A little-noticed federal rule that would have forced companies to test talc powders for asbestos vanished the day before Thanksgiving, and its quiet death has become the sharpest fault line yet in the fraying alliance between Donald Trump's MAGA base and Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s Make America Healthy Again movement.
On 25 November 2025, the Food and Drug Administration withdrew a proposed rule requiring manufacturers of talc-based cosmetics to screen them for asbestos, a document that carried Kennedy's name at the bottom. Yet Kennedy and his senior deputies appeared to have no idea it was coming, according to an investigation built on more than 35 sources and internal records.
