Copy of AFF Sentinel V21 #48-RFK Jr. Nomination
- Steve Dittmer
- Jul 22
- 5 min read
Two-Edged Sword?
Steve Dittmer | AFF Sentinel
Colorado Springs, CO
Originally sent to subscribers 11/19/24
We’re comfortable with all of President-elect’s nominees for running all the agencies save one that makes us very nervous. Of course, we haven’t even seen his pick for USDA secretary yet. We’re not sure whether that’s good or bad.
We have seen commentary that some of the more “controversial” picks will be backed up by assistant secretaries that will have more experience with doing things in D.C.
It is interesting that some folks have commented that they are glad RFK Jr. is slated for HHS rather than USDA. We have to agree with that sentiment, as a somewhat loose cannon roaming around the decks at USDA could damage us more than at HHS -- but that’s a definite maybe. Pharmaceutical approvals come through FDA and vaccine approvals come through APHIS.
We’ve read a lot of his background the last few days and were alarmed to see some people in his orbit that have already been worrying us when we saw one of them as guests on Fox News. There’s certainly a place for research about improvement in the American diet. There are preventative measures much of the population could adopt that could yield long term health benefits.
But we think there is too little thought given to the stress of living as long as we do these days and too much thought that we should be able to live into triple digits if we just did things right. The human body is an organic, cellular construct, after all and even the best engineering of inanimate objects yields things that exist forever few and far between. People expect something that features millions of cell reproductions every day to function perfectly for long lifetimes with a very low error rate.
Cattlemen who see the differing performance from the same ration, medications and management due to different genetic backgrounds, differing individual responses, climatic influences and behavioral responses understand that better than the average citizen.
We’ve been around long enough to be skeptical of health and nutrition trends. My father worked at Proctor & Gamble during the heyday of polyunsaturated oils and fats, developing things like margarine and Crisco that were going to save us from heart disease and recommending against butter.
A few decades later they were ruining the taste of all the pastry we grew up on by painting polyunsaturated fats as harbingers of certain death and they had decided butter was good for you after all. Nina Teicholz did a masterful job of tracking all the injections of political and cultural influences in medical advice and all the objections to any animal products for years “(The Big Fat Surprise, Why Butter, Meat, and Cheese Belongs in a Healthy Diet.” *
Paul Harvey used to remind us that the theory on salt and sodium changed every ten years. Health and nutrient knowledge is constantly evolving. Science involves constantly testing and monitoring what we think we know and comparing to new concepts and data. The cause of Alzheimer’s disease is another example. And we’ve long thought cholesterol will eventually be seen as a response not a cause of CHD, as originally posited by a few.
Now, the DGAC has shifted a bit and saturated fats are the “poison,” as Teicholz has been warning for several years. They are trying (again) to recommend meat be entirely removed or severely limited in the American diet.
Having someone at HHS whose support for suspect science is well documented is no reassurance for the beef industry. Remember, the Dietary Guidelines are a joint project of HHS and USDA. The Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee has been trying to inject climate change goals into the Dietary Guidelines for years now as another reason for eliminating beef especially. Kennedy has been an environmental activist for decades. That combination doesn’t sound good for animal agriculture.
Kennedy could do great work on reforming some of the work of FDA, NIH and much of the work at HHS. His opposition to the medical establishment’s assurances of the efficacy and safety of the Covid vaccines and the cover-up of serious side effects made him popular with many. His claim that vaccines cause autism have not panned out.
The food industry is not perfect. It is dealing with biological constructs for biological human beings not manufacturing metal or stone widgets. Food corporations and pharmaceutical companies sometimes forget what their ultimate mission is. But blaming them for the existence of sickness and death is incorrect.
For every complex problem there is a solution that is simple, plausible and wrong. Look that quote up. There are dozens of versions and attributions.
But Kennedy has been opposed to pesticides and food additives and while he’s not a 40-acres-and-a-mule guy, he leans that way and attracts people and groups who oppose modern agricultural production methods. Hanging out with people like Sen. Corey Booker (D-NJ) is not reassuring to production agriculture. Booker has been adamant that CAFOs ought to be prohibited and the entire modern ag production system should be overhauled.
If Kennedy is confirmed he will have oversight over FDA and parts of the food supply chain.
On the other hand, several times we saw the photo on Trump Force One of Trump, RFK Jr., Don Jr., Elon Musk and Mike Johnson ready to tie in to McDonald’s sandwiches and fries. Dr. Drew Pinsky said on Jesse Waters “Primetime” that RFK Jr. doesn’t want to discourage certain foods but shift, for example, from seed oils for frying to others, including (gasp) beef tallow for fries. Some of us were around when fast food fries had lots of flavor because they were fried in blends of beef tallow.
But a segment on Jesse Waters “Primetime,” was not reassuring.
Dr. Drew Pinsky capsulized Kennedy’s approach as not telling people what to eat but trying to make food we like more “healthy.”
Dr. Casey Means is concerned that the U.S. life expectancy has stalled and believe changing diet and lifestyles can bend the curve of chronic diseases incidence.
While we usually like Watters' take on politics, we have disagreed on his positions on American dietary choices and the crawler at the bottom of the screen proclaimed our “Food is Rotten & Poison.”
Pinsky blamed food companies for making food taste good and, therefore, “addictive” instead of blaming people for their lack of responsibility. We should eat more protein (he didn’t way what kind), less carbs and healthier fats (again, not specifying) Pinsky said.
Big corporations have been quiet about Kennedy’s nomination publicly and will likely take a wait and see approach rather than risk starting off badly before they know if he will even be confirmed.
We’ve learned that if both the Senate and House refuse to go out of session to allow Trump recess appointments, the House can pass an adjournment resolution and if the Senate refuses to honor it, the president can declare it out of session.
Other D.C. Fronts
Majority Leader Sen. Chuck Schumer is reportedly preparing an omnibus spending bill for the end of the year. We need a Continuing Resolution to extend government spending until March, so as to keep this Congress from tying the hands of the new Congress for the first year of Trump’s term.
Sen. Debbie Stabenow, Senate Ag Committee chair, has submitted text of Farm Bill. NPPC is opposing it, because in over 1,300 pages, it does nothing to address the California Prop 12 issue.
Our address: Agribusiness Freedom Foundation, P.O. Box 88179, Colorado Springs, CO. 80908.
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