Up until two months ago, I lived my whole life in Maine’s 1st Congressional District; Rep. Chellie Pingree was my congressional representative for 17 years.

I’ve always thought Pingree was one of the good reps (you know, as good as career politicians tend to get). So you can imagine how I felt when I read that she was teaming up with “Make America Healthy Again” activists, members of a movement led by the sometime philanderer and roadkill enthusiast, Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

Pingree is not just quietly working with them behind the scenes but proudly platforming these influencers. She’s posted them on her Instagram to its 27,000 followers, lending her congressional prestige and farming bona fides to a conspiratorial, self-centered movement. I’d use the mom phrase “I’m not mad, I’m just disappointed” but I am, indeed, mad as well as disappointed. 

Anyone who’s read this column before knows I love going to the farmers market and have a seasonal farm share; I put raw local honey in my tea. I think the government should spend a lot more money subsidizing small organic farms that grow actual food rather than Big Ag conglomerates that grow corn for fuel. But even though we might have a few things in common, you won’t catch me platforming anybody who associates with “MAHA” or lending them any legitimacy whatsoever. 

Rep. Pingree says she “reached out” to Zen Honeycutt, founder of Moms Across America, which presents itself as a grassroots group focusing on healthy food. There are Instagram posts of them together. However, Honeycutt also believes, and publicizes the belief, that vaccines not only caused her son’s autism but also contributed to his suicide. Honeycutt also claims that she “resolved” many of her son’s “autism symptoms” by switching to an organic, non-GMO diet. Organic food can do a lot but I’m pretty sure it’s not going to fix my sensory issues. 

A quick search for “vaccines” on the Moms Across America website pulls up articles titled “The COVID-19 Vaccines Do Not Benefit Public Health” (it claims that the COVID-19 vaccines causes COVID which is not how that works) and another one titled “MRNA Vaccines in the Food Supply” (which is just not how any of that works).

They also have an article titled “Does the COVID-19 Vaccine Cause Autism?,” which braids together several conspiratorial strands of thinking.

The problem is that Pingree is promoting the MAHA movement as a whole, even if she doesn’t mean to.

Perhaps my next column will be titled “Does a witch’s curse cause autism?,” which would have the same level of scientific rigor as these bloggers. Pingree should be ashamed of associating with these people; being pesticide-free is no excuse for being fact-free. 

Moms Across America, while discouraging you from boosting your immune system with vaccines, is happy to sell you expensive supplements that will allegedly boost your immune system, including a “detox bath kit” and something called “SugarShift” that the website claims “provides relief of both diarrhea and constipation,” which seems to me like it comes awfully close to making a health claim, which unproven supplements aren’t allowed to do under FDA law. 

As I was drafting this column, I opened up Instagram (a vital part of the creative process) and the very first post on my feed was Pingree posting about an op-ed she wrote with a MAHA wellness influencer. They’re working together to make sure producers of glyphosate (aka Roundup) don’t get immunity from lawsuits when their products cause health problems. That’s all fine and great. The problem isn’t “working across the aisle” or “not agreeing on every issue.” The problem is that Pingree is promoting the MAHA movement as a whole, even if she doesn’t mean to. 

Pingree says that the MAHA moms can “reach everyday moms who might not know much about environmental policy but care about the foods their kids are eating.” And that’s the exact problem with the so-called Make America Healthy Again movement. It’s inherently selfish. It’s for moms who care about what their own kid is eating, not about the 14 million children in America who are living in food insecure household.

You’ll note that MAHA hasn’t been lobbying legislators to expand government SNAP benefits. Don’t get me wrong, I care about what my son eats too. I stopped using several medications because they aren’t recommended for use during breastfeeding, and I’m planning on introducing him to healthy, whole foods when it’s time. The difference between me and the average right-wing mom, however, is that I care about other people’s children, too. 

MAHA focuses on individual wellness instead of community health. Supplements over vaccines. Eating clean over food stamp benefits. Raw milk over health and safety inspections. The Trump administration and its Republican minions in Congress have been working overtime this past year to cut health insurance benefits, including Medicaid benefits and the Affordable Care Act’s premium subsidies.

All the organic food in the supermarket isn’t going to be much use if you can’t afford to go to the doctor to get a suspicious lump checked out. Even when it comes to the issue of pesticide exposure in our food supply — where are the MAHA activists organizing for the rights and safety of farmworkers, the group with the most pesticide exposure? Where are MAHA activists lobbying for universal health care?

While I understand that getting votes is hard and passing legislation can certainly involve some strange bedfellows, associating with MAHA is not something to be proud of.