector partnership.

We spend more than $5 trillion a year on health care, yet an epidemic of chronic disease still plagues us, including obesity, diabetes, and many autoimmune disorders. The CDC reports that roughly three out of four Americans have at least one chronic condition, and about half have two. We suffer some of the highest chronic disease rates in the developed world. That’s why, as the CDC also notes, about nine of every ten health-care dollars go to treating chronic disease.

Why? We move too little. We eat too much of the wrong kinds of food—often following bad, outdated advice from the government. We also use all manner of drugs and substances. And screens and artificial light have created an environment out of sync with one in which humans thrive. Against this backdrop, it is unsurprising that our obesity rate tops 40% and drives much of our chronic illness.

Kennedy has taken bold steps to address this crisis, even as corporate special interests and the chieftains of America’s medical-industrial complex attack him. Consider a few examples.

Better Food Quality. Under Kennedy, the Food and Drug Administration launched the Chemical Contaminants Transparency Tool, a searchable database that shows the public what is in our food.

The agency is also phasing out petroleum-based synthetic dyes. It revoked approval for Orange B and proposed revoking Citrus Red No. 2, while working with the food industry to drop six remaining dyes. In a joint effort with the Department of Agriculture, Kennedy’s HHS team helped states secure waivers allowing them to restrict SNAP purchases of soda and junk food.

In January, the new Dietary Guidelines for Americans gave this commonsense advice: “Eat real food.” Secretary Kennedy said that this includes eating “whole, nutrient-dense foods,” and cutting back on “highly-processed foods,” added sugars, and refined carbs. Working with the Department of Education, HHS also secured voluntary commitments from 73 medical schools to require at least 40 hours of nutrition education.

Childhood Health. In 1970, only 2–4 children per 10,000 were diagnosed with autism. By 2000, the CDC reported that 1 in 150 children had autism. Today, the United States has one of the highest rates in the world, at 1 in 32.

Even if some of this is due to expanded diagnostic criteria, the spike in cases is real and shocking. Under Kennedy, the National Institutes of Health launched the $50 million Autism Data Science Initiative, funding 13 projects that mine large datasets to study the causes, prevalence, exposures, and treatment of autism.

Kennedy and his colleagues have also pressed for a saner approach to psychiatric care. They want to curb the overprescription of psychiatric drugs, deprescribe them when clinically appropriate, and insist on informed consent.

Beyond mental health, Kennedy restored the performance-based Presidential Fitness Test, an updated, age-appropriate measure of children’s strength, endurance, speed, and agility.

A Rational COVID-19 Vaccine Policy. On May 11, 2023, the federal government declared the COVID-19 emergency over. Yet the FDA did not revoke the remaining Emergency Use Authorizations for the COVID-19 vaccines until August 27, 2025, long after the emergency had passed.

The FDA then approved updated vaccines for all Americans 65 and older, and for younger Americans with underlying conditions that put them at high risk of severe illness, hospitalization, or death. Kennedy also announced that the CDC would no longer recommend routine COVID-19 shots for pregnant women and healthy children, and he called for clinical trials of boosters for those under 65.

These are big changes, but they should not be controversial. Kennedy’s COVID-19 vaccine policy moves the United States closer to the approaches of our European friends and allies such as Britain, France, and Germany. They focus boosters on high-risk groups: the elderly and people with immune deficiencies or underlying conditions. Thanks to Kennedy, the United States is no longer an outlier.

Nor should it be startling that Kennedy chose to remake the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, the panel that advises the CDC. He replaced President Biden’s industry-friendly appointees with a new group of leading medical scientists and professionals. Elections have consequences for government personnel as well as policy.

Vaccines can be part of the arsenal of weapons against disease. But studying the scope, necessity, and safety of these pharmaceutical products—many of which have been added in the last few decades—is long overdue. This is why President Trump signed an executive order last week that reduced the number of vaccines children receive and spaced them out, aligning the United States with gold standard science.

Critics often accuse Kennedy of undermining trust in vaccines. But as congressional investigators concluded, Biden’s own flawed COVID-19 policies did far more to erode public trust and stoke “vaccine hesitancy.” Contrary to his early promise, Biden pushed mass vaccination, most notably through a failed and illegal mandate. He did so as evidence mounted that the shots did not prevent transmission or infection.

Worse, by February 2021, his administration was aware of serious adverse reactions in young people, especially heart inflammation, yet routinely stonewalled congressional inquiries. More evidence of harm has surfaced since, both in professional journals and in a Senate report based on sworn testimony.

A fearless opponent of the status quo, Kennedy took a tough job with guaranteed setbacks. While 23 states wisely sought SNAP waivers to stop taxpayers from funding soda, a federal judge partly blocked the effort. And a lower court has likewise stayed the updated vaccine recommendations from Kennedy’s ACIP appointees.

These and many other battles are far from over. But it will take courage and grit to win them. Fortunately, Kennedy has plenty of both.