The White House published on Thursday its long -awaited report “Make America Healthy Again”, painting a serious image of the health of American children. The objective of the long federal evaluation is to identify the root causes of chronic diseases such as diabetes, obesity and neurological development disorders in children.
“Our children are the most sick children in the world,” said the Secretary of Health and Human Services, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., during a call with journalists on Thursday morning.
Ultraprocessed foods and environmental toxins were at the top of Kennedy's problems that must be approached urgently for increases in chronic diseases during childhood. The report also cited sedentary lifestyles, driven by technology and the reception of medicines.
The report was heavy in sketch problems, but the light on concrete solutions.
“The next stage of this process is to obtain policy recommendations for the president,” said Kennedy.
Trump commissioned the report in February in an executive order established by the Make America Healthy Again commission, a group of high -ranking federal officials responsible for reviewing the investigation and making recommendations on chronic diseases in children. The report echoes the priorities of Kennedy, who presides over the commission.
Kennedy said Thursday that the evaluation will report a monitoring report on policy recommendations that will be published in the next 100 days. He added that “there is no budget” to support the initiative at this time, since “there is no specific policy that can be financed in a budget.”
“I think everyone wants to prioritize the ultraprocess food crisis” in those policy recommendations, News on The Call told NBC. These foods have been linked to obesity, heart disease and cancer, but the strength and quality of these studies vary.
As Secretary of Health, Kennedy has been Franco on the four topics highlighted in the report. In his first 100 days in office, he announced that he was asking the food industry to eliminate artificial food supply dyes and addressed the food and medicines administration to review a rule that allows food manufacturers to use additives that “are generally recognized as insurance” without notifying the federal government. He also praised local efforts to restrict the use of cell phones in schools, prohibit fluoride in public water systems and prohibit the purchase of soft drinks and energy drinks under the supplementary nutritional assistance program (SNAP), previously known as food coupons.
Kennedy has also drawn attention to what he sees as serious health risks associated with pesticides, in particular, the murderous glyphosate of grass, which Kennedy has said is linked to a variety of diseases, including cancer. The evidence itself is mixed.
While it was widely expected that the Maha report focused on pesticides, instead highlights the “accumulated load of chemicals in the environment”, mentioning pesticides along with other chemicals such as PFA, microplastics, fluoride, phthalates and bisphenols.
Many republican legislators and members of the agricultural industry had expressed their concern prior to the release of the report that criticizing the use of pesticides could endanger the livelihoods of farmers and eroding public confidence in the food supply.
Kennedy told the Senate Assignments Committee on Tuesday that he would not take measures to endanger the work of farmers who trust glyphosate. The administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, Lee Zeldin, said on Thursday the call of the press that the federal government will continue to regularly review the safety of pesticides, but noted that abrupt changes in agricultural practices could negatively affect the supply of domestic foods.
While Maha's report addresses some real problems, “the problem is that they must find significant solutions,” said Dr. Georges Benjamin, executive director of the American Public Health Association.
The report offers some indications where the Maha commission could choose to focus. For example, it recommends that the long -term essays of the National Health Institutes compare the effects of eating comprehensive foods, reducing carbohydrate intake and minimizing ultraproked foods on obesity and insulin resistance to children.
It also criticizes current federal dietary guidelines for not explicitly addressing ultraprocess foods, claiming that guidelines have “a history of being improperly influenced by corporate interests.” An independent advisory committee that evaluated the dietary guidelines under the Biden administration did not recommend any immediate change for 2025-2030 to take into account ultraprocessed foods.
The Trump administration is expected to publish a new updated version of the guidelines before the end of the year. Kennedy, whose department supervises the review in conjunction with the Department of Agriculture, has said that the new version will be eliminated from the influence by the food industry.
Maha's report also recommends more research on long -term health results of commonly prescribed pediatric drugs. The report states that there are proven damages associated with children with excessive treatment with antibiotics or drugs for ADHD and depression, and “potentially important long-term repercussions” associated with selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (an antidepressing class), publishers and agonists of LPG-1 and agonists of the weight loss class and diabetes that include Ozempic).
Benjamin said that many of the research areas suggested in the report are already being studied, and added that the mass cuts of the Trump administration to NIH subsidies could disagree with their objective.
“They continue to say that they want to do 'standard gold research', but they have reduced the funds of many of the main academic centers of the nation,” he said.
The report did not mention a main cause of children's deaths in the country: weapons.
