I supported President Donald Trump because I believe he understands that people need real food instead of the junk that corporations have been feeding us for decades. His commitment became clear when he nominated Robert F. Kennedy Jr. for health and human services secretary.
Kennedy’s MAHA agenda provided a plan to address America’s health crisis and its relationship with nutrition.
For decades, Washington has fallen woefully short of protecting people from the range of threats in our food supply, from foodborne illness to toxic pesticides and unnecessary chemicals and additives. The government’s approach to health has focused more on paying for illness than preventing it, even though the relationship between food and health is indisputable. The systems that are supposed to protect us have too often protected food industries instead.
The result has been rampant chronic disease that affects our quality of life and the health of our children.
This is why I’m deeply concerned about Dr. Heidi Overton’s nomination as commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration. Her record, or lack thereof, raises troubling questions as to whether she represents real change for the public Trump was elected to serve, or a continuation of the status quo.
I’m the mother of a daughter with Down syndrome who has faced serious medical problems, and I have seen firsthand how profoundly our health can be affected by what we eat.
Even before my daughter experienced severe food allergies, I was aware of the unnecessary additives, chemicals, and toxic pesticides in our food supply. For more than two decades, I have scrutinized what she eats, allowing only organic, minimally processed foods in her diet.
It has made remarkable improvements in her overall health.
Food purity, safety, and nutrition are foundational to good health and cannot be treated as afterthoughts.
As a lifelong conservative Republican, I had never considered voting outside my party until Kennedy entered the 2024 presidential race as an independent. That’s how personal and important this issue is to me.
For the first time, I felt there was a presidential candidate who understood the role our food supply plays in America’s chronic disease epidemic and the urgent need to address it. When Trump and Kennedy joined forces, I hoped that we would finally see serious change in Washington.
This brings us back to Overton.
The FDA is not simply a drug agency — the “F” stands for “food.” Yet for someone nominated to oversee most of America’s food supply, Overton’s resume is strikingly lacking in experience addressing chemical, pesticide, and nutritional concerns at the heart of the MAHA movement.
She also has no experience managing a massive federal organization, an issue that has already drawn scrutiny from industry analysts and key senators such as Bill Cassidy (R-LA), the chairman of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee, which will have a pivotal role in Overton’s confirmation process.
Questions have also arisen over her involvement in the administration’s executive order protecting the domestic supply of glyphosate-based herbicides. Her precise role in shaping this order remains disputed.
MAHA mothers trusted Trump to fundamentally change how America and its government think about food and how profoundly it affects our health.
We expect an FDA commissioner who understands that food is medicine. I want an FDA commissioner who thinks toxic pesticides and unnecessary additives do not belong in our food and believes that people deserve better than what too often passes for food today.
Does Overton recognize what has happened to the U.S. food supply over the last century? Does she have the conviction to confront it? Most importantly, when the industry pushes back, will she push back harder? She has made no public statements on the impact of food safety or the role of clean nutrition in our health.
I want someone who will ask the hard questions and demand better, not someone whose record leaves me wondering whether those questions will even be raised.
Mothers must have every resource available to choose foods for their children. However, government still has a duty to protect the integrity of our food supply, demand transparency, and stop allowing manufacturers to adulterate our food with toxic chemicals.
Everyone is entitled to demand that the official entrusted with the “F” in FDA understands what has happened to our food supply and has the conviction to do something about it.
MAHA mothers did not support Trump and Kennedy with blind allegiance. We expected them to remain true to the convictions at the heart of MAHA. It’s time the health interests of the public are placed ahead of the industries the FDA regulates.
PANCREATIC CANCER HAD A 13% SURVIVAL RATE. TRUMP’S FDA JUST CHANGED EVERYTHING
To paraphrase Margaret Thatcher: The greater the trust, the greater the duty to be worthy of that trust.
MAHA voters placed their trust in this administration. Is this nomination worthy of it?
Kimberly Boobyer, “The Conservative Mama Bear,” is a longtime advocate for food purity, children’s health, parental rights, and challenging corrupt systems that harm vulnerable people.