MAHA report draws fire as critics say corporate pressure trumps public health
By Carey Gillam and Shannon Kelleher
 |
| An actual Trump tweet. Maybe he thinks putting loony RFK Jr. in charge of the nation's health will enhance his historical standing |
The report, unveiled in a press event in Washington DC, is
significantly more friendly to corporate interests than a prior MAHA report released in May, which called for
sweeping changes to US food, health, science and regulatory systems to address
rising rates of chronic disease.
The Trump administration said the new report outlines its
“approach to pursuing rigorous, gold-standard scientific research to guide
informed decisions, promote healthy outcomes for children and families, and
drive innovative solutions.”
But nutrition experts and health advocates said the report
falls far short of the type of aggressive actions needed to address Americans’
poor health, and appears to be rife with corporate influence.
“The report has a lot of ideas for actions that really could improve health, but is short on specifics and weak on regulatory action,” said Marion Nestle, professor of Food, Nutrition, and Public Health, Emerita, at New York University (NYU). “Its overriding message is still ‘more research needed.’ It does not say nearly enough about what needs to be done to improve the diets of America’s children.”
The watered-down final report also indicates that Trump’s
Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a longtime
environmental lawyer who has railed against chemical dangers and who leads the
MAHA commission’s work, has been effectively neutered, at least when it comes
to addressing chemical industry concerns, critics said.
George Kimbrell, legal director of the Center for Food
Safety, said while there are “some crumbs around the edges,” the report is a
“betrayal” of the “MAHA grassroots movement.”
Erasing pesticide concerns
In a move many critics found particularly egregious, MAHA’s
final report has erased any mention of the controversial weed killer
glyphosate, the world’s most widely used herbicide, which scientific studies
have linked to cancer and other health problems. The May MAHA report
specifically cited the risks of glyphosate as well as another commonly used
weed killer called atrazine, which has been linked to birth defects.
The prior report also noted that people are exposed to these
pesticides through farming, lawn care and through consumption of food carrying
residues of herbicides, insecticides and fungicides.
But those and other points in the earlier report drew the
ire of the agricultural industry and sparked a fierce push by industry
organizations for the language to be removed. The final report makes no mention
of pesticide exposure routes or risks.
The final report has also eliminated language in the prior
report that specifically criticized corporate influence over research,
regulators and lawmakers as factors contributing to the America’s chronic
health problems.
Zen Honeycutt, founder of the Moms Across America movement
and a vocal MAHA supporter, said her group is “deeply disappointed that the
committee allowed the chemical companies to influence the report.”
Eliminating scrutiny of glyphosate and atrazine “is not a
result of new science that shows these two most widely used herbicides to be
safe, but rather a tactic to appease the pesticide companies,” Honeycutt said.
“We would rather that this MAHA Commission report had put
the health and safety of our children first and made a bold commitment to
reduce our children’s exposure to thousands of harmful pesticides; many of
which are banned in other countries, many more which have been given emergency
use authorization without safety studies,” Honeycutt said. “Reducing exposure
to these pesticides is crucial to making America healthy again.”
Parroting pesticide lobby
Several sections of the new report adopted policy
language sought by CropLife America, the lobbying organization
for companies selling agricultural chemicals, such as Bayer, Syngenta, the
former Monsanto Co., BASF and others.
CropLife said the May report includes “misleading and
alarmist statements about pesticides” and recommended instead that the MAHA
report “reiterate the robust, respected process used by EPA to review
pesticides…”
The final version of the report states that “EPA, partnering
with food and agricultural stakeholders, will work to ensure that the public
has awareness and confidence in EPA’s pesticide robust review procedures and
how that relates to the limiting of risk for users and the general public and
informs continual improvement.”
Multiple other CropLife points are adopted in the final MAHA
report, including language about prioritizing research and programs to help
farmers use precision agriculture technology, the Environmental Working Group
noted in a press release following the report’s release.
CropLife did not respond to requests for comment.
The report also sparked anger for recommending exclusions
under the National Environmental Policy Act for “low volume meat processing
operations from water discharge and hazardous waste permitting.”
The report also calls for “fast-track approvals” for
“regional meat infrastructure” and for ensuring flexibility for “farms to
manage manure and process water without triggering industrial-grade permitting
requirements and avoiding the forced mandates of costly technologies or
practices…”
Offering “additional guardrails”
Several provisions within the report were cautiously
welcomed by health advocates, including moves to increase nutrition research,
update dietary guidelines, add a new arm of HHS called the Administration for a
Healthy America, and reduce consumption of ultra-processed foods and artificial
food dyes.
Also among the measures applauded by health advocates is a
pledge that the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) will reform regulations
related to food additives that are allowed into the food supply if they are
designated “generally recognized as safe” (GRAS). Companies
currently are encouraged to voluntarily submit notice of new additives to the
FDA but the agency will close the “GRAS loophole,” and implement a mandatory
GRAS notification program, the report states.
”We welcome the recommendations in the MAHA report that have the potential to improve the food we grow and eat, and in turn, improve our health,” US PIRG Education Fund Public Health Associate Liam Sacino said in a statement. “Closing the Generally Recognized as Safe (GRAS) loophole, and working to reduce the amount of food dyes in school lunch programs, could make eating in the United States safer.”
PIRG criticized the commission, however, for failing to set a plan to mitigate
chronic exposure to toxic chemicals, including pesticides.
In another point welcomed by health advocates, the report
said HHS and agencies within HHS oversight will “require more transparency, as
well as additional guardrails needed to protect public health from corporate
influence.”
The report also calls for the exploration of “potential” new
guidelines to limit the direct marketing of junk food to children. Several
studies have detailed the billions of dollars spent annually on US
food advertising of sugary drinks, candies, and other unhealthy foods that
specifically target children.
Jennifer Harris, senior research advisor with the Rudd Center for Food Policy
& Obesity at the University of Connecticut, said she is skeptical
that particular provision will make a difference.
“For the past almost 20 years various US government entities
have proposed and developed voluntary guidelines for industry to improve food
marketing to kids – and the food industry has promised to do better. Yet kids
continue to be bombarded with marketing that almost exclusively promotes junk
food, including sugary drinks, fast food, candy, salty and high-sugar snacks,”
she said.
“Without government regulation, or some credible threat of
regulation, I am skeptical that we will see any meaningful improvements in junk
food marketing to kids,” Harris said.
Kennedy’s longtime focus on vaccine regulation and safety is
also noted in the report, with a section stating that the White House and HHS
will develop a framework focused on “addressing vaccine injuries,” modernizing
vaccines, “correcting conflicts of interest and misaligned incentives” and
“ensuring scientific and medical freedom.”
Heightened scrutiny of fluoride, which many studies have
shown to pose health risks, is also called for in the MAHA
report.
“Sickest country in the world”
The White House cites data showing that among more
than 200 countries and territories, the US had the highest age-standardized
incidence rate of cancer in 2021 and experienced an 88% increase in cancer from
1990-2021, the largest percentage increase of any country evaluated.
For children, 2022 data shows more than 40% of the country’s
youth – roughly 30 million – suffered from at least one chronic health problem,
with nearly 30% of adolescents prediabetic. More than 3.4 million children are
medicated for attention deficit disorders, with diagnoses continuing to climb,
the White House states.
“We are now the sickest country in the world,” Kennedy said
in a press conference on Tuesday, citing data he said shows more than 76% of
Americans are suffering from chronic disease. “We spend nearly as much in our
country for health care as all the other nations in the world combined and yet
we have the worst health outcomes.”
Kennedy ducked a question at the press conference asking
about the changes in the report with respect to pesticides.
But US Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins weighed in,
touting the EPA and what she said is the necessity of pesticides in producing
the “safest, most abundant, the best food in the world.”
“The EPA is arguably the most rigorous, the most
data-backed, the most scientifically deep review process in the world. To
approve any product that is used by our farmers, it will have gone through
years upon years upon years of research,” Rollins said. “A crop protection tool
such as pesticides is absolutely essential for America not to compromise our
food supply system at this point.”
NYU’s Nestle said the report overall represents a wasted
chance for meaningful change.
“What’s still missing is regulation. So much of this is
voluntary, work with, promote, partner,” she said. “MAHA has so much bipartisan
support. This is such an opportunity. I sure wish they had taken it.”
Carey Gillam is Editor in Chief of The New Lede. Gillam is a veteran investigative journalist with more than 30 years of experience covering US news, including 17 years as a senior correspondent with Reuters international news service (1998-2015), and several years as a contributing writer for The Guardian. She is the author of “Whitewash- The Story of a Weed Killer, Cancer and the Corruption of Science,” an expose of Monsanto’s corporate corruption of agriculture. The book won the coveted Rachel Carson Book Award from the Society of Environmental Journalists in 2018. Her second book, a narrative legal thriller titled "The Monsanto Papers", was released in 2021. Gillam is a member of the Society of Environmental Journalists.
