Move over, cyclosporiasis. RFK Jr. is hosting a cooking show. | Opinion

This is a factual sentence that can be written here in the year 2026: Amid an outbreak of explosive diarrhea and with measles cases at a 35-year high, America’s top health official, who has an affinity for picking up roadkill and guzzling raw milk, will soon start hosting a cooking show.

I’m not sure if it’s the “explosive diarrhea” thing that’s stopping me or the idea that Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., recently seen chugging whole milk while wearing jeans in a hot tub with scroungy washed-up singer Kid Rock, thinks he can offer culinary tips to anyone who hasn’t already died from a preventable disease.

USA TODAY reported: “Kennedy is launching ‘The Real Food Show,’ a new cooking series on July 30, to help translate the new Dietary Guidelines for Americans into easy, affordable meals they can prepare at home.”

Ummmmm … cool?

America needs protection from RFK Jr.'s new cooking show

Sadly, there’s no vaccine to protect us from this new program, though if there were, I’m sure Kennedy would’ve banned it, claiming it causes elbow liquefaction or adolescent uber-herpes or some such thing. The man is nothing if not a complete, widely documented conspiracy theorist, kook and anti-vaccine menace, with a past spent peddling nonsensical garbage about everything from 5G networks to AIDS to fluoride.

Or, if you’re a believer in RFK Jr. and have switched to a diet of meats, ferments and peptide supplements, he’s a chef! You get to choose which world you live in, folks.

Explosive diarrhea is still a thing, so maybe RFK Jr. should address that first

Anyhoo, while the HHS secretary sets off on his mission to Make Cooking Weird Again, the rest of us are stuck in a salad-less existence thanks to a parasitic infection that has now spread to 45 states, with more than 10,000 cases reported in Michigan alone.

Iceberg lettuce was an initial culprit, but produce in general has come under suspicion, and widespread cuts to public health funding under Kennedy’s watch haven’t helped with concerns about food safety inspections or the investigation into the ongoing cyclosporiasis outbreak.

Maybe “Cookin’ with RFK Jr.” or whatever the show’s called will run a special episode on food that cures explosive diarrhea. (It would likely involve eating more meats and ferments and gargling with beef tallow.)

We also have RFK Jr. to thank for surging measles cases. Yay!

Or perhaps the show runners will feature “Soups that Cure Measles.” As The New York Times reported July 24: “The United States has now recorded more cases of measles in 2026 than in any other year since the virus was declared eliminated in 2000, a grim sign that the country may be headed toward a new era in which the disease regularly sickens thousands every year.”

Noting vaccination rates have dropped in recent years, The Times accurately wrote that Kennedy “has halted funding for vaccine hesitancy research, downplayed the risks of measles and spearheaded a hunt for evidence that vaccines are unsafe.”

But don’t worry, unnecessarily high-fevered and spotted American youth. Your Health and Human Services secretary will be cooking up a delicious cure in the next episode of “The Real Food Show.” Just follow RFK Jr.’s recipe for measles relief by eating a few gallons of this sauerkraut-and-roadkill-meat stew and sticking a potato in your ear.

I kid, of course, though I also wouldn’t be the least bit surprised if it were true.

What a time to be alive – for the moment – and have explosive diarrhea!

Follow USA TODAY columnist Rex Huppke on Bluesky at @rexhuppke.bsky.social and on Facebook at facebook.com/RexIsAJerk.