by Peter Barclay
I was all set for a takedown when I hit the button to watch the MAHA movie “Toxic Nation” earlier in the week, but I was shocked to find myself nodding in agreement on much more than I had imagined. I have objections, of course, but I think this ‘deep’ dive into American ill-health might deserve at least a “fresh” score in over-ripe tomatoes.
That would at least rank it up there with the likes of The Game Changers and Forks Over Knives, but a WFPB scale (if there were one) would likely take a different perspective. Followers in this way of life take a simpler approach – it’s the food. For MAHA, it’s the food and almost everything else that big business can put into it, along with a glass of raw milk to wash it down.
Strange as it may seem, we in the WFPB world have few objections to much of the MAHA stand. Our star also points well away from ultra-processed foods and diverges significantly from the vegan community that gobbles up seed oil like there’s no tomorrow.
MAHA makes its position on seed oils perfectly clear (they’re unhealthy) but sees beef tallow, butter, and extra virgin olive oil (EVOO) as the ideal option for a fry-up. Now, at least from the purest of WFPB perspectives, we have a problem.
With MAHA, it’s such a mashed-up blessing. For our lot, and after all these years, we still can’t say that the whole food message has fully penetrated the public psyche. But positive signs are emerging, and maybe MAHA is one of them. The WFPB community is firmly in the MAHA camp when it comes to big business and big pharma influence over food and drug ‘requirements.’
The problem is that, despite RFK’s (Robert F. Kennedy Junior) protestations to the contrary, it’s hard to see that the MAHA movement is steeped in the kind of science that comfortably fits with WFPB, and the recent gutting of the National Institutes of Health hasn’t exactly helped instil confidence. A strong whiff of the “alternative facts brigade” still lingers here.
That scent grew even stronger this week with the release of The Bethesda Declaration, a gob-smacking plea from scientists you’d like to think would be better placed in a work of Orwellian fiction than a nightly newscast. This was the CNN response.
The declaration is a heartfelt appeal to NIH leadership from over 300 employees, current and previous. They name five critical areas of concern and say cuts made to research programs, grants and staffing have made the NIH “less transparent and efficient” and put Clinical Centre patients at risk.
For me, the scariest statement in the document is contained in its final paragraph, which says:
“On June 9, 2025, we sign this declaration in Bethesda, Maryland, U.S.In addition to the named signers, we include anonymous signers and speak for countless others at NIH who share our concerns but who — due to a culture of fear and suppression created by this Administration — chose not to sign their names for fear of retaliation.”
Returning to the point I came in at, one of our WFPB contacts criticised Toxic Nation as nothing but a promotion for the ketogenic diet. It’s not actually, but there’s much to be weighed up here, and I shudder at some of the options. Given those broader aspects, perhaps the best we can hope for is that its title turns out to be far less prophetic than it sounds.
