How Chronically Sick Are We?
Terry H. Schwadron
May 25, 2025
Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy’s formal government broadside this week about childhood health reads like a compilation of his greatest anti-vax hits.
Three months in the making, we were treated to “The MAHA Report: Making Our Children Healthy Again,” written by (or for) anonymized Cabinet officials by agreeable scientists in response to Donald Trump’s executive order that declared, “today’s children are the sickest generation in American history in terms of chronic disease” like obesity, diabetes and heart disease.
RFK’s job was to coordinate responses from different federal agencies towards identifying causes of those chronic illnesses, however he chose to shortcut the science involved.
The 68-page report took on ultra-processed foods, environmental chemicals, lack of physical activity, “overmedicalization,” including a predisposition for vaccines, and “capture” of regulatory agencies by America’s pharmaceutical and food businesses.
The report is at once remarkably familiar in repeating RFK’s long-time public health grievances, curious only because Kennedy himself insists on drinking raw milk, taking his grandchildren swimming in a creek barred for its sewage pollution, and strange habits of eating roadkill.
But as a governmental, “scientific” document, it omits some of the most common causes of chronic disease and death among children, notably car crashes and gunfire, the leading causes of death among young Americans. It never mentions teenage smoking and alcohol or drug use. Or access to physical or mental health care. It prefers to criticize fluoride in drinking water (without discussing its beneficial effects) than to take on less popular or profitable targets like guns and social striations.
RFK blames American business and Big Pharma for promoting bestselling foods and medications without sufficient study of links to chronic illnesses like diabetes. And interestingly, he lambastes doctors as a group for being too accepting of medication as the best way to forestall disease.
No contributing scientist is named, and the relatively quick turnaround has led medical and business leaders to criticize the report as poorly done and a recap of Kennedy’s personal biases. As a political document, we were left wondering about its futility, since there is no chance that a Congress or administration that cuts health funds is going to order U.S. business to sell and promote healthier foods that conflict with profit.
The Findings
What was addressed:
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— Too many ultra-processed foods. The report lays out — no science required — that American diets rely on too much fast food and foods containing preservatives. Business concerns aside, this is hardly controversial. But there is no plan to do anything about it. It did not mention the abundance of salt, just dyes and sugar.
— Too many chemicals. Kennedy blames pesticides for chronic disease; in the past he has argued that some pesticides could be causing “gender confusion” in children with no science attached. Farmers have pushed back on this, and the report only raised questions about the health effects of glyphosate, the key ingredient in Roundup, and atrazine, a common herbicide. The report also cited Americans exposure to PFAs or “forever” chemicals, even as the Trump administration rolls back some Biden-era regulations limiting them. It claims that “virtually every breastmilk sample… tested in America contains some level of persistent organic pollutants,” before backpedaling on whether that is significant medically.
— Over-medication. The report attacks long-term risks of psychiatric and weight loss drugs, while acknowledging that it is difficult to untangle impact of antidepressants from physical and mental illnesses. Still, the report suggests that doctors turn to medication too often, particularly for obesity problems among the young.
— Vaccines. As expected, there is serious doubt about health risks of dozens of shots recommended in the childhood immunization schedule. The big conclusion is that we’re vaccinating, yes with ever-improving drugs, but without knowing the long-term effects. It is by-now familiar territory.
— Screen time. Kennedy and the education department also criticize children’s transition from what it calls an “active, play-based childhood to a sedentary, technology-driven lifestyle.” It blames less time spent walking to school and limits on recess time, along with the rise of ever-present screens.
What’s Missing
Generally, the report assumes that America suffers most from chronic disease, as opposed to, say, death. Besides the omissions of the most common dangers to children, there is no acknowledgement that U.S. children are living longer, because of the same medications that allow us to stay alive despite these chronic illnesses. That there are other diseases that result may simply be because we don’t die young.
Obvious omissions are mentions of Trump administration policies that might reduce chronic disease, including Kennedy’s own lack of support for childhood vaccinations amid a currently spreading measles problem that has killed the first kids in 25 years. Kennedy also eliminated smoking prevention offices at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The administration also has cut monitoring of sexually transmitted disease among young people and eliminated a program that encouraged delivery of local whole foods to schools — exactly the kind of program to address the expressed healthy foods diatribe.
The report mentions that high levels of fluoride are potentially associated with reduced IQ, but does not mention well-established protective effects against cavities — what the National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research says is the most common chronic condition in children. It cherry-picks topics that match RFK grievances.
Despite ballyhooed “transparency,” authors of the report are not identified outside of contributions from the departments covering health, education, housing, agriculture, veterans’ affairs and environment. Journalists said much of the work was headed by senior Kennedy adviser Calley Means, a former food lobbyist and healthcare entrepreneur who has written a book on these very themes.
The report provides little in the way of specific solutions to address these issues, though the commission is also expected to release recommendations later this year. Rather, it is a clear articulation of what RFK sees as the problem at hand: The report presents today’s children as stressed, sleep-deprived and addicted to their screens, growing in ways that encourage obesity, diabetes and mental illness.
What this administration says and what it does do not fit in the same health assessment.
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