Robert F. Kennedy joined supporters and conservative state lawmakers in Harrisburg for an "Eat Real Food" rally in Harrisburg, kicking off his "Take Back Your Health" national tour.
“We're here today because of the existential crisis in American health. Americans pay two to three times what our peer nations pay for health care. And yet we have the worst results in the worst outcomes in the developed world,” said Kennedy, the U.S. secretary of Health and Human Services.
His speech focused on President Donald Trump’s changes to federal health policy that Kennedy has pioneered. Kennedy said much of health spending goes towards treating chronic illness.
“The administration believes that we need to start focusing on health long before someone enters a hospital,” Kennedy said. "This transformation begins with honesty, with gold standard science, with transparency, and it begins with the courage to challenge all of the entrenched interests and systems and orthodoxies that profit from disease and from keeping us ill.”
Shapiro responds to RFK Jr.’s Pa. visit
The secretary was hosted by the state’s GOP delegation. He spoke about the Center for Disease Control’s changes to vaccine recommendations for children.
“Let’s recap the damage RFK Jr. has done to public health in just one year,” said Gov. Josh Shapiro on X, formerly Twitter. “He’s limited access to COVID shots for our kids and seniors. He handpicked a committee of vaccine advisers that restricted access to the Hepatitis B vaccine for newborns, putting them at risk for serious infection. And he's ignored decades of science and spread misinformation about vaccines, putting our kids and families at risk.”
“As he visits Pennsylvania today, he should know: we will stand up to his attempts to sow chaos and endanger public health every step of the way,” Shapiro continued.
Shapiro signed an executive order in October protecting access to vaccines in the wake of federal changes to vaccine recommendations.
“We protect the freedom to make your own health care decisions in this commonwealth,” Shapiro said on X in response to Kennedy’s visit today.
Restructuring the food pyramid
Kennedy unveiled a new inverted food pyramid early this year that places red meat, cheese, vegetables and fruits at the top.
“These guidelines tell us what we ought to eat, a lot of protein, dairy, I'd eat eggs. I'd eat meat, fruit and vegetable and high fiber grains. And these guidelines are going to drive dramatic changes in dietary culture in this country,” he said today in Harrisburg.
He blamed past nutrition recommendations based on the old food pyramid for chronic illnesses like diabetes.
“Dietary guidelines of the past were crafted, not with the idea of public health in mind or good science, [but] with politicized science driven by the mercantile ambitions of the big food processing companies who had captured the FDA,” Kennedy said. “That commercial impulse is what drove Froot Loops to the top of the food pyramid…They poisoned an American generation, and we're now feeling the effects. We're telling Americans it's time to start eating real food again.”
He said food assistance programs will now prioritize "real food," which he defines as food that’s not processed.
“[The Department of Agriculture] gives out $405 million a day to food subsidies in this country, to programs like Head Start to the WIC program, to school lunches, to the SNAP program, to the Indian tribal programs, and the food that they were getting reflects the dietary guidelines. They're getting processed food now. They're not going to do that anymore. They're going to get real food, and it's going to drive changes the marketplace,” he said.
Trump signed the Whole Milk for Healthy Kids Act of 2025 into law on Jan. 14. The law will allow schools participating in the National School Lunch Program to serve whole milk and was supported by Pennsylvania’s senators.
“I want to recognize Pennsylvania for doing your part, the state passed the Whole Milk for Healthy Kids Act of 2025, putting nutrition back into school lunches, and you passed healthier choices for SNAP, helping families access food and nourishes rather than harms,” Kennedy said.
Touting the Rural Health Transformation Fund
Kennedy also briefly discussed the Rural Health Transformation Fund. Pennsylvania will receive $193 million this year as part of the program.
“The amount of money is astonishing. It is a total of 1/3 increase in federal monies to rural health care, historically, a 1/3 increase for the next five years, and it's going to allow these rural systems to save these vital hospitals, which are not just healthcare providers, they're also the centers of culture and economic drivers for those communities,” he said.
The Fund will provide $50 billion to states over five years, according to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS). However, as KFF pointed out, the expected losses in rural healthcare from the changes to Medicaid in Trump’s "One Big Beautiful Bill" budget law will be significantly higher than the $50 billion the rural health fund proposes to states.
