RFK Jr. says food and pharma are poisoning Americans. His big report says a fix is coming.

Yahoo

22-05-2025

A much anticipated report led by Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. says that children's health is in crisis and that it's likely the result of ultraprocessed food, exposure to chemicals, lack of exercise, stress, and overprescription of drugs.
But the report, from the Kennedy-led Make America Healthy Again Commission, shies away from the strident language Kennedy has used in the past in demonizing the food, farming and pharmaceutical industries, and leaves for another day proposals for how to improve kids' health. The accused industries have been lobbying furiously to persuade Kennedy to tone down the rhetoric.
Solutions for the health crisis will come within 100 days, Kennedy promised reporters during a call Thursday.
Still, the report paints a bleak picture, arguing that today's children suffer more from chronic diseases, such as asthma, allergies, obesity, autoimmune conditions, and behavioral disorders, than any previous generation.
Similar to his budget testimony earlier this month, during which he defended the Trump administration's proposal to cut his department's funding by more than 25 percent, Kennedy on Thursday said more money is not the answer. 'We spend on health care two to three times what other nations spend, about $4.5 trillion a year, and we have the worst outcomes of any developed nation,' he said.
On Capitol Hill, Kennedy has pointed the finger at some of America's most iconic food companies, accusing them of making kids sick for profit. At one hearing earlier this year, for example, Kennedy mentioned two Chicago firms, the Fruit Loops maker formerly known as the Kellogg Company, and the fast-food chain McDonald's and said they 'mass poison American children.'
'It needs to end, and I believe I'm the one person who's able to end it,' he said.
His critique of American drug companies has been just as withering, claiming their products are the third-leading cause of death in the United States.
The report says that over 40 percent of the roughly 73 million children in America have at least one chronic health condition and that it threatens both the economy and national defense.
'It's devastating to our military preparedness, with 74 percent of American kids who cannot qualify for military service,' Kennedy said.
President Donald Trump signed an executive order earlier this year establishing the Make America Healthy Again Commission, tasking Kennedy to work with Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins, EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin and others to assess the causes of childhood chronic disease and develop a strategy to improve it.
The accused industries have banked on Rollins and Zeldin shielding farmers from Kennedy's attacks. Kennedy's opposition to pesticides and chemical weedkillers is well-known.
As a lawyer, he helped win a landmark lawsuit in which the plaintiff alleged that glyphosate, the active ingredient in the weedkiller Roundup, caused his cancer.
But the EPA has found the product safe if used as directed and farmers have told Rollins the chemicals are vital tools in food production.
The report, in a major win for the industry, recommends no change in how the government treats them and suggests that any recommendations to come will be modest. 'Precipitous changes in agricultural practices could have an adverse impact on American agriculture and the domestic and global food supply,' the report states.
Rollins and Zeldin took pains in the call with reporters to stress that America's agriculture and chemical regulatory system are the best in the world.
'As a representative of America's farmers and ranchers in Washington — second only I should say to President Trump — I have been gratified to work with my friends on the phone call and on the larger MAHA Commission to ensure that this report is not misinterpreted by some in the media to demonize American agriculture, but rather to show where opportunities exist to improve our technology, to improve our research and to improve our outcomes for a new and golden age in agriculture for America and the world,' Rollins said.
Rather than new restrictions on farming practices, the report suggests the administration will seek to persuade Americans to change their eating habits by rewriting the country's dietary guidelines and restricting how low-income people can use food stamp benefits.
The report partly blames food stamps, known as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, and the federal school meals programs, for increased chronic disease, saying the programs have "drifted from their original goals." Just this week, USDA approved Nebraska's plan to ban the use of SNAP benefits to purchase junk food, the first state to receive a federal green light. Nebraska's Republican governor, Jim Pillen, will be at a White House event Thursday afternoon celebrating the release of the report, Rollins told reporters.
Several other states are considering bans on the Trump administration's urging.
Big changes are afoot for dietary guidelines. Those are typically updated every five years by USDA and HHS, with the next report due by the end of the year. The administration plans to accelerate that timeline.
'What you're going to see is a whole new day on dietary guidelines, where federal nutrition advice will be sound, it will be simple, and it will be clear,' Rollins said.
The guidelines will prioritize 'whole, healthy and nutritious foods, such as dairy, whole milk, fruit, vegetables and meat and suggest limitations of food high in sugar and salt,' she said.
The MAHA Commission report is critical of how prior dietary guidance didn't take a strong position on limiting ultraprocessed foods and accuses prior dietary guidelines — and their authors — of being 'unduly influenced by corporate interests.'
The report also takes aim at pharmaceutical companies, but not as harshly as Kennedy has previously.
It warns that antibiotics, antidepressants, weight-loss drugs, and asthma medication are overprescribed and could be causing health problems. It calls for more study of their effects on children.
The report also promises more study of the childhood vaccine schedule — which has greatly expanded in recent decades — but doesn't endorse Kennedy's past claim that the increase could help explain the spike in autism diagnoses.
Many in public health have described Kennedy as being 'anti-vaccine' because his criticisms of vaccines run so counter to medical research affirming their safety.
The report says vaccines do protect children from infectious disease, but raises concerns that vaccine side effects are not adequately tracked and not enough is known about their links to chronic disease.
"Our understanding of vaccine safety and any links to chronic disease would benefit from more rigorous clinical trial designs,' the report says, including placebo testing as Kennedy has called for in recent congressional testimony.