Natural health faces a tougher political landscape after the midterms. But the election could also deliver something the movement needs: a wake-up call.
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THE TOPLINE
- Democratic gains in Congress and statehouses could create new obstacles for MAHA reforms and accelerate restrictions on supplement access.
- Industry influence and unfinished reforms under the Trump administration show why natural health advocates must hold both parties accountable.
- Protecting health freedom requires sustained grassroots pressure, engagement in state legislation, and legal protections that outlast any administration.
Democrats’ takeover of the House and Senate will put new obstacles in the path of Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and the Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) movement. The incoming majorities will have greater power to investigate the administration, challenge its priorities, and shape legislation. Meanwhile, Democratic gains in the states could accelerate efforts to restrict supplement access.
Natural health advocates will almost certainly face greater challenges over the next two years. But there is a potential upside: the election could dispel the idea that putting a champion like RFK Jr. in Washington means the rest of us can relax.
Nearly two years into this administration, too much of the transformation natural health advocates hoped for remains unfinished. Some of it has yet to be started. A friendly face at the top has not swept away entrenched interests, changed the regulatory culture, opened the door to truthful information at the point-of-sale, or secured lasting protections for consumer choice.
Grassroot advocates of natural health and health freedom—regardless of political affiliation—cannot afford to sit this out.
Who Gets to Decide What Makes Us Healthy?
Cleaner food. Fewer toxic chemicals. More diverse health choices. No censorship of truthful health information. Less government interference in health choices. Greater corporate accountability. Democrats increasingly recognize the appeal of MAHA’s priorities. But shared goals can conceal a fundamental disagreement: who gets to control what decisions you can make about your health?
A recent Center for American Progress report illustrates the divide. It calls for stronger drinking water protections, action on pesticides, and support for organic agriculture—alongside stronger premarket safety review of dietary supplements, something long championed by Democratic senator Dick Durbin (D-IL).
The common thread through all those policies is greater government control. That approach can serve the public when it holds polluters accountable or keeps PFAS ‘forever chemicals’ out of drinking water. But giving regulators more power over healthcare choices has long been shown to restrict our freedom of choice. Protecting us from pollution we never consented to is fundamentally different from restricting health options we choose for ourselves.
This predicament was put in stark relief during the pandemic. Democratic-led New York City’s vaccination requirements for covered indoor restaurants, gyms, and entertainment venues made a medical decision a condition of participation in ordinary public life. As ANH explored in an earlier article, the promise of safety and protection provides authorities with license to impose restrictions on autonomy.
Commenting on the midterms, ANH General Counsel Jonathan Emord emphasized these points, saying:
“MAHA was meant to empower individuals by expanding their freedom to choose health enhancing foods, dietary supplements, and lifestyle changes. To achieve those objectives requires decentralization of power from government and to the individual. It requires freedom of informed choice, achieved by eliminating FDA’s prior restraint on nutrient-disease relationship claims. It requires freedom of informed choice, achieved by removing undue influence from Big Pharma and Big Food at the FDA, HHS, the CDC, and the White House. It requires freedom of informed choice, achieved by removing all state and federal advocacy and mandates for vaccination. And it requires freedom of informed choice, unencumbered by barriers to access to all forms of the healing arts, natural treatment alternatives to drugs, homeopathic drugs, and compounded drugs.”
MAHA’s Problems Started Before Election Night
It would be convenient to blame every setback from here on Democratic obstruction. It would also let the Trump administration off far too easily.
The tensions between MAHA’s promises and the administration’s industry relationships were visible long before the election. Now, a former insider is offering his explanation.
In a November 8 interview with CBS’s Margaret Brennan, former White House adviser Calley Means accused administration officials, including recently resigned chief of staff Susie Wiles, of putting industry interests ahead of the health agenda voters supported. He alleged that former lobbyists were serving the interests of vaping, ultra-processed food, pharmaceutical, and pesticide companies, invoking the need for midterm campaign money as justification.
Former FDA Commissioner Marty Makary has echoed these sentiments, telling Politico: “A lot of pressure from White House and HHS aides was not on medical cures or healthy food but instead on getting more vapes approved and catering to lobbyists.”
As ANH argued, this was a gut punch for supporters who expected the administration to confront chemical-industry influence.
ANH’s own experience also challenges the idea that Kennedy’s appointment settled the access debate. We have continued fighting over health claims and homeopathy under an administration that promised a more welcoming approach to natural health.
The key point for ANH supporters and the natural health community writ large: political allies still need pressure if we want to get things done.
Congress Can Keep Kennedy Busy—and Reform Waiting
Democratic control of Congress creates another layer of resistance.
A POLITICO analysis describes Democrats preparing aggressive scrutiny of Kennedy, including hearings, subpoenas, and discussion of impeachment. Much of that hostility centers on his vaccine positions.
Committee and subcommittee leadership gives the incoming majorities the ability to set agendas, demand documents, summon officials, and keep controversies in the headlines. Even reforms that do not require new legislation can become harder to pursue when agency leaders are consumed by investigations and political defense.
Oversight is, of course, necessary. ANH’s concern, though, is that this will become a vehicle for defending the institutions and assumptions Kennedy was appointed to challenge.
A department perpetually preparing for the next hearing has less capacity to deliver reform. The likely pressure will be toward caution, delay, and smaller ambitions.
Natural health advocates should prepare for that possibility now. Durable access protections require a broader base of support than one embattled secretary.
Jonathan Emord continued:
“The midterm election brought many to office who oppose freedom and favor centralized government planning and control over all aspects of health care, such as socialized medicine, also known as Medicare for All. Moves that centralize power and deprive us of freedom to influence and control our biological destinies pose a grave threat and must be opposed vigorously and relentlessly. It is the price of freedom.”
Watch the Statehouses
The next restriction on natural health may arrive from a state capital.
Democratic gains could strengthen the push for state supplement regulation. Industry leaders expect California’s restrictions on sales of certain weight-loss and muscle-building supplements to minors, following New York’s law, to encourage similar measures elsewhere. They also warn of expanding testing, labeling, and ingredient requirements.
This is how access can erode: one category, one requirement, and one state at a time. By the time consumers notice a favorite product is harder to obtain, the legislative fight may already be over.
Turn the Wake-Up Call Into Action
A tougher political environment can sharpen a movement’s priorities. It can also remind supporters why their participation matters.
ANH must work with Democrats who will confront pollution and corporate influence, while challenging proposals that unnecessarily restrict natural health. We must work with Republicans who defend consumer choice, while holding them accountable when they protect the industries contributing to the problems they promised to solve.
That means sustained constituent pressure, early engagement in state legislation, support for legal challenges, and demands for access protections that survive changes in administration. It also means judging officials by what they deliver.
Kennedy can be an ally. However, he cannot substitute for an organized movement.
The blue wave should end any illusion that health freedom is safely in someone else’s hands. Our access, our choices, and our voice will be protected only if we keep showing up to defend them.
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