President Donald Trump’s commitment to Make America Healthy Again has taken the country by storm.
The alarm bells about Americans’ declining health have been ringing. Even before the MAHA movement had a name, Americans began taking a closer look at health — including how they eat and food ingredients. As a medical doctor, I teach and empower wellness daily, one patient at a time.
Trump and Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. have made MAHA a sentinel priority of his administration. With the power of federal leadership, they can empower wellness for all 340 million Americans at once.
They have already gotten to work. In January, the Food and Drug Administration revoked the use of Red 3, and in February, Trump established the Make America Healthy Again Commission. There is much more to come on this at the federal level.
Inspired by the ground surge for change, state legislators nationwide are taking matters into their own hands, proposing state-specific legislation to target artificial dyes such as Red 3, Red 40, Yellow 5, Blue 1, and many others. This is a mistake.
Their intentions are good, but patchwork laws and regulations would be a mistake that would hurt Trump’s plan to help public health.
Trump’s Day One priorities include lowering costs for families and keeping them healthy. The best and only helpful solution to addressing the problem of these dangerous food dyes and keeping costs down for families is federal action.
The food industry is nationally organized, manufactured, and distributed across state lines.
The most immediate problem that will arise from these varying state laws is increased food costs. Implementing several different state-specific bans on dyes creates a patchwork system where products must be formulated differently for each state to follow the varying regulations. It will make food more expensive and interfere with Trump’s plan to lower costs.
After suffering for years under Democrats’ inflation, raising prices even higher would be detrimental to the state of our economy and families working to put food on the table. You can’t make healthy choices if you can’t afford the cost of groceries.
The variability of production that piecemeal laws would cause will also drive some manufacturers to consider exiting the market instead. That’s what happens in business when you create chaos. Decreasing market competition will further increase costs.
Finally, variable regulations will expand bureaucracy as each state seeks to test compliance to ensure its unique requirements.
This intervention must be national to improve our health, lower costs, provide consistency for the food industry, and limit bureaucracy. There are many places where local decisions are best. This is not one of them.
We need healthy food, financial health, and healthy competitive businesses.
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Trump has already committed to acting on this problem, which so many families care about. The voters made their voices heard loud and clear, placing their confidence in him, knowing he would keep his promises. We want a strong economy, lower costs, and the health to live long, happy lives. That’s what Trump, Kennedy, and MAHA are fighting to deliver. They have stepped forward to lead on this, and they are doing it. Let’s support them and have the insight to recognize a problem that crosses state lines needs a federal solution, not a patchwork state solution.
Federal action is the only solution to making all Americans healthy again, and we must stand with Trump in Washington as he works to deliver on this promise.
Siobhan Dunnavant is a physician and a former Virginia state senator.