MAHA Idiocracy and Lead Poisoning

RFK Jr may permanently suspend the team dedicated to protecting kids from lead poisoning.

Andrews WD / Getty Images

I am once again bewildered by just how catastrophic the second Trump Administration has already been for American children. This time – decades after our country declared a public health ‘war on lead’ – Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is dismantling one of our best defenses against lead poisoning.

To put it plainly: the CDC under RFK Jr. has suspended the Childhood Lead Poisoning Prevention Program. The entire expert team was laid off on April 1, buried quietly in a broader workforce reduction.

This wasn’t a team sitting in a backroom editing crusty old guidelines – they were actively coordinating with local and state government agencies across the nation to protect kids and their developing brains. Remember last year when there was a lead poisoning outbreak in applesauce pouches? The people who detected that, who led the national response to get toxic products off store shelves and away from kids’ tummies? They’ve all been pink-slipped, and unless something changes, they may all lose their jobs permanently on June 1.

In fact there is a current lead crisis under investigation in Milwaukee, WI. The team had previously been involved in efforts to mitigate the lead exposures in the city, but now according to the city’s health commissioner they have been abandoned – a tragedy Democratic Senator Tammy Baldwin called RFK Jr. out on in a hearing earlier this week.

It is baffling beyond belief that the MAHA (“Make America Healthy Again”) movement is preaching the virtues of “clean nutrition” while gutting the very infrastructure that protects kids from ingesting neurotoxins. You can’t detox or vibe your way out of a lead exposure crisis… especially after you’ve fired all the experts trained to stop it.

Let’s talk about why this all matters. Lead is a neurotoxin. Even at low levels it can permanently impair brain development – reducing IQ, increasing risk of ADHD, and interfering with lifelong learning. At higher exposures it can even cause seizures, encephalopathy, and other life threatening effects. Every pediatrician is taught: There is no safe level of lead in the blood. Period.

Right now, we should be investing more in universal lead blood level screening, rapid remediation of toxic environments, and early detection of lead poisoning clusters. Suspending the CDC’s lead prevention team will not go down in history as a great way to balance a budget. Instead, if not corrected very soon, it will be a public health blunder that will harm kids permanently.