{"id":19883,"date":"2025-01-13T16:42:10","date_gmt":"2025-01-13T17:42:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/medexperts.pro\/?p=19883"},"modified":"2025-01-13T18:24:43","modified_gmt":"2025-01-13T18:24:43","slug":"rfk-jr-s-maha-movement-obscures-americas-unhealthy-past","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/?p=19883","title":{"rendered":"RFK Jr.\u2019s MAHA Movement Obscures America\u2019s Unhealthy Past"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Medical historians say that the phrase \u201cMake America Healthy Again\u201d obscures a past during which this country\u2019s people ate, smoked and drank things that mostly left them unwell.<\/p>\n

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\u201cWe will make Americans healthy again,\u201d Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has declared<\/a>. A political action committee that has promoted Mr. Kennedy, President-elect Donald J. Trump\u2019s pick for health and human services secretary, says his movement is \u201cigniting a health revolution<\/a> in America.\u201d<\/p>\n

But the word \u201cagain\u201d presumes a time in the country\u2019s past when Americans were in better health. Was there ever really a time when America was healthier?<\/p>\n

For historians of medicine, there is a short answer.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo,\u201d said Nancy Tomes, a historian at Stony Brook University.<\/p>\n

John Harley Warner, a historian at Yale, said, \u201cIt\u2019s hard for me to think of a time when America, with all the real health disparities that characterize our system, was healthier.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Dr. Jeremy Greene, a historian at Johns Hopkins University, asked: \u201cWhich particular era does R.F.K. want to take us back to?\u201d<\/p>\n

Probably not the 19th and early 20th century.<\/p>\n

Rich men smoked cigarettes and cigars, the poor chewed tobacco. Heavy drinking was the norm.<\/p>\n

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Medical historians say that the phrase \u201cMake America Healthy Again\u201d obscures a past during which this country\u2019s people ate, smoked and drank things that mostly left them unwell.\u201cWe will make Americans healthy again,\u201d Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has declared. A political action committee that has promoted Mr. Kennedy, President-elect Donald J. Trump\u2019s pick for health and human services secretary, says his movement is \u201cigniting a health revolution in America.\u201dBut the word \u201cagain\u201d presumes a time in the country\u2019s past when Americans were in better health. Was there ever really a time when America was healthier?For historians of medicine, there is a short answer.\u201cNo,\u201d said Nancy Tomes, a historian at Stony Brook University.John Harley Warner, a historian at Yale, said, \u201cIt\u2019s hard for me to think of a time when America, with all the real health disparities that characterize our system, was healthier.\u201dDr. Jeremy Greene, a historian at Johns Hopkins University, asked: \u201cWhich particular era does R.F.K. want to take us back to?\u201dProbably not the 19th and early 20th century.Rich men smoked cigarettes and cigars, the poor chewed tobacco. Heavy drinking was the norm.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and\u00a0log into\u00a0your Times account, or\u00a0subscribe\u00a0for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber?\u00a0Log in.Want all of The Times?\u00a0Subscribe.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":19885,"comment_status":"close","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-19883","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-health"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19883","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=19883"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19883\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19886,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19883\/revisions\/19886"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/19885"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=19883"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=19883"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=19883"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}