President Donald Trump’s Make America Healthy Again Commission announced sweeping policy changes across multiple executive agencies and departments on Tuesday as part of its efforts to improve children’s health.
Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Agriculture Department Secretary Brooke Rollins, and Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin, among others, were tapped by Trump this spring to develop an interdepartmental approach to improving rates of chronic disease among children and adolescents.
The report outlines 128 distinct recommendations, Kennedy said at a press conference announcing the report Tuesday afternoon, including a multitude of policies that have already been implemented or started.
“We have accomplished more already than any health secretary in history, and the accomplishments we’re going to have by the end of the year are going to be historic, unprecedented,” said Kennedy.
The report highlights several policy goals and priorities for the Trump administration, hitting several longtime wishlist items of Kennedy and other MAHA advocates, including some that are sure to prompt greater conflict with the public health establishment.
Rollins addressed the so-called “MAHA moms” at the forefront of the push for improved health for children.
“When over 75% of America’s youth between 17 and 24, year old are ineligible for military service, because of obesity, poor physical fitness or mental health challenges, you have not only a health epidemic on your hands, you have a national security epidemic on your hands,” Rollins said.
Dietary guidelines for Americans and other nutrition policies
The strategy report outlines the key priorities for the Dietary Guidelines for Americans, a policy document set every five years jointly by HHS and USDA.
The DGAs are particularly important because they establish the standards for all federally funded food programs, ranging from the federal school lunch program to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. Kennedy and Rollins are obligated to release the updated DGA, which will be in effect through 2030, before the end of the year.
Rollins said that USDA and HHS will be making the new DGA’s available “very, very soon.”
“Within those guidelines, we’ll be completely resetting and reworking what we suggest to Americans that has a massive, impact on how USDA distributes our programs,” Rollins said.
The strategy report outlines that both HHS and USDA will launch an education campaign based on the updated DGAs, emphasizing the concepts of “food for health,” “real food first,” and “healthy foods for healthy families.”
The Trump HHS has already moved to pressure food companies to change their ingredients, including by reducing the use of food dyes and seed oils.
Rollins said that USDA “will begin to remove artificial colors from all products sold to K-12 schools for this school year.”
Kennedy also said during the press conference that the Food and Drug Administration will be working on front–of-packaging food labeling for sugars, sodium, and fats. That policy has had significant support from Democrats in the Senate, including Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT).
The document also outlines that USDA “will develop options to get whole, healthy food to SNAP participants” under the category of “MAHA Boxes.”
This follows an attempt by the first Trump administration to replace traditional food stamps with physical boxes of food.
Investigating vaccine side effects
The strategy report says the White House Domestic Policy Council, along with HHS, will develop a new framework regarding vaccine policy, including ensuring that the United States has the “best childhood vaccine schedule” and “addressing vaccine injuries.”
The proposed reforms come amid significant tension over vaccine policy at the Food and Drug Administration and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, as Kennedy, a longtime skeptic of vaccines, has played a heavy hand in vaccine approvals in recent weeks.
Kennedy has been a longtime advocate of those who claim to have had negative side effects or injuries from taking vaccines, as well as parents who argue their children have developed neurodevelopmental disorders such as autism following vaccination.
Under the new MAHA strategy, the National Institutes of Health under HHS will also start a new vaccine injury research program to “investigate vaccine injuries with improved data collection and analysis.”
HHS Deputy Secretary Jim O’Neill spoke at the event regarding the CDC’s role in vaccine policy reforms. O’Neill, who was confirmed by the Senate this summer, was tapped by Trump in August to lead CDC after he fired Susan Monarez, the Senate-confirmed CDC director.
“Tools that are meant to fight disease, such as vaccines, antibiotics, and therapeutics, can save lives, can also trigger adverse events in some patients, and that truth must no longer be denied or destroyed,” said O’Neill. “We’re bringing transparency and research this critical connection.”
Root causes of infertility
According to the report, HHS will be launching a “MAHA education campaign to improve health and fertility in men and women looking to start a family.”
Fertility rates across the developed world and in the U.S. have plummeted in recent years, reaching all-time lows after a small, brief uptick following the 2020 COVID-19 restrictions.
Improving natural fertility capacity, as well as access to assisted reproductive technologies such as in vitro fertilization, has been a priority for Trump and other Republicans.
The MAHA strategy report outlines that Kennedy’s department will launch a “HHS Root Causes of Infertility Award Challenge Competition” to fund research on preventing, diagnosing, and treating root causes of infertility.
HHS will also create an Infertility Training Center to train federally funded Title X family planning clinics around the country to identify and treat chronic reproductive health conditions.
Both HHS and USDA will also be working to “increase breastfeeding rates” through nutrition assistance funding.
Restructuring EPA
The EPA will also undergo significant restructuring with the creation of a new Office of Applied Science and Environmental Solutions, with the intention “to refocus research initiatives to better support statutory responsibilities throughout the agency and provide technical assistance to states.”
“EPA will use the increased scientific capacity from new hires in the Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention and the Office of Water to ensure more timely reviews and to use advanced technology and science to inform decisions,” reads the report.
Much of the report emphasized the joint responsibility of the USDA and EPA to promote farming solutions “that focus on soil health and stewardship of the land,” including reducing pesticides such as glyphosate, a target of Kennedy and the border MAHA coalition for several years.
Zeldin said that EPA will work with USDA and HHS to implement regenerative farming practices and review “cumulative exposures” of chemicals from the environment and food supply.
“This approach is directly targeted at solving the crisis of America’s childhood chronic disease,” Zeldin said. “I want to assure that ultimately, that ultimately the safety, especially that of children, that science and the law will all guide the great work we’re doing.”
Improving water quality and air quality, as well as reducing exposure to microplastics, was also referenced in the report.
Medications for children
A core principle of the report is the “concerning trend of overprescribing medications to children,” which the report alleges is driven by conflicts of interest in medical research.
The report outlines that several agencies under the HHS umbrella, including the NIH, FDA, and Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, will form a working group on prescription patterns for children and adolescents.
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The medications under review include “selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, antipsychotics, mood stabilizers, stimulants, and other relevant drugs for children,” which are prescribed for anxiety, depression, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, and other conditions.
White House Council of Economic Advisors Vice Chair Pierre Yared spoke at the press conference on the importance of addressing mental health conditions among children and teenagers, saying that the MAHA initiative will provide “the necessary tools to address these issues.”
“Mental health issues are the number one cause of death for our teenagers, and this is a very significant problem that our nation must address,” Yared said.
The report said that HHS will work to “evaluate the therapeutic harms and benefits of current diagnostic thresholds, overprescribing trends, and evidence-based solutions that can be scaled-up to improve mental health, including through school-based interventions, diet, and foster care services.”
