MAHA loves dietary supplements. But that hasn’t led to gains in Washington.

MAHA loves dietary supplements. But that hasn’t yet led to gains for the industry in Washington.

An avid consumer of dietary supplements, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has surrounded himself in part with senior staff members, advisers and health influencers who have promoted everything from weight loss pills to capsules of desiccated organ meat.

But that hasn’t led to gains in Washington for the multibillion-dollar industry — yet.

Kennedy’s “Make America Healthy Again” takeover has, instead, been focused in part on questioning vaccine use, calling out artificial food dyes and cutting personnel and research grants at federal agencies.

While Trump officials have offered a warm welcome, neither the administration nor the GOP-controlled Congress has made policy changes long sought by the industry — to make it easier for consumers to buy supplements, to go after unscrupulous actors and to allow manufacturers more leeway in making claims about their health benefits. And other administration policies targeting food additives and tariffs on imports have imposed new challenges on supplement makers.

“They seem very willing and eager to have those conversations, and they listen to the issues that we raise. But we’re not seeing action that brings these things to the forefront,” said Steve Mister, president and CEO of the Council for Responsible Nutrition, a supplement trade group. “We’re not seeing any positive, dramatic changes that have been particularly helpful to the industry.”