I have had the same conversation over and over with colleagues in the scientific community. The moment MAHA or RFK Jr. is mentioned, their reaction is almost automatic: How can you support them? Aren’t they anti-science and anti-vaccine? Aren’t you worried about measles? My answer is that they have mistaken the media caricature for what MAHA is actually doing. MAHA is fundamentally a revolt against the status quo in our health-care and scientific institutions. Much of the campaign against MAHA works by reducing even the smallest proposal for institutional reform to vaccines and measles. It is an effective way to frighten scientists, control the narrative, and prevent examination of the institutions themselves. Many of the same scientists questioning me have complained privately about these institutions for years. Yet when a genuine opportunity for reform appears, they help those institutions defeat it by accepting the media framing. That is the power of narrative control: it turns people who recognize the problem into defenders of the system.