Why Utah Went All in on Make America Healthy Again

In April, Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. traveled to Utah to praise the state for being the first to ban fluoride in drinking water. His appearance at the University of Utah was a stop on a tour of several Southwestern states that have embraced the MAHA agenda. “I’m very happy the state is taking the lead in so many ways,” Kennedy said.

The fluoride bill was just part of the story. On March 27, GOP Gov. Spencer Cox had already signed bills designed to forbid the use of Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits to purchase soft drinks and to ban the purchase and serving of foods containing specified food dyes and chemicals in public schools.

These are all among the strategies Secretary Kennedy has promoted to reduce the prevalence of childhood disease, the first priority for the Make America Healthy Again Commission announced by President Donald Trump on the day Kennedy was sworn into office.

The Utah measures all passed with some level of bipartisanship, Republican Utah House Speaker Mike Schultz says. “Citizens were very much in favor of the bills — most of the opposition came from lobbyist groups," he says.

Success in advancing a Republican agenda in a state where Republicans control both chambers of the Legislature and the governorship isn’t inherently surprising. But some pieces of the MAHA mission, such as reducing environmental chemical exposure and tighter rules for food additives, could require the kind of regulation less favored by conservatives.

So why has Utah moved so far, so fast?

A Perfect MAHA Storm

One piece of the puzzle may be cultural. At least 80 percent of Utah legislators are members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (LDS), says Phillip Singer, a political scientist at the University of Utah. Fruits, vegetables, grains and limited meat consumption are mentioned as “good” foods in Mormon scripture.

This was never an overt part of legislative discussions. “But I do think that there's kind of a general underpinning of trying to be healthy,”  says state Rep. Kristen Chevrier, sponsor of the SNAP and food dye bills.   

Singer, who studies health policy, says this could be part of the story, but not the most important part. “Indiana has adopted MAHA-type policies, and the legislature is not 80 percent LDS there,” he says.

It’s more likely a matter of a conservative state following a template set by an atypical actor in this Republican administration. “If we had a different secretary of Health and Human Services, I don’t think we would see this kind of push to ban fluoride or restrict what individuals that receive food stamps can purchase, or these kinds of things,” he says.

Speaker Schultz points to Chevrier as a driving force. A mother of two daughters with extreme food sensitivities, she spent years talking to legislators about food safety issues as a citizen lobbyist before she ran for a House seat. Chevrier sees it as good timing that a HHS secretary came along pushing her own long-standing interests.

She’s also got the support of “MAHA Moms” in her state, conservative women who advocate approaches to diet that have in the past been associated with liberals. Schultz uses the term to refer to both Chevrier and state Rep. Stephanie Gricius, sponsor of the fluoride bill.

Chevrier doesn’t disagree. “I was a ‘MAHA Mom’ before MAHA was a thing,” she says. “It’s a new label for something that’s been around for a long time.”

Push and Pull

As Schultz sees it, Utah's government can save money if cuts in federal funding come with more state authority over program administration. “We can do it faster, we can do it more affordably, we can do it more efficiently and provide a better service,” he says. “Go ahead and cut the funding.” (This might be easier to say in a state considered to have the nation’s best economic outlook.)

A number of other states have real interest in the MAHA goal of reducing chronic illness, says Hemi Tewarson, president of the National Academy for State Health Policy. The federal Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation has announced a strategy focused on prevention. “It sounds like they want to work with states and think about state models,” she says.

Utah’s pursuit of MAHA ideals is not without its paradoxes. Kennedy often speaks of the dangers of environmental contaminants, including air pollution. Singer lives in the Salt Lake Valley. “The air is nasty,” he says. “There are warnings that sensitive groups should not be outside.”

Fossil fuels are a major contributor to air pollution. Utah gets almost half of its electricity from coal and a third from natural gas. It’s home to five oil refineries.

EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin, who was present at Secretary Kennedy’s tour stop in Utah, is rolling back regulations on emissions, including mercury emissions from coal-fired power plants. Proximity to these mercury-emitting sources has been linked to higher risks of autism, one of Kennedy’s main concerns.

There’s also tension between the Trump administration’s deregulatory stance and MAHA desires to limit exposure to chemicals associated with chronic diseases such as cancer, heart disease and respiratory illnesses. Singer doesn’t expect Utah to take a hard stance on environmental toxins.

Other things are on the table, however. “We are going to continue to push forward on the MAHA movement,” Schultz says. “One of the things we are focused on right now is local food processing, so citizens have more options to buy foods from processors that may not use a lot of these harmful chemicals.”

Singer notes that Russell M. Nelson, the LDS president, is a physician. “During the initial COVID outbreak, they [church leaders] urged members to wear masks, to be vaccinated,” Singer says. (Kennedy has made statements in the past suggesting that vaccines are dangerous, in conflict with scientific consensus.) “There’s an important element of support for medicine and science.”

The state did push back against a Biden-era mandate requiring employees of federal contractors to be vaccinated, joining a lawsuit against the administration. Utah has not yet joined other red states in weakening school vaccine requirements or considering bans on mRNA vaccines. “We want to be a state where good information leads to good decisions,” Schultz says.

Chevrier is considering legislation to expand the food dye restrictions and extend the length of school lunch breaks. Some students don’t get healthy food at home. By the time they walk into a lunchroom, get a tray and sit down, they don’t have enough time to eat.

“As the head chef at Granite School District said, it’s only nutrition if they eat it,” Chevrier says.