Critics Say RFK's MAHA Report Offers 'Half-Baked Finger-Pointing' Instead of Real Policy Solutions
"To be meaningful, the findings of the report must translate into concrete actions that truly advance a healthier, more sustainable food system for America's farmers and consumers."
Hours after Republicans in the U.S. House passed a budget reconciliation package Thursday that would slash hundreds of billions of dollars in healthcare and federal food assistance programs for low-income Americans, the nation's top health agency released a highly anticipated report on chronic diseases in children—one that had nothing to say about the impacts those cuts will have on millions of children and instead offered a litany of complaints about families' lifestyles, vaccines, and "overmedicalization," with few solutions.
Led by Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the so-called "Make America Healthy Again" Commission released The MAHA Report, urging the federal government to "act decisively" to reverse "the childhood chronic disease crisis by confronting its root causes—not just its symptoms."
But longtime campaigners in the food safety realm said that while the report's partial focus on the wide use of pesticides, herbicides, and other chemicals—many of which are banned in Europe—is a positive step, the document gave little indication that Kennedy and other Trump administration officials plan to listen to scientists who warn that these chemicals are linked to cancer, birth defects, and immune function.
As Civil Eats reported in April, dozens of GOP lawmakers wrote to Kennedy and other commission members including Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins and Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin, warning that a push to limit pesticides in food was being pushed by "activist groups promoting misguided and sometimes malicious policies masquerading as health solutions."
"Protecting children's health and building a healthy food system must trump pesticide corporations' profits," said George Kimbrell, legal director of Center for Food Safety, in a Thursday statement. "Policy and governance must be based on sound science and reject fearmongering and lobbying influence alleging that these toxins are needed for a healthy food system or agricultural economy."
The report also includes numerous mentions of health guidelines and standards in Europe, but Zeldin was clear in a call with reporters as the document was released that ensuring the health of American children "cannot happen through a European mandate system that stifles growth."
The commission suggested that U.S. farmers will continue to use 300 millions of pounds of glyphosate and 70 million pounds of atrazine per year—herbicides that, respectively, have been the subject of thousands of lawsuits filed by cancer patients and contaminate the drinking water of 40 million Americans.
While the World Health Organization has classified glyphosate as a probable carcinogen and numerous countries have banned the weed-killer, the MAHA Commission said "human studies are limited" regarding glyphosate and similar products. The report allowed that "a selection of research studies... have noted a range of possible health effects."
Even that language was enough to anger agricultural groups and the Republican politicians who are allied with them, with the American Soybean Association accusing the commission of "glaring misinformation and anti-farmer findings" on Friday.
Kimbrell said the report "falls woefully short of providing any next steps in how the government is going to stop this health epidemic from continuing."
"To be meaningful, the findings of the report must translate into concrete actions that truly advance a healthier, more sustainable food system for America's farmers and consumers," he said.
The report also makes no mention of factory farming and its link to antibiotic resistance via corporate farmers' widespread antibiotic use; the leading causes of death for children in the U.S., gun violence and car accidents; and dental cavities, which is one of the most common chronic health problems in children.
Kennedy has spearheaded an effort to remove fluoride from public drinking water, saying in the report that exposure to high levels of fluoride is linked to low IQ in children. Widespread community water fluoridation has been linked to a sharp decrease in tooth decay among children, with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention hailing the practice, now used in 60% of the country, as a major public health achievement.
Medical organizations have said concerns about fluoridation raised by Kennedy and others are unfounded.
During his confirmation hearings, Kennedy dismissed the idea that healthcare should be a human right—falsely claiming Americans prefer the for-profit health insurance industry to government-run systems that have been shown to be far less costly and have better outcomes. The report also makes no mention of the harms of tying healthcare to profit, even as it compared U.S. life expectancy and healthcare costs unfavorably to those in other wealthy nations.
In a video posted to social media, dietician Jessica Knurick emphasized that Kennedy is right to point out the nation's "chronic disease problem."
"But he gets the causes and the solutions completely wrong," she said. "His causes are not evidence-based and they play into the idea of scientific and regulatory corruption to erode trust in science. And his solutions distract from evidence-based solutions that could actually help while actively undermining public health."
With the MAHA Report focusing heavily on sedentary lifestyles and low-income people's reliance on ultraprocessed, inexpensive food, Food and Water Watch (FWW) senior policy analyst Rebecca Wolf said the document amounts to "half-baked finger-pointing that blames the sick."
"Improving public health in America cannot happen without reigning in corporate control. It is a grave mistake to exclude Big Ag from culpability," said Wolf. "Any administration serious about public health must strictly regulate the corporations putting our food and water supplies at risk."
Policy solutions that went ignored in the report, said Wolf, include:
- Closing the "Generally Recognized as Safe" loophole that allows corporations to self-certify the safety of food additives without Food and Drug Administration approval;
- Canceling plans to roll back existing regulations for per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS;
- Fully funding and staffing food safety agencies, which have been slashed by the Trump administration; and
- Stopping state legislatures from passing laws called "Cancer Gag Act legislation" by opponents, which would limit pesticide manufacturer liability in health-related lawsuits.
"The report is right to highlight the health impacts of ultraprocessed foods, microplastics, PFAS, and pesticides," said FWW, "but falls short of directing real policy recommendations capable of reigning in corporate polluters."
