Poll Finds Record Low Trust in U.S. Food Safety Under RFK Jr.’s HHS

Kevin Lamarque/Reuters Donald Trump is set to use Health Secretary Robert F.

Kennedy Jr. to boost the GOP’s midterm prospects, just as a poll reveals a record number of Americans do not trust his department to ensure food safety.

For the first time in Gallup ’s history, a majority of U.S. adults (53 percent) said they have little or no confidence in the federal government’s ability to ensure the safety of the food supply in the U.S.

The number of Americans who feel confident that the groceries they are buying at stores are safe is also plummeting.

The latest Gallup poll found that 65 percent of U.S. adults are now “very” or “somewhat” confident that the food they buy at most grocery stores is safe to eat, compared with 73 percent last year, 72 percent in 2024, and 81 percent in 2019.

The damning numbers arrived as the U.S. was hit by the largest cyclospora outbreak in U.S. history, with more than 12,000 people across the country getting sick after eating lettuce tainted with the parasite.

“More Americans now than at any point in Gallup’s trends say they have avoided certain foods, thrown food out or worried about contamination because of recalls,” Lydia Saad, director of U.S. social research at Gallup, wrote in her analysis of the results.

As secretary of health and human services, Kennedy oversees the Food and Drug Administration, the agency responsible for ensuring food safety standards for all domestic and imported foods in the U.S.

Kennedy is also at the forefront of the Make America Healthy Again movement, which aims to drastically improve Americans’ diets.

It is this movement that Trump is desperately hoping will save the GOP from an electoral wipeout in the Nov.

3 midterm elections.

Trump is now reportedly ready to let Kennedy off the leash and allow him to push his MAHA agenda however he likes across the country.

“They’ve given him flexibility to be himself and do his Bobby Kennedy thing,” one senior administration official told The Washington Sun.

Placing Kennedy, famously a lifelong Democrat before he switched sides and endorsed Trump in 2024, out front of the GOP’s midterm strategy is a marked turnaround for the Cabinet official.