Over the last few years, a peculiar intersection between wellness and politics has emerged. As the January 6 insurrection on the Capitol and the COVID-19 pandemic showed, QAnon and Donald Trump adherents were no longer just middle-aged, conservative white men. Many of those who embraced right-wing fringe beliefs were self-described love-and-light, alternative-health types, too. Take Jake Angeli for example, the so-called "QAnon Shaman,” who was granted the right to be fed an all-organic diet in jail in line with his religious practice. Now that President-elect Donald Trump has picked Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as his next secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, a movement around “Making America Healthy Again” (also referred to as MAHA) has materialized among Trump supporters, bringing to light the support from alternative health types.

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As I’ve reported before, Kennedy represents a “dismantling” of the public health system, something that traditionally progressive alternative-health types support. Kennedy’s plan as head of HHS could include restricting federal vaccine support, drug development, and banning a number of food additives—all part of a larger initiative to tackle America’s chronic disease epidemic. Chronic diseases are indeed the leading cause of illness, death and disability in the country. It’s estimated that 45% of the American population has at least one chronic disease. People with chronic diseases account for 81% of hospital admissions.

Kennedy isn’t wrong to focus on solving this crisis. The issue is that Kennedy promotes solutions that aren’t backed by scientific........

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