Over the last few years, a peculiar intersection between wellness and politics has emerged. As the January 6 insurrection on the Capitol and the COVID-19 pandemic showed, QAnon and Donald Trump adherents were no longer just middle-aged, conservative white men. Many of those who embraced right-wing fringe beliefs were self-described love-and-light, alternative-health types, too. Take Jake Angeli for example, the so-called "QAnon Shaman,” who was granted the right to be fed an all-organic diet in jail in line with his religious practice. Now that President-elect Donald Trump has picked Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as his next secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, a movement around “Making America Healthy Again” (also referred to as MAHA) has materialized among Trump supporters, bringing to light the support from alternative health types.
As I’ve reported before, Kennedy represents a “dismantling” of the public health system, something that traditionally progressive alternative-health types support. Kennedy’s plan as head of HHS could include restricting federal vaccine support, drug development, and banning a number of food additives — all part of a larger initiative to tackle America’s chronic disease epidemic. Chronic diseases are indeed the leading cause of illness, death and disability in the country. It’s estimated that 45% of the American population has at least one chronic disease. People with chronic diseases account for 81% of hospital admissions.
