MAHA Report Capitulates to Big Ag, PFAS Polluters

This afternoon the White House’s “Make America Healthy Again” (MAHA) Commission released its strategy report outlining the Trump administration’s priorities for policies to overhaul the food system and address chronic disease.

In keeping with White House promises to monied industrial agriculture lobbyists, the report does not endorse increased regulation for toxic pesticides. Fully 71% of Democrats and 66% of Republicans support increasing restrictions on the use of pesticides in agriculture.

The report comes as Congressional Republicans further controversial Cancer Gag legislation to shield pesticide manufacturers from health-related lawsuits. The Cancer Gag Act, expected to be reintroduced as the “Agricultural Labeling Uniformity Act,” is reportedly a House Farm Bill priority; House Republicans included related language in a July appropriations vote to prevent EPA from improving pesticide warning labels.

Meanwhile, the report makes only passing mention of PFAS – lab-made “forever chemicals” that have been linked to a large range of health problems including various cancers, altered hormone levels, decreased birth weights, digestive inflammation and reduced vaccine response. The Trump administration has been aggressively rolling back previously-established protections for PFAS in drinking water through Lee Zeldin and the Environmental Protection Agency.

In response to the release of the report, Food & Water Watch Senior Food Policy Analyst Rebecca Wolf issued the following statement:

“The MAHA Commission report is a gift to Big Ag. Its deregulatory proposals read like an industry wish list. The truth is, industrial agriculture is making us sick. Making America healthy again will require confronting Big Ag corporations head on — instead, the Trump administration has capitulated.
“The MAHA Commission report is most notable for what it lacks: any real action on toxic pesticides linked to rising cancer rates nationwide. Meanwhile, Trump’s allies in Congress are considering dangerous legislation to make it all worse. The White House’s feigned concern for our health is too little, too late — its weak response to the public health crisis we face will not stand.
“It is shameful but not surprising that this report would make only a fleeting mention of rampant PFAS contamination in drinking water, while disregarding how elsewhere in the administration common-sense water safety rules are being weakened and canceled.”

Food & Water Watch research catalogues pesticide giant Bayer’s multimillion dollar push for Cancer Gag legislation, introduced across the country, failing in nine states and passing in two (the bill is still pending in North Carolina). The push comes as Bayer has spent over $11 billion settling more than 100,000 cancer lawsuits related to its Roundup pesticide, whose key ingredient glyphosate the World Health Organization defines as a probable carcinogen.