Original air date: March 2nd 2025

While President Trump won the last election on a promise to Make America Great Again, again — the campaign also saw the rise of a second slogan: Make America Healthy Again. That’s an idea with increasing appeal to millions of Americans, and especially the moms who’re often the gatekeepers for their family’s wellbeing. Here’s Lisa Fletcher.

The following is a transcript of a report from “Full Measure with Sharyl Attkisson.”
Watch the video by clicking the link at the end of the page.

It’s a moment some thought would never happen: Robert F. Kennedy Jr. sworn in as the secretary of Health and Human Services. He’s now poised to enact big changes to American health policy.

The Kennedy hearings hit on some of some controversial issues he has championed over decades.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren: The bottom line is the same: Kennedy can kill off access to vaccines and make millions of dollars while he does it. Kids might die, but Robert Kennedy can keep cashing in.

Kennedy: Senator, I support vaccines. I support the childhood schedule. I will do that. The only thing I want is good science and that’s it.

But his confirmation, and the prospects of a re-focus on a healthier America have appeal to one key bi-partisan group.

Marylander Amanda Oliver is a fan. The mom of three is looking forward to new policies that better fit her own concerns, for her family’s health and wellbeing.

Amanda Oliver: I do feel like I am the gatekeeper here in my house and for my family, and that it is my role in this house to understand everything that’s coming in and that’s being fed to my children, and I take that very seriously.

Lisa: What kind of things got your attention as a mom that didn’t have your attention before?

Amanda Oliver: As I began to research the pesticides, herbicides, glyphosate, it definitely was clearly something I did not want to mess around with. I wasn’t comfortable taking chances with my children.

Danielle Lasher, a working mom of six, is president of a group called “Informed Choice Maryland” that advocates for parental rights.

Danielle Lasher: I think I’m privileged to still be able to feed my family a lot of good organic foods and grow food and I know everybody doesn’t have those options. I certainly recognize I’m not exactly like everyone else and that I approach the way I raise my kids and the way I feed my family, keep my home, make decisions through a bit of a different lens.

She believes one of the first things that needs an overhaul is the nation’s food labeling system

Lasher: There shouldn’t be 50 different names for MSG. There shouldn’t be this confusion over Aspartame, Sucralose, Fructose. What’s better for you, what’s not? Most consumers don’t have the time to stay on top of that even if they have the desire.

For many Americans, and moms like Lasher and Oliver, RFK Jr. represents the hope for positive change with his maha or Make America Healthy Again campaign.

Kennedy: This movement, led largely by MAHA moms from every state and you can see many of them behind us today and in the hallways and in the lobbies, is one of the most transcendent and powerful movements I’ve ever seen.

Oliver: I am hoping that he will shine a light on a lot of these things. a lot of these probably bureaucratic processes that have not evolved in who knows how, 20, 30, 40 years.

Lasher is a firm Kennedy backer; she worked on his campaign last year before he dropped out to support trump.

Lasher: I think when you pick away the things the media says about him, it’s hard to be in a room with him and listen to him talk and not feel, i don’t want to say privileged that you’re there, but it’s, it’s not a celebrity thing. he’s just a really smart person.

Lasher also wants to see Kennedy tackle the issues of vaccine safety and drug testing, which he’s promised to do.

Laura Ingraham: Do you think the covid vaccine was safe, and the boosters were safe? A lot of people talk about adverse effects.

Kennedy: We don’t have good data on it, and that is a crime. the fact that we don’t have a surveillance system that actually works.

Lasher: I worked on his campaign, so obviously I support him. I don’t know that there’s anybody else that’s more qualified to tackle this specific problem with vaccines than him. and clearly that is the problem of our time.

Oliver believes issues like health policy and food safety shouldn’t be left to partisan politics.

She and many others across the country are now waiting to see if RFK Jr. and the new administration will follow through on promises to take a long, hard look at the nation’s health and food systems.

For Full Measure, I’m Lisa Fletcher in Maryland.

Watch video here.