Just when you thought the politics of health could not get any weirder, MAHA moms seem to be turning on Trump and RFK Jr. The apparent breaking point was an executive order this week declaring that the production of glyphosate – a weedkiller implicated in causing cancer – “is critical to the national defense.” Writing for New York Magazine, Matt Stieb notes that “Making America Poisoned Again” (MAPA) feels like a little too much for the MAHA Moms to accept.

Dismay from the MAHA Movement

Kelly Ryerson is a MAHA Mom and activist who calls herself “Glyphosate Girl” online. In a post on X, she expressed the dismay that many MAHA Moms are feeling:

“Just as the large MAHA base begins to consider what to do at midterms, the president issues an EO to expand domestic glyphosate production. The very same carcinogenic pesticide that MAHA cares about most.”

President Ken Cook of the Environmental Working Group calls this action the “biggest middle finger to every MAHA Mom” that he can imagine:

“By granting immunity to the makers of the nation’s most widely used pesticide, President Trump just gave Bayer a license to poison people. Full stop. It’s a shocking betrayal to protect all of us but especially the people who live and work near farm fields where glyphosate is used.”

What Emergency?

Dani Replogle, a public interest attorney for Food & Water Watch, points out that the president is using the Defense Production Act to claim authority for his action. But that act is intended for responses to national emergencies. She said:

“This is the clearest indication yet that the Trump administration is at the beck and call of the pesticide industry – Bayer specifically.”

Bayer is the big German chemical company that recently agreed this week to pay more than $7 billion to settle lawsuits for a failure to warn people about glyphosate causing cancer. This appears to be the emergency at the heart of the administration’s action.

MAHA Moms care greatly about chemicals in the food supply for their kids. So understandably, they are feeling betrayed by this administration.

Click here, here, and here for further perspective. For background on recent scientific controversies about glyphosate, click here.

The Mothers, lithograph by Käthe Kollwitz / WikiArt