Proponents of Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s “Make America Healthy Again” (MAHA) agenda are outraged over the Trump administration’s deal with pharmaceutical giant Pfizer, with some saying it goes against the movement’s ethos of cutting out “Big Pharma” from the federal government.
On Tuesday, President Trump proudly announced from the Oval Office that Pfizer would be complying completely with his “Most Favored Nation” executive order — the company agreeing to sell its products in the U.S. at its lowest global prices in other developed countries and receiving relief from tariffs in exchange.
The Trump administration held this agreement up as a major win for lowering drug prices in the U.S.
“This is an extraordinary benefit [to] the American people,” Kennedy said Tuesday from the Oval Office. “It’s a signal to every American family that we’re finally putting their health and financial security first, and it sets a new standard, one that says we won’t write blank checks to the drug industry.”
While Kennedy framed the action as keeping the pharmaceutical industry in check, supporters of his MAHA agenda criticized the apparent cooperation between the White House and a major drugmaker.
Shannon Joy, an online creator who describes herself as a medical freedom advocate, decried the meeting in a video posted Thursday. Speaking on “The Shannon Joy Show,” she argued the MAHA movement was about confronting long-standing establishments.
“Pfizer’s stock was plummeting, which is probably why Pfizer struck a deal with Donald Trump. Naming rights and $70 billion in investment and new mRNA technologies and engaged in that circus sideshow that we saw just a couple days ago,” said Joy, lamenting that the White House had only empowered a major pharmaceutical company, noting how its stock price had jumped in the days following the announcement.
Groups in support of MAHA, such as Teachers For Choice, MAHA Action and the anti-vaccine organization Children’s Health Defense that Kennedy founded, held a demonstration outside of Pfizer’s offices just days before the announcement.
Seeing Kennedy standing in line with Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla perturbed some supporters online.
Pfizer manufacturers one of the most commonly administered COVID-19 vaccines in the U.S. Critics took issue with the White House working alongside it.
James Thorp is an OB-GYN and critic of COVID-19 vaccines who co-wrote a book detailing his beliefs that the shot caused harm to pregnant mothers and fetuses.
On social platform X, Thorp reshared a post by Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Marty Makary in which he called the deal with Pfizer “the beginning of the end of the Great American Rip-Off.”
“NO Marty, this is the beginning of the end of MAHA as you, Oz, Bobby, and President Trump gave Bourla The Butcher/Pfizer $70 BILLION,” Thorp responded, also naming Mehmet Oz, administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, who was at the announcement.
Others echoed Thorp’s criticism, saying MAHA was “over.”
Former Newsmax reporter Emerald Robinson, who was terminated from the network for sharing vaccine conspiracy theories early on in the COVID-19 pandemic, blasted the deal on X.
“Trump just blew up the MAHA coalition. It’s over. What a disgrace,” Robinson wrote.
The Hill reached out to the Department of Health and Human Services, which referred inquiries about the deal to the White House.
