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Toxic Trump Was Not Good for Your Health
The far-right Republican's track record shows complete fealty to corporate polluters, Big Ag, and the chemical industry—those responsible for most of our toxic pollution and a food system that puts profits over human well being.
Oct 22, 2024
While it is rarely a top campaign issue, Americans care deeply about our health and well-being, the food we put in our bodies, and what corporations put into our food—especially when it comes to our children. We all want to know our food is safe and free of dangerous chemicals and additives that can cause serious health problems.
This electoral season, many Americans are asking: Who will make America healthier, Vice President Kamala Harris or former President Donald Trump?
The difference is stark: Widespread evidence shows that Trump’s presidency rolled back many regulations governing toxic chemicals, while the Biden-Harris Administration acted to reduce our exposure to toxic chemicals.
In July 2017, a few months after taking office, Trump reversed a pending ban on the insecticide chlorpyrifos—a brain-damaging chemical linked to ADHD and autism. Chlorpyrifos is so toxic there are no determined safe consumption levels for infants and children. The reversal came after Trump met with the CEO of Dow Chemical, chlorypifos’s biggest manufacturer—and after the company donated $1 million to Trump’s inauguration ceremony.
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) found levels of this pesticide are up to 140 times the limits deemed safe for adults in foods kids regularly eat.
On taking office, Biden-Harris restored that ban to protect our health.
Trump’s EPA approved more than 100 new pesticide products, many containing ingredients so toxic that they have been banned in other countries. Half a dozen new products, for example, contained the chemical paraquat, a substance so deadly that ingesting a spoonful can be fatal. Seventeen of these products contained the potent hormone disruptor atrazine, and several other Trump-approved products included the dangerous airborne fumigant methyl bromide.
Trump’s EPA also failed to act on PFAS, known as “forever chemicals,” found in our food, air, water, and even breast milk. These substances are linked to cancer, birth defects, thyroid disease, weakened immunity, and reproductive harm.
In contrast, Biden-Harris issued the first-ever drinking water standard for PFAS, investing more than $1 billion to protect Americans from these deadly chemicals.
The Trump Administration appointed a former chemical industry lobbyist to head the EPA’s division on chemical oversight. Under Trump, the agency rolled back a whopping 112 environmental protections, including regulations protecting our air and water and controlling many toxic substances. The Biden-Harris Administration has revived and strengthened many of these critical protections.
Trump further endangered our food and health by abolishing stronger organic animal welfare rules aimed at making our meat supply healthier for both people and animals. The Biden-Harris Administration restored these protections. Trump caused additional harm when he reversed limits on bee-killing and neurotoxic neonicotinoid (or “neonic”) pesticides in national wildlife refuges and signed an executive order scaling back regulations on GMOs.
Now, as if to magically erase these truths, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has launched a “Make America Healthy Again” (MAHA) campaign on Trump’s behalf. Kennedy insists Trump would end Big Food’s influence over federal health policies, “ban the hundreds of food additives and chemicals that other countries have already prohibited,” change policies and regulations to reduce processed foods, and “clean up toxic chemicals from our air, water and soil.”
While Kennedy raises important points about the corporate capture over food and health policy, the facts show these claims have no basis in reality. Kennedy’s MAHA bid is completely contradicted by Trump’s track record and the interests of his biggest corporate backers, including Big Agriculture and the chemical industry.
And Project 2025, a blueprint for a second Trump term authored in large part by Trump’s former staffers, is a repudiation of Kennedy’s “MAHA” goals—calling for massive deregulation that will only exacerbate the problems Kennedy rightly identifies. This includes removing GMO labeling and federal inspection requirements for meat and poultry processing; weakening the Endangered Species Act; reducing the influence of EPA science on pesticide approvals; and undermining or even eliminating the science-backed Dietary Guidelines for Americans.
That’s not a recipe for a healthier, less toxic America. For all Americans, especially parents, who are rightly concerned about toxic chemicals in our food and environment, Kamala Harris is by far the better choice.
This column was produced for Progressive Perspectives, a project of The Progressive magazine, and distributed by Tribune News Service.
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Why Project 2025 Remains a Threat to Our Livable Future
We all want clean water, safe, affordable food, a healthy environment, and a bright future we can share with future generations. But Project 2025 threatens all of these.
Jul 31, 2024
Amidst a perpetually churning news cycle, you may have seen a chilling phrase break through the din: “Project 2025.”
It looms like a bogeyman in everything from TikTok comments to headlines in major news outlets. And it refers to a 900-page wishlist and roadmap for a potential conservative president’s first months in office. The document was crafted by former Trump administration officials working with the Heritage Foundation (a think tank with a history of climate denial and funded by right-wing billionaires).
So what exactly is in Project 2025 that makes it so startling?
“We are writing a battle plan, and we are marshaling our forces,” said Project 2025’s director. Paul Dans, who on Tuesday announced he would be stepping down in August from the project. But Dans' comment alone clues you in on the gravity of its contents and its intentions. It is nothing less than a plan to completely overhaul the federal government, stripping away its ability to defend families from threats to public health and the environment.
Its deregulatory agenda will put our water at risk of pollution and contamination for the sake of corporate profits, and its agricultural policies will pull a resilient, affordable food system further from reach. Its plan for our energy system would push our planet even more toward climate chaos.
Moreover, Project 2025 is as meticulous as it is dangerous, detailing exactly how a right-wing president could carry out its plans. And while it details a heinous agenda on a wide range of issues, we’re going to focus on food, water, and climate.
Here’s what you need to know about Project 2025’s threat to our livable future.
Project 2025 Would Pave the Way for More Corporate Pollution
One key tenet of Project 2025 is dismantling and disempowering federal agencies. Its goal is to shift agencies’ focus from protecting our health and environment to paving more pathways for unchecked corporate abuse.
Notably, the plan recommends gutting the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). On day one, it would downsize staff at a time when the agency is already severely understaffed and under-resourced. This has led to, for example, absurdly long reviews of chemicals that threaten our water, air, and health.
In other cases, the EPA has rubber-stamped potentially dangerous chemicals to speed up corporations’ path to profits. Project 2025 wants this trend to continue, as it advocates for speeding up reviews “to ensure the competitiveness of U.S. manufacturers” — putting companies before public health.
It also aims to strip our waters of protections from polluters. Project 2025 would exclude much of our country’s wetlands and temporary waters from protection and narrow the kinds of water pollution regulated under the Clean Water Act. As communities across the country suffer pollution from factory farms and industrial plants, we need more water protections, not fewer.
Moreover, Project 2025 would have a new administration pause and revisit Biden’s recent Lead and Copper Rule Improvement and PFAS regulations, which are vital first steps in responding to our country’s lead-in-water and PFAS contamination crises. This would put the health of millions of people at continued risk.
It specifically targets a recent Biden rule that designates two PFAS as “hazardous substances” under CERCLA, jeopardizing efforts to force polluters to clean up their toxic mess. Project 2025 could allow corporations to get away with poisoning our water, and leave taxpayers to foot the bill.
Safe, Affordable, and Sustainable Food Is Under Attack
Project 2025 is expressly focused on deregulation and downsizing the U.S. Department of Agriculture. It views regulations as “a threat to farmers’ independence and food affordability” and advocates for removing “obstacles imposed on American farmers and individuals across the food supply chain.”
This completely ignores the essential role that regulations play in keeping our food safe and combating Big Ag’s takeover of our food system. Government programs are integral to supporting small and medium-sized farmers and building a food system that will be sustainable for generations of farmers to come.
But Project 2025 wants to cut these — from regulations on pesticide use and genetically modified food to conservation programs that help farmers manage their land sustainably.
It also brushes aside the role that our food system has in fostering a healthy environment, saying “environmental issues” are “ancillary” to agriculture. It would hamstring efforts to transform our food system to save our climate and environment while ensuring affordable, sustainable food for all.
Additionally, Project 2025 cruelly threatens to yank food access from poor and low-income families across the country. Notably, it calls for limiting access to SNAP benefits — formerly known as food stamps — which help feed more than 40 million people in the U.S. It also calls for restricting the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program, which specifically helps children and families. Cutting these programs will allow more people to go hungry.
Our food system is already in crisis, driven by agricultural corporations cutting corners, playing dirty, raising prices, and crowding out small farmers. The answer is not deregulation that invites Big Ag to get bigger at the expense of the rest of us. Yet that’s exactly what Project 2025 advocates for.
Project 2025 Puts a Livable Climate in Jeopardy
Finally, some of the most disturbing parts of Project 2025 are its fervent promises to let the fossil fuel industry run rampant on our health, climate, and environment.
We know that ending fossil fuel use and production is key to securing a livable climate and defending our health against pollution. Yet Project 2025 calls for a rapid expansion of drilling, fracking, and gas exports.
Its authors propose restoring coal mining on public lands and opening more of them to oil and gas leasing. They also recommend speeding up drilling permits, allowing fossil fuel corporations to more easily ravage our shared public lands for profit.
Notably, Project 2025 recommends clearing the way for the planet-wrecking liquefied natural gas (LNG) industry to balloon. Exporting even more LNG could lock in not only the U.S. into decades of more fossil fuels, but also the entire world.
At the same time, the authors of Project 2025 suggest dismantling several offices at the Department of Energy that are key to federal research, development, and deployment of renewable energy. They also push for stopping efforts to grow the country’s power grid to accommodate new solar and wind energy. Instead, they call for focusing on improving grid “reliability” by expanding fossil fuels and slowing clean energy.
This is a laughable idea. Research shows our grid does not need fossil fuels to be reliable; in fact, in disasters, fossil-fueled energy is more vulnerable to outages.
We know that renewables make our energy more affordable, more resilient, and less dangerous to our health, safety, and climate. Yet Project 2025 has no interest in ensuring these benefits. Instead, it’s fighting for the status quo of dirty energy and corporate power.
Project 2025 Proposes a Dark Future — But We Can Fight It Together
We all want clean water, safe, affordable food, a healthy environment, and a bright future we can share with future generations. But Project 2025 threatens all of these. At a time of so many intertwining crises, it promises to hamstring the federal government’s ability to protect people, sacrificing us for the sake of corporate profits.
But while Project 2025 represents some of the most poisonous paths our government could go down, we have the antidote. Food & Water Watch has shown again and again that when it comes to making meaningful change and fighting corporate power, the key to winning is two-fold: calling for bold action and organizing people power to fight for it.
By coming together, we can fight for the future we need and deserve. We can protect our food and our water, end fossil fuels, and win a livable future for everyone.
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The Ultraprocessed Foods Corporations Cram Down Our Children's Throats
UPFs make up two-thirds of the calories consumed by children and teenagers in the United States.
May 13, 2024
About forty-five years ago, at a social gathering, I asked an executive of a Minneapolis-based large food processing company if he fed heavily sugared cereals to his children. He smiled as he shook his head. Smart person. His and other major companies producing what is now called Ultraprocessed Foods (UPFs) had scientists and labs. They knew that ever higher doses of sugars, fats, and salts were being poured into nutritionally stripped foods and deceptively promoted to youngsters on kiddy television. They profitably ignored the serious damage they were causing!
These companies’ marketeers succeeded in getting these children, as my mother would say, to turn their tongues against their brains. The children were also shown how to nag their parents into buying junk food and drink. In fact, Madison Avenue advertising firms would give high ratings for ads “with a high nag factor.”
It was about 1980 when obesity rates started rising at alarming rates. Now about 30% of adults are obese, another 35% are overweight. Recently, a Goldman Sachs study estimated that by 2028 up to 70 million Americans will be taking the new weight-loss drugs, whose longer-term effects are yet to be known. Their apparent present success in suppressing extra food intake is already worrying the fast-food chains like McDonald’s that thrive on selling huge cheeseburgers.
It was also about 1980 when the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) staff and its leader, Dr. Michael Jacobson, were appearing in the mass media and on major national talk shows. They graphically showed the public the large amounts of fat, sugar, and salt that were in the hot dogs, potato chips, and soft drinks they consumed. Millions of Americans started changing their food purchases toward multi-grained breads and more fresh fruits and vegetables. Many people became vegetarians. But most consumers remained wedded to misleadingly promoted and greatly diluted UPFs, short on nutrition and long on harm to their health.
During recent decades there has been an increase in peer-reviewed scientific studies showing that certain foods you can easily buy in the markets can increase your life expectancy while others reduce your longevity. Long-time medical and science reporter/author Jean Carper boiled down these findings into a highly usable new little book titled, “100 Life or Death Foods: A Scientific Guide to Which Foods Prolong Life or Kill You Prematurely.” (See my recent column New Book: Choosing Regular Food to Extend Longevity, April 12, 2024).
On May 8, 2024 – the New York Times defined Ultraprocessed Foods (UPFs) as “using industrial methods and ingredients you wouldn’t typically find in grocery stores – like high-fructose corn syrup, hydrogenated oils and concentrated proteins like soy isolate. They often contain additives like flavorings, colorings or emulsifiers to make them appear more attractive and palatable. Think sodas and energy drinks, chips, candies, flavored yogurts, margarine, chicken nuggets, hot dogs, sausages, lunch meats, boxed macaroni and cheese, infant formulas and most packaged breads, plant milks, meat substitutes and breakfast cereals.”
The Times continued: “In a large review of studies that was published in 2024, scientists reported that consuming UPFs was associated with 32 health problems, with the most convincing evidence for heart disease-related deaths, Type 2 diabetes and common mental health issues like anxiety and depression.” Caution, not all UPFs are associated with these problems.
UPFs make up two-thirds of the calories consumed by children and teenagers in the United States. Still, the giant food companies are getting away with little regulation, especially for their heaviest advertising that pushes their profitable ultraprocessed foods. Have you ever seen TV ads for fresh carrots, radishes, celery, lentils, spinach, kale and asparagus? Unlikely. The mass merchandising ads go for foods, described by a report in the journal BMJ, as “designed by manufacturers to achieve a certain ‘bliss point,’ which causes us to crave and overeat them. They also tend to be low in nutrients, such as fiber, vitamins and minerals.”
We are behind other governments in our official dietary guidelines. Canada and Mexico recommend avoiding or limiting UPFs while the U.S. guidelines make no mention of them. Such is the dominance of giant agribusiness corporations over the indentured U.S. Department of Agriculture and the mostly bought members of the Senate and House Agriculture Committees.
This corporate interference also extends to constantly putting such UPFs into school lunch programs.
Absent taking over the 535 members of corporate Congress by 250 million eligible voters, we are left with parents and their children availing themselves of publications such as CSPI’s Nutrition Action newsletter to become smart buyers and consumers of safer, healthier, nutritious food. If you can, add a home garden to your food supply.
Some of these simple recipes, often called a Mediterranean diet, are in my “Ralph Nader and Family Cookbook,” (2020) with an introduction on how my mother educated us very early on to want to eat nutritious foods prepared to be delicious as well. She baked her own bread, cooked “from scratch” and avoided processed foods with unknown ingredients, such as hot dogs.
Our snacks were fresh fruits and vegetables, including chickpeas, munched while walking to school. For a sweet taste, we were treated to honey and maple syrup. We were taught not to whine because it wasn’t smart and didn’t get us anywhere.
Parents are protectors of their children. They have to be especially on guard to protect their children from pervasive direct mass marketing, using influencers, peer groups, and abduction of their youngsters into the Internet Gulag. The earlier in their child’s life that parents do their job, the easier it will be. Children so liberated can become active allies of Mom and Dad, showcasing their special knowledge. (See, “You Are Your Own Best Teacher! Sparking the Curiosity, Imagination, and Intellect of Tweens” by Dr. Claire Nader).
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