US govt targets food, chemicals in child health report
A commission led by US Health Secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr has issued a report that says processed food, chemicals, stress and overprescription of medications and vaccines may be factors behind chronic illness in children in the United States.
Kennedy said the commission's report was a "clarion call to do something with utmost urgency to end this crisis" of increasing rates of childhood obesity, diabetes, cancer, mental health disorders, allergies and neurodevelopmental disorders like autism.
It did not call for specific regulatory changes or restrictions on pesticides used in farming, as some farm groups had feared, and instead said the chemicals should be further researched.
It echoed previous Kennedy statements that highly processed foods and additives are health risks and that the food industry is too influential in the crafting of public health recommendations like the Dietary Guidelines.
Speaking at a press conference, he said there was a consensus to prioritise what he called the ultra-processed food crisis.
The report also takes aim at the US childhood vaccination schedule, saying the number of vaccines children are recommended to receive is more than in many European countries.
It said the links between vaccines and chronic disease and the effects of vaccine injury should be studied.
Thursday's report outlining the causes was due this week and will be followed by policy prescriptions due in August.
US President Donald Trump signed an executive order in February establishing the Make America Healthy Again Commission to investigate chronic illness and deliver an action plan to fight childhood diseases.
The commission is jointly run by the US Department of Health and Human Services and the White House, with Kennedy serving as its chair and the Domestic Policy Council chief as executive director.
Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins and other cabinet members sit on it, as do federal health agency chiefs and senior White House officials.
Before the report's publication, farm lobby groups had warned that criticising specific farm practices could impede collaboration on the administration's health agenda and put food production at risk.
As next steps, the report called for enhanced surveillance and safety research into drugs and childhood health outcomes and clinical studies comparing whole-food to processed-food diets in children.
The report says that ultra-processed foods, which it describes as industrially-manufactured food products, are associated with poor health.
It cites infant formula as an ultra-processed food that is concerning, saying that parents are increasingly buying European brands.
A commission led by US Health Secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr has issued a report that says processed food, chemicals, stress and overprescription of medications and vaccines may be factors behind chronic illness in children in the United States.
Kennedy said the commission's report was a "clarion call to do something with utmost urgency to end this crisis" of increasing rates of childhood obesity, diabetes, cancer, mental health disorders, allergies and neurodevelopmental disorders like autism.
It did not call for specific regulatory changes or restrictions on pesticides used in farming, as some farm groups had feared, and instead said the chemicals should be further researched.
It echoed previous Kennedy statements that highly processed foods and additives are health risks and that the food industry is too influential in the crafting of public health recommendations like the Dietary Guidelines.
Speaking at a press conference, he said there was a consensus to prioritise what he called the ultra-processed food crisis.
The report also takes aim at the US childhood vaccination schedule, saying the number of vaccines children are recommended to receive is more than in many European countries.
It said the links between vaccines and chronic disease and the effects of vaccine injury should be studied.
Thursday's report outlining the causes was due this week and will be followed by policy prescriptions due in August.
US President Donald Trump signed an executive order in February establishing the Make America Healthy Again Commission to investigate chronic illness and deliver an action plan to fight childhood diseases.
The commission is jointly run by the US Department of Health and Human Services and the White House, with Kennedy serving as its chair and the Domestic Policy Council chief as executive director.
Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins and other cabinet members sit on it, as do federal health agency chiefs and senior White House officials.
Before the report's publication, farm lobby groups had warned that criticising specific farm practices could impede collaboration on the administration's health agenda and put food production at risk.
As next steps, the report called for enhanced surveillance and safety research into drugs and childhood health outcomes and clinical studies comparing whole-food to processed-food diets in children.
The report says that ultra-processed foods, which it describes as industrially-manufactured food products, are associated with poor health.
It cites infant formula as an ultra-processed food that is concerning, saying that parents are increasingly buying European brands.
A commission led by US Health Secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr has issued a report that says processed food, chemicals, stress and overprescription of medications and vaccines may be factors behind chronic illness in children in the United States.
Kennedy said the commission's report was a "clarion call to do something with utmost urgency to end this crisis" of increasing rates of childhood obesity, diabetes, cancer, mental health disorders, allergies and neurodevelopmental disorders like autism.
It did not call for specific regulatory changes or restrictions on pesticides used in farming, as some farm groups had feared, and instead said the chemicals should be further researched.
It echoed previous Kennedy statements that highly processed foods and additives are health risks and that the food industry is too influential in the crafting of public health recommendations like the Dietary Guidelines.
Speaking at a press conference, he said there was a consensus to prioritise what he called the ultra-processed food crisis.
The report also takes aim at the US childhood vaccination schedule, saying the number of vaccines children are recommended to receive is more than in many European countries.
It said the links between vaccines and chronic disease and the effects of vaccine injury should be studied.
Thursday's report outlining the causes was due this week and will be followed by policy prescriptions due in August.
US President Donald Trump signed an executive order in February establishing the Make America Healthy Again Commission to investigate chronic illness and deliver an action plan to fight childhood diseases.
The commission is jointly run by the US Department of Health and Human Services and the White House, with Kennedy serving as its chair and the Domestic Policy Council chief as executive director.
Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins and other cabinet members sit on it, as do federal health agency chiefs and senior White House officials.
Before the report's publication, farm lobby groups had warned that criticising specific farm practices could impede collaboration on the administration's health agenda and put food production at risk.
As next steps, the report called for enhanced surveillance and safety research into drugs and childhood health outcomes and clinical studies comparing whole-food to processed-food diets in children.
The report says that ultra-processed foods, which it describes as industrially-manufactured food products, are associated with poor health.
It cites infant formula as an ultra-processed food that is concerning, saying that parents are increasingly buying European brands.
A commission led by US Health Secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr has issued a report that says processed food, chemicals, stress and overprescription of medications and vaccines may be factors behind chronic illness in children in the United States.
Kennedy said the commission's report was a "clarion call to do something with utmost urgency to end this crisis" of increasing rates of childhood obesity, diabetes, cancer, mental health disorders, allergies and neurodevelopmental disorders like autism.
It did not call for specific regulatory changes or restrictions on pesticides used in farming, as some farm groups had feared, and instead said the chemicals should be further researched.
It echoed previous Kennedy statements that highly processed foods and additives are health risks and that the food industry is too influential in the crafting of public health recommendations like the Dietary Guidelines.
Speaking at a press conference, he said there was a consensus to prioritise what he called the ultra-processed food crisis.
The report also takes aim at the US childhood vaccination schedule, saying the number of vaccines children are recommended to receive is more than in many European countries.
It said the links between vaccines and chronic disease and the effects of vaccine injury should be studied.
Thursday's report outlining the causes was due this week and will be followed by policy prescriptions due in August.
US President Donald Trump signed an executive order in February establishing the Make America Healthy Again Commission to investigate chronic illness and deliver an action plan to fight childhood diseases.
The commission is jointly run by the US Department of Health and Human Services and the White House, with Kennedy serving as its chair and the Domestic Policy Council chief as executive director.
Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins and other cabinet members sit on it, as do federal health agency chiefs and senior White House officials.
Before the report's publication, farm lobby groups had warned that criticising specific farm practices could impede collaboration on the administration's health agenda and put food production at risk.
As next steps, the report called for enhanced surveillance and safety research into drugs and childhood health outcomes and clinical studies comparing whole-food to processed-food diets in children.
The report says that ultra-processed foods, which it describes as industrially-manufactured food products, are associated with poor health.
It cites infant formula as an ultra-processed food that is concerning, saying that parents are increasingly buying European brands.
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US child health report cited 'nonexistent studies'
A US government report on the health of American children cited scientific studies that do not exist to support its conclusions, according to a media report and some of the purported study authors. The report produced by the Make America Healthy Again Commission, named after a movement aligned with Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr, was released last week. It said processed food, chemicals, stress and overprescription of medications and vaccines may be factors behind chronic illness in American children, citing some 500 research studies as evidence. Digital news outlet NOTUS reported the citation errors, saying it found seven studies listed in the report's footnotes that did not exist, along with broken links and misstated conclusions. White House spokesperson Karoline Leavitt told reporters that any citation errors were due to "formatting issues." The government said it posted a corrected version of the report later on Thursday. "The substance of the MAHA report remains the same - a historic and transformative assessment by the federal government to understand the chronic disease epidemic afflicting our nation's children," the Department of Health and Human Services said. Katherine Keyes, an epidemiology professor at the Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health, was cited in the report as the author of "Changes in mental health and substance use among US adolescents during the COVID-19 pandemic," which the report said was published in the medical journal JAMA Pediatrics. She said neither she nor the named co-authors of the paper had written it. "It does make me concerned given that citation practices are an important part of conducting and reporting rigorous science," she said. Psychiatry Professor Robert L. Findling did not author the article cited in the report as "Direct-to-consumer advertising of psychotropic medications for youth: A growing concern" in the Journal of Child and Adolescent Psychopharmacology, according to a spokesperson for Virginia Commonwealth University, where Findling is a professor. Kennedy Jr has spent decades sowing doubt about the safety of vaccines, raising concerns within the scientific and medical communities over the policies he would pursue as health secretary. Since taking the role, he has fired thousands of workers at federal health agencies and cut billions of dollars from US biomedical research spending. The studies attributed to Findling and Keyes no longer appeared in the MAHA report on the White House website as of Thursday evening. A US government report on the health of American children cited scientific studies that do not exist to support its conclusions, according to a media report and some of the purported study authors. The report produced by the Make America Healthy Again Commission, named after a movement aligned with Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr, was released last week. It said processed food, chemicals, stress and overprescription of medications and vaccines may be factors behind chronic illness in American children, citing some 500 research studies as evidence. Digital news outlet NOTUS reported the citation errors, saying it found seven studies listed in the report's footnotes that did not exist, along with broken links and misstated conclusions. White House spokesperson Karoline Leavitt told reporters that any citation errors were due to "formatting issues." The government said it posted a corrected version of the report later on Thursday. "The substance of the MAHA report remains the same - a historic and transformative assessment by the federal government to understand the chronic disease epidemic afflicting our nation's children," the Department of Health and Human Services said. Katherine Keyes, an epidemiology professor at the Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health, was cited in the report as the author of "Changes in mental health and substance use among US adolescents during the COVID-19 pandemic," which the report said was published in the medical journal JAMA Pediatrics. She said neither she nor the named co-authors of the paper had written it. "It does make me concerned given that citation practices are an important part of conducting and reporting rigorous science," she said. Psychiatry Professor Robert L. Findling did not author the article cited in the report as "Direct-to-consumer advertising of psychotropic medications for youth: A growing concern" in the Journal of Child and Adolescent Psychopharmacology, according to a spokesperson for Virginia Commonwealth University, where Findling is a professor. Kennedy Jr has spent decades sowing doubt about the safety of vaccines, raising concerns within the scientific and medical communities over the policies he would pursue as health secretary. Since taking the role, he has fired thousands of workers at federal health agencies and cut billions of dollars from US biomedical research spending. The studies attributed to Findling and Keyes no longer appeared in the MAHA report on the White House website as of Thursday evening. A US government report on the health of American children cited scientific studies that do not exist to support its conclusions, according to a media report and some of the purported study authors. The report produced by the Make America Healthy Again Commission, named after a movement aligned with Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr, was released last week. It said processed food, chemicals, stress and overprescription of medications and vaccines may be factors behind chronic illness in American children, citing some 500 research studies as evidence. Digital news outlet NOTUS reported the citation errors, saying it found seven studies listed in the report's footnotes that did not exist, along with broken links and misstated conclusions. White House spokesperson Karoline Leavitt told reporters that any citation errors were due to "formatting issues." The government said it posted a corrected version of the report later on Thursday. "The substance of the MAHA report remains the same - a historic and transformative assessment by the federal government to understand the chronic disease epidemic afflicting our nation's children," the Department of Health and Human Services said. Katherine Keyes, an epidemiology professor at the Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health, was cited in the report as the author of "Changes in mental health and substance use among US adolescents during the COVID-19 pandemic," which the report said was published in the medical journal JAMA Pediatrics. She said neither she nor the named co-authors of the paper had written it. "It does make me concerned given that citation practices are an important part of conducting and reporting rigorous science," she said. Psychiatry Professor Robert L. Findling did not author the article cited in the report as "Direct-to-consumer advertising of psychotropic medications for youth: A growing concern" in the Journal of Child and Adolescent Psychopharmacology, according to a spokesperson for Virginia Commonwealth University, where Findling is a professor. Kennedy Jr has spent decades sowing doubt about the safety of vaccines, raising concerns within the scientific and medical communities over the policies he would pursue as health secretary. Since taking the role, he has fired thousands of workers at federal health agencies and cut billions of dollars from US biomedical research spending. The studies attributed to Findling and Keyes no longer appeared in the MAHA report on the White House website as of Thursday evening. A US government report on the health of American children cited scientific studies that do not exist to support its conclusions, according to a media report and some of the purported study authors. The report produced by the Make America Healthy Again Commission, named after a movement aligned with Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr, was released last week. It said processed food, chemicals, stress and overprescription of medications and vaccines may be factors behind chronic illness in American children, citing some 500 research studies as evidence. Digital news outlet NOTUS reported the citation errors, saying it found seven studies listed in the report's footnotes that did not exist, along with broken links and misstated conclusions. White House spokesperson Karoline Leavitt told reporters that any citation errors were due to "formatting issues." The government said it posted a corrected version of the report later on Thursday. "The substance of the MAHA report remains the same - a historic and transformative assessment by the federal government to understand the chronic disease epidemic afflicting our nation's children," the Department of Health and Human Services said. 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News.com.au
5 days ago
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'Make America Healthy Again' report cites nonexistent studies: authors
At least four of the studies cited in a flagship White House report on children's health do not exist, authors listed in the document told AFP Thursday, casting doubt on the paper outlining US Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s agenda. The highly anticipated "Make America Healthy Again" (MAHA) report was released on May 22 by the presidential commission tasked with assessing drivers of childhood chronic disease. But it includes broken citation links and credits authors with papers they say they did not write. White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt described the mishaps as "formatting issues" during a press briefing Thursday and said the report will be updated to address them. "It does not negate the substance of the report," said Leavitt, who expressed confidence in Kennedy and his team, and insisted that their work was "backed on good science." The errors were first reported Thursday by NOTUS, a US digital news website affiliated with the nonprofit Allbritton Journalism Institute. Noah Kreski, a Columbia University researcher listed as an author of a paper on adolescent anxiety and depression during the Covid-19 pandemic, told AFP the citation is "not one of our studies" and "doesn't appear to be a study that exists at all." The citation includes a link that purports to send users to an article in the peer-reviewed medical journal JAMA, but which is broken. Jim Michalski, a spokesman for JAMA Network, said it "was not published in JAMA Pediatrics or in any JAMA Network journal." Columbia University epidemiologist Katherine Keyes, who was also listed as an author of the supposed JAMA study, told AFP she does research on the topic but does not know where the statistics credited to her came from, and that she "did not write that paper." "I would be happy to send this information to the MAHA committee to correct the report, although I have not yet received information on where to reach them." - 'Totally fabricated' - Guohua Li, another Columbia University professor apparently named in the citation, said the reference is "totally fabricated" and that he does not even know Kreski. AFP also spoke with Harold Farber, pediatrics professor at Baylor College of Medicine, who said the paper attributed to him "does not exist" nor had he ever collaborated with the co-authors credited in the MAHA report. Similarly, Brian McNeill, spokesperson for Virginia Commonwealth University, confirmed that professor Robert Findling did not author a paper the report says he wrote about advertising of psychotropic medications for youth. A fourth paper on ADHD medication was also not published in the journal Pediatrics in 2008 as claimed in the MAHA report, according to Alex Hulvalchick, media relations specialist for the journal's publisher, the American Academy of Pediatrics. - 'Rife with misinformation' - The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) declined to comment, referring AFP's questions to the White House. At her briefing, Leavitt declined to answer how the report was produced and whether artificial intelligence tools may have been used to craft it, directing those questions back to HHS. The Democratic National Committee blasted the report as "rife with misinformation" in a Thursday press release, saying Kennedy's agency "is justifying its policy priorities with studies and sources that do not exist." Kennedy was approved as health secretary earlier this year despite widespread alarm from the medical community over his history of promoting vaccine misinformation and denying scientific facts. Since taking office, he has ordered the National Institutes of Health to probe the causes of autism -- a condition he has long falsely tied to the measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccine. The report's chronic disease references appear to nod to that same disproven theory, discredited by numerous studies since the idea first aired in a late 1990s paper based on falsified data. It also criticizes the "over-medicalization" of children, citing surging prescriptions of psychiatric drugs and antibiotics, and blaming "corporate capture" for skewing scientific research.
