How ‘difficult mom’ culture became a gateway to vaccine skepticism
The “crunchy mom” culture that once championed clean living now fuels vaccine skepticism and political support for Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s MAHA movement.
Last summer, shortly after Congress passed a Republican tax and spending bill that cut Medicaid and food assistance for millions of people, internist Thomas Fisher headed to the emergency room for his regular shift.
There was already chaos in the ER.
“There were people in every room, there were people in the hallways, there were people waiting to be admitted. And it’s not just my ER. It’s every ER,” he told USA TODAY. “It’s one thing to accept, as I do, that there is a degree of suffering that is uniquely human in life, and another to accept that people in government are intentionally making it worse.”
He felt he had to do something in response to the vote. run for public office.
Fisher, 51, is currently competing against more than a dozen Democrats in the March 17 primary for the chance to represent Chicago’s Downtown and West Side.
Congress already has doctors, nurses, and scientists from both Republicans and Democrats. As of 2025, there were four physicians and one optometrist in the Senate, according to the Congressional Research Service’s biennial report. There were 16 doctors and 4 dentists in the House of Commons. The House also included a psychologist, two pharmacists, four nurses and an emergency medical technician.
But a year after Robert F. Kennedy Jr. became secretary of Health and Human Services and the rise of the Make America Healthy Again movement, scientists and doctors like Fisher are entering the political world, motivated by concerns about changes in health care policy, anti-science movements, and cuts to social programs.
They hope they can slow or block new policies that change vaccination schedules, find common painkillers can cause autism and change federal dietary guidelines.
“The gears have slipped away. We have undermined the fundamental tenets of medicine and science, and I feel called to public service at this moment,” Fisher said. “I think we can speak with moral clarity.”
Some of them are running in voting districts that could determine which party controls Congress in President Donald Trump’s remaining second term and how far he can advance his policies.
Advocacy groups, including the progressive political action committee 314 Action, are calling for Democratic doctors and scientists to step into the ring at all levels of government.
“As Trump and RFK Jr. lead us down a dangerous anti-science path, Americans are looking for whom they can trust, and doctors and scientists bring what Washington so desperately needs right now: credibility rooted in evidence and real-world experience,” Shaughnessy Norton, president of 314 Action, said in a statement.
Emily Hilliard, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, said in a statement that Americans have lived with the health care status quo for decades.
“Ultimately, it’s Secretary Kennedy who’s getting it right. Many of the voices now criticizing reform were part of that system as outcomes worsened,” she said. “Secretary Kennedy’s focus on transparency, informed consent, and patient choice is about restoring trust, not undermining public health.”
Most of the currently elected medical professionals in Congress are Republicans, and several Republican candidates are also running.
“House Republicans are making real achievements by advancing affordable, healthy and common-sense nutrition policies that the American people overwhelmingly support,” Mike Marinella, a spokesman for the National Republican Congressional Committee, said in a statement. “The polls are clear: a growing number of strong Republican incumbents and candidates are leading the way, while Democrats are left with empty talking points and voters continue to reject the same radical policies.”
rural healthcare
Jasmeet Bains, a family physician and California congressman, said she wouldn’t have run for Congress before Republican Rep. David Valadao voted for the Republican tax-and-spend bill last summer.
The legislation, which Valadao initially vowed not to support, would strip health insurance from millions of low-income Californians, including about 290,000 residents of his rural Central Valley district, according to the California Budget and Policy Center.
Baines, 40, whose clinic in Delano, Calif., serves only Medicaid patients, said he was surprised by Valadao’s change of heart.
“In the Valley, your word is your bond. To go against your word is the biggest slap in the face you can give a community, especially a vulnerable community like this,” she said. “I fully believed he would do the right thing and stand up for the district. But he didn’t.”
Valadao said in a statement after the bill passed that he remains concerned about some of the Medicaid changes but appreciates the new fund aimed at supporting rural hospitals that are disproportionately hit.
“While no law is perfect, this bill ultimately reflects CA-22’s priorities: lower taxes, stronger farms, better infrastructure, and a commitment to protecting Valley residents’ access to health care,” he said.
His campaign did not respond to additional requests for comment.
Baines, who is running against Valadao along with three other Democrats in California’s June 2 primary, wants the voices of rural Medicaid doctors to be heard in Congress. California uses a top-two primary system, and the two candidates who receive the most votes in the primary, regardless of party, advance to the general election.
“We’re going to have a completely different understanding of what we need to do to strengthen health care,” she says. “Often people have ideas about health care, but if you don’t have the experts actually working in the areas that need it most, you can’t create effective programs.”
facts and data
Megan O’Rourke, 46, of Blairstown, N.J., said she realized soon after President Trump took office that she couldn’t continue working as a public servant focused on food security and climate change at the U.S. Department of Agriculture and began making reforms.
“It was clear to me that I was not going to follow orders and participate in what they wanted me to do, and I did what I thought was the most strategic thing I could do in my position, which was to resign and run to bring him down,” O’Rourke said.
O’Rourke, who has a doctorate in ecology, said running for Congress was “one of the most strategic ways to resist the overreach of this presidency and the executive branch, restore checks and balances, and uphold my oath to the Constitution as a public servant by running in a flippable seat in my home state.”
O’Rourke is one of eight Democrats running in the June 2 primary to represent central New Jersey’s 7th Congressional District.
Fluoridation in Florida
Emily Gregory, 40, of Jupiter, Florida, holds a master’s degree in public health and health policy and management. She has watched with concern over the past few years as state legislatures removed vaccine mandates, downplayed the health threat posed by permanent chemicals and made changes to whether drinking water should be fluoridated.
She is more concerned about the state’s water quality than the concerns of some Kennedy supporters, such as what food dyes can be used. President Kennedy has pledged to eliminate certain synthetic dyes from the food supply by the end of 2026.
“I agree that red food dye is a concern, but my kids don’t eat M&Ms every day,” Gregory said. “They drink water every day, and they drink a lot of water every day. We have to think at scale. So if we’re going to put our energy into creating something that’s safe, creating clean drinking water that’s permanently free of PFAS and chemicals is going to be much more important and will have a much bigger impact on the health of our children and everyone than red food dye No. 5.”
Florida Democrats have outnumbered Republicans this year, and Mr. Gregory decided to run for an open state House seat previously held by Republicans in a district that includes President Trump’s home in Mar-a-Lago. She won the Democratic primary with 88% of the vote. The special election is March 24th.
“I want to be part of … bringing data and science back to Congress,” she said.
pediatric vaccines
Pediatrician and California Sen. Richard Pan has already been at odds with Kennedy, with Kennedy attacking Pan’s 2015 bill that would have made it harder for parents to opt-in to mandatory vaccinations in schools, saying vaccines were causing an autism “holocaust.”
Kennedy later apologized for using the word in that context.
Pan, 60, of Sacramento, said Kennedy was evasive and accused him of lying during an August appearance before the Senate Finance Committee about Trump’s 2026 health care policy. He said it was a “turning point” in his decision to run.
“He’s in Washington, D.C., and to keep people safe and to keep our children safe, I have to go to Washington, D.C., and bring him on behalf of the people,” Pan said.
Pan is one of five Democrats running in the June 2 primary, including three Republicans and incumbent U.S. Rep. Kevin Kiley, who recently announced he would run as an independent rather than a Republican.
Pan said Kennedy turned a government agency that was once one of the most accurate sources of medical and scientific information in the United States into a major source of disinformation. He encouraged other doctors to join him in running for office.
“Right now (this moment) is asking people like doctors and scientists to step up, because you can’t do it from a clinic, a hospital, an operating room or a lab,” Pan said. “We’re seeing the fruits of our work undermined by policy decisions made by unqualified people. Frankly, it seems like they’re making decisions based on their own personal interests, whether political or economic or both, rather than what’s best for the American people.”
