Tuesday’s long-awaited “Make America Healthy Again” (MAHA) report steered clear of calling for regulation of the pesticide and food industries, despite Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s belief that they are responsible for the childhood chronic disease epidemic.
The lack of inclusion of major reforms in the Make Our Children Healthy Again Strategy Report shows the limits of Kennedy’s MAHA movement within the traditional business-friendly Republican party.
The report identified four potential drivers behind the rise in childhood chronic disease among children, including poor diet, chemical exposure, lack of physical activity, chronic stress, and “a concerning trend of overprescribing medications to children.”
“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,” Kennedy said in a statement. “We are ending the corporate capture of public health, restoring transparency, and putting gold-standard science—not special interests—at the center of every decision.”
Nutrition experts said the report was a missed opportunity, as did some MAHA allies.
“Instead of addressing real changes to provide healthier school meals, the MAHA Strategy is pushing whole milk at the expense of children’s health,” said Neal Barnard, president of the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, in a statement.
The report called for more studies than action and, like much of MAHA’s victories to date, will rely on the voluntary support of industries, rather than mandating changes through government oversight and regulation.
“The report is disappointing, and its most glaring omission is regulation,” said Priya Fielding-Singh, director of policy and programs at the George Washington University Global Food Institute.
MAHA supporters hoped Kennedy would also crack down on ultra-processed foods, but while the report notes they contribute to Americans’ poor diets, the topic was barely mentioned.
“While the commission’s first report directly called out sugar and ultra-processed foods, this one mentions each only once,” Fielding-Singh said. “For ultra-processed foods, the most it offers is that government agencies will ‘continue to try’ to define them, which isn’t the serious step many of us were hoping for to keep them out of schools or children’s diets.”
The report also stopped short of restrictions on pesticides and other chemicals Kennedy has routinely blamed for children’s health problems.
It called for raising public awareness of the Environmental Protection Agency’s “robust” pesticide review procedures and developing “more targeted and precise pesticide applications.”
Health officials have argued industry cooperation is key to the MAHA agenda. But Kennedy allies in the MAHA movement said they were disappointed.
MAHA activist Zen Honeycutt, founder of Moms Across America, said the report read as though “Bayer and Monsanto wrote it.” Bayer is the manufacturer of the herbicide Roundup.
“We are also extremely concerned about this administration’s elimination of necessary funds,” Honeycutt said. “The USDA’s gutting of so many programs directly contradicts the MAHA report’s recommendations.”
David Murphy, a former finance director for Kennedy’s presidential campaign last year, said the report was a “major missed opportunity for the Trump administration.”
Murphy said it was “a clear sign that Big Ag, Bayer, and the pesticide industry are firmly embedded in the White House and intentionally short-circuiting Trump’s campaign promise to the millions of MAHA voters who helped him return to power.”
During a Senate hearing last week, Kennedy reassured Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) he was supporting farmers.
“We’ve met with over 140 farm interests over the past three months, to incorporate them, to make sure that the MAHA agenda is consistent with their agenda,” he said. “We’re consulting every stakeholder in the farm community in everything that we do.”
Pesticide manufacturers expressed their support for the strategy.
CropLife America, the industry’s main lobbying group, in a statement said it “appreciates this Administration and the MAHA Commission for inviting feedback and listening to America’s farmers and agriculture industry — and recognizing that pesticides are important tools that help farmers grow healthy, affordable, and abundant food for American families.”
One area where the report did go into detail was on vaccines. While the report stopped short of calling for any direct policy or regulatory changes, vaccines have been a major priority for Kennedy, a longtime anti-vaccine activist and founder of the anti-vaccine group Children’s Health Defense.
The report called for a new “vaccine framework” with a focus on the childhood vaccine schedule, as well investigating vaccine injuries. Members of Kennedy’s handpicked vaccine advisory panel have similarly said they plan to re-examine the recommendations for shots children receive.
Kennedy has already pledged significant changes to the vaccine injury reporting program, raising fears he will undermine it or tear it down entirely.
“We are recasting the entire program so that vaccine injuries will be reported and studied,” Kennedy said Tuesday. “And individuals who suffered or were marginalized or vilified or gaslighted will be welcome.”
