U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr’s new “Make America Healthy Again” (MAHA) report tackles national concerns including vaccines, children’s mental health and screen time, overhauling the food system, and reforming chemical and environmental safety standards.
Why It Matters
Kennedy, both during his independent presidential campaign bid and in his current role within the Trump administration, has consistently vowed to reimagine national health standards with major policy overhauls that he says have negatively plagued countless Americans over the years.
What To Know
The 69-page report released Thursday, described by government officials as “a call to action,” touches on multiple efforts to reverse the “stark reality of American children’s declining health, backed by compelling data and long-term trends.”
Initiatives outlined by Kennedy and other Trump administration officials seek to uncover potential dietary, behavioral, medical and environmental drivers behind what has been described as a “crisis.”
Vaccines
Section 4 of the report, “The Overmedicalization of Our Kids,” states that “our understanding of vaccine safety and any links to chronic disease would benefit from more rigorous clinical trial designs, including the use of true placebos, larger sample sizes, and longer follow-up periods.”
It continues to state that many vaccines on the CDC schedule were tested among small participant groups, had no “inert placebo-controlled trials,” and limited monitoring.
The MAHA report raised concerns about the number of vaccines on the childhood immunization schedule, its expansion over recent decades, and how it compares to schedules in European countries.
Food Standards
The MAHA report includes a focus on a reduction of ultra-processed food (UPFs) consumption, making whole foods central to child nutrition and public health strategies.
“UPFs are built into the fabric of the post-World War II American society and economy,” the report says. “The convenience of ‘fast food’ and the food processing and delivery industry that facilitates them is viewed, internationally, as a distinctly ‘American’ innovation.
“UPFs have allowed us to save money and to ‘eat on the run,’ but today’s over-reliance on UPFs is damaging the health of American children. This crisis results, in large part, from decades of policies that have undermined the food system and perpetuated the delivery of unhealthy food to our children.”
Future plans include public health campaigns that encourage an intake reduction of UPFs, combined with a revision of dietary guidelines to explicitly warn against UPFs—mimicking countries like Brazil that already do so.
“The American diet has shifted dramatically toward UPFs, leading to nutrient depletion, increased caloric intake, and exposure to harmful additives,” the report states. “Nearly 70 percent of children’s calories now come from UPFs, contributing to obesity, diabetes and other chronic conditions.”
Roughly 50 percent of children ages 2 to 18 skip discrete fruit entirely on any given day, the report adds, referring to research showing that micronutrients such as calcium, iron, potassium and vitamin D—typically found in fruits and vegetables—are pivotal for children’s physiological functioning.
While praising the “hard work” of American farmers, ranchers and food scientists, the report correlates the rise of UPFs “with a pattern of corporatization and consolidation.” It maligns how farmers receive smaller share of consumer food spending (only 16 cents of every dollar spent on food as of 2023) compared to food manufacturers, marketers and distributors.
The public’s dependance on scientific research and the media for food-related information has been “increasingly influenced” by the broader food industry, the report adds, in effect “diminishing the integrity of information available to consumers.”
Chemical and Environmental Standards
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has tracked environmental links to chronic childhood disease— asthma, ADHD, autism, childhood cancers, and obesity—in children since 2000, finding that exposure to lead has been reduced over 90 percent since the 1970s. There’s also been a 70 percent reduction in key pollutants like carbon monoxide, ozone, particulate matter, nitrogen dioxide, and sulfur dioxide.
But things have “largely worsened” since former President Bill Clinton signed Executive Order 13045, “Protection of Children from Environmental Health Risks and Safety Risks,” into law in 1997, officials say.
“In 2025, childhood health has largely worsened, and there is a growing concern about the link between environmental health risks, particularly cumulative risks, and chronic disease,” the report says. “Furthermore, in the past nearly 30 years, the chemicals children are exposed to have grown—and no country fully understands how the cumulative impact of this growth impacts health.
There remains a need for continued studies from the public and private sectors, especially the National Institutes of Health (NIH), to study factors including PFAS (per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances), microplastics, fluoride, electromagnetic radiation, and crop protection tools.
The MAHA Commission formed by President Trump says that a “significant portion” of environmental toxicology and epidemiology studies are conducted by private corporations, with reports in 2023 showing that the largest pesticide manufacturers spent billions on research initiatives to influence said studies.
Mental Health in ‘the Digital Age’
The report highlights a precipitous drop from a decade-long “active, play-based childhood to a sedentary, technology-driven lifestyle,” with chronic physical and mental health diseases worsened by increased screen time and psychosocial stressors such as loneliness, chronic stress, and sleep deprivation.
The report mentions social psychologist Jonathan Haidt’s book, The Anxious Generation, which spent many weeks on the New York Times bestseller list and encourages a broader play-based approach that diminishes children’s attachment to smartphones and technology.
Cited within the report is one international study ranking the aerobic fitness of U.S. children 47th out of 50 among global nations. A reduction in children walking and bike riding to school, combined with fewer recess and physical education classes, are claimed to further hamper healthy lifestyles. Sleep reduction is also a concern.
“Parallel to the decline in physical activity, American youth face a deepening psychosocial crisis,” the report says. “This is marked by rising mental health disorders, significant sleep deficits, chronic stress, and pervasive loneliness, all exacerbated by the widespread influence of technology. The crisis persists despite rising therapy rates, with some suggesting it may exacerbate issues.”
‘Overmedicalization’
The report suggests that increasing rates of pharmaceutical drug prescriptions “may cause further harm to the health of American children when used inappropriately.”
One cited study shows that stimulant prescriptions for ADHD, or Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder, in the U.S. increased 250 percent from 2006 to 2016. Meanwhile, antidepressant prescription rates in teens increased by 1,400 percent between 1987 and 2014.
Between 1999 and 2018, the pharmaceutical industry purportedly spent $4.7 billion on lobbying expenditures at the federal level—more than any other industry. Also, nine out of the last 10 FDA commissioners—and approximately 70 percent of the agency’s medical reviewers—have gone on to work for the pharmaceutical industry.
Revising Benefits, School Nutrition
In the past five decades, many government programs designed to provide nutrition and access to food “have drifted from their original goals,” per the report.
One point of emphasis involves proposing restrictions on Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits that serve roughly 42 million low-income Americans per month, totaling $113 billion in fiscal year 2023.
Children receiving SNAP benefits are more likely to consume greater quantities of sugar-sweetened beverages and processed meats compared to income-eligible nonrecipients, per one estimate, resulting in almost twice as much money spent on UPFs and sugar-sweetened beverages compared to fruits and vegetables—in turn worsening health outcomes.
Officials want to model countries like Chile and South Korea, which have implemented voucher programs similar to SNAP “but prioritize domestic and nutritious food products, effectively guiding recipients toward healthier eating habits.”
It also mentions locally sourced foods used in school cafeterias in countries like France and Japan and guidelines set in Sweden and Finland that strictly limit high-fat, high-sugar, and high-sodium processed items.
What People Are Saying
Kennedy told the House Appropriations Committee last week: “My opinions about vaccines are irrelevant,” Kennedy said. “I don’t think people should be taking advice, medical advice from me. I don’t want to give advice.”
Miranda Yaver, assistant professor of health policy and management at the University of Pittsburgh, to Newsweek: “The hyperpartisanship we’re experiencing, coupled with the de-prioritization of policy expertise, is leading to profound divides in trust in agencies and health recommendations, and this trust will be difficult to rebuild, especially as we see the continued hollowing out of the public health bureaucracy.
“As a researcher, what has been particularly unusual and distressing is that it’s hard to feel confidence when using government data or other government sources. Some of that is related to vaccines as we’ve seen with RFK Jr.’s prioritization of autism ‘research’ over sound science, and some of it is related to other aspects of the administration’s agenda. So, the trust issues are quite far-reaching, and of course in the context of vaccines the consequences can be dire.”
Nicole Clark, CEO and co-founder of the Adult and Pediatric Institute, to Newsweek: “RFK Jr’s hesitation and refusal to give his own testimony about vaccines will likely shed doubt on his ability to effectively run the HHS, given that the position is critical to the dissemination of accurate information regarding public health. His acknowledgment that people should not take medical advice from him creates even further concern about what he understands his role to be as the head of HHS.
“RFK Jr’s role as the head of HHS is more important now than ever, as he can bring people together and instill faith in the medical community, versus breeding a culture of mistrust and misinformation. It is the hope of the medical community that he makes positive steps forward on this precipice to ensure the public health and safety of all Americans.”
Dr. Michael Aziz, a New York-based regenerative medicine specialist, to Newsweek: “Food dyes are one of part of the problem in the U.S. We also have nitrites in processed meats, and trans fats from seed oils that have to be eliminated. The FDA is partly responsible for our health issues by allowing food companies to list food as trans fats free when it has trans fats or food companies to say cereals and vegetable oils—which have tons of chemicals to say that they are good for us.”
What Happens Next
The MAHA Commission says it will immediately begin working on “developing the strategy to make our children healthy again,” with more information slated to be released this August.
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