Overview: The Make America Healthy Again Commission released a report identifying four potential drivers of childhood chronic disease, including poor diet, chemical exposure, lack of physical activity, and chronic stress and overmedialization. The report includes recommendations for improving breastfeeding rates and studying the root cause of autism and investigating vaccine injury. However, the report has been criticized for failing to acknowledge causes such as food insecurity and poverty and for questioning proven interventions like childhood vaccinations. Additionally, recent actions by the Trump administration may make it difficult for the Environmental Protection Agency to study air quality impacts on children’s health.
Breanna Reeves
Led by U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) Commission released a report outlining policy reform to address children’s health and agency concerns identified by an assessment.
The assessment narrowed down four potential drivers that contribute to the rise in childhood chronic disease: poor diet, chemical exposure, lack of physical activity and chronic stress and overmedialization.
“The Trump Administration is mobilizing every part of government to confront the childhood chronic disease epidemic,” stated RFK Jr. in a press release. “This strategy represents the most sweeping reform agenda in modern history—realigning our food and health systems, driving education, and unleashing science to protect America’s children and families.”
The strategy vaguely notes that agencies like the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) will “update” and “review” existing guidelines, but gives little detail about when or how these reviews will be addressed.
The strategy report lists dozens of recommendations for improving breastfeeding rates through the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (SNAP) or “other policies,” despite SNAP facing the biggest cuts in its history as a result of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act.
According to an analysis from the Center for American Progress (CAP), an independent, nonpartisan policy institute, while the report does accurately identify issues like poor diet and chronic stress that harm children’s health, the Commission fails to acknowledge causes such as food insecurity and poverty. They also fail to advocate for science-based nutrition programs.
“The MAHA commission’s report squanders real opportunities to improve our children’s health,” stated Jill Rosenthal, director of public health policy at CAP and co-author of the analysis. “It sows doubt and confusion about effective health strategies and distracts from the real drivers of childhood disease and avoidable death—and from the policies this administration is pursuing, which pose an existential threat to our children’s health.”
The report also includes recommendations for studying the “root cause of autism” and “investigating” vaccine injury, despite decades of existing research noting that autism has no one cause.
Investigating “vaccine injury” as part of the MAHA strategy may be attributed to RFK Jr.’s anti-vaccine rhetoric. In the last few weeks, RFK Jr. has authorized new guidance on COVID-19 vaccines. Previously recommended to everyone, with exceptions to those who are immunocompromised, the updated guidance now limits the updated shot to anyone age 65 and older and any person 6 months and older who has at least one underlying health condition that increases their risk of severe COVID-19 infection. Change in the vaccine’s guidance may restrict others from accessing the vaccine due to insurance companies not covering the costs.
In a statement, the American Lung Association noted, “We strongly support improving children’s health and preventing chronic diseases, but the MAHA Commission’s report undermines that very goal by questioning proven interventions like lifesaving childhood vaccinations.”
The statement further acknowledges that “many of its recommendations fall short,” and the solutions proposed are undermined by the administration’s actions.
Additionally, the report acknowledged air quality as a health concern and offered the recommendation that the Environmental Protection Agency and the National Institutes for Health will study air quality impacts on children’s health and “utilize existing research programs to improve data collection and analysis.”
However, recent actions by the Trump administration may make doing so difficult as the EPA announced a proposal to end the Greenhouse Gas Reporting Program (GHGRP). The Program launched in 2010, and requires coal-fired power plants, industrial factories and oil refining facilities to report their greenhouse gas pollution.
Children and families in the Inland Empire experience some of the highest concentrations of ozone in the country, according to the American Lung Association, as a result of being a key warehouse and transportation hub.
The entire report included 128 proposals regarding plans to restructure some agencies and update numerous guidelines, while also making plans to implement changes in a call for “increasing public awareness and knowledge.”