MAHA Commission Recommends Nutrition Trials to Improve Childhood Health

The Make America Healthy Again report includes 10 recommendations.

Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. testifies on Capitol Hill on May 14, 2025.Madalina Vasiliu/The Epoch Times

President Donald Trump’s commission on health on May 22 said that the government should launch new clinical trials on nutrition and improve the surveillance of vaccines and other drugs given to children.

A report from the Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) Commission says that the childhood chronic disease crisis is likely being driven by poor diet, including a prevalence of ultra-processed foods, such as food high in sugar and fat; higher levels of exposure to chemicals, including pesticides; a lack of physical activity combined with chronic stress; and an overprescription of medications, including prescriptions for attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder.

“America will begin reversing the childhood chronic disease crisis during this administration by getting to the truth of why we are getting sick and spurring pro-growth policies and innovations to reverse these trends,” it states.

The commission issued 10 recommendations, including a call for the National Institutes of Health to fund new long-term trials comparing whole-food and low-ultra-processed food diets to assess their effects on obesity, and for health agencies to develop new systems to monitor the safety of vaccines and other pediatric drugs.

“Our kids are the sickest kids in the world,” Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. told reporters on a call. He added later that officials had already begun a lot of the research the report recommends.

The report cites dozens of documents, including research that found children are eating less fruit, with about half of youth aged 2 to 19 not having fruit at all on a given day, a study that concluded ultra-processed foods have a poor nutrient profile, and a review that associated a diet high in ultra-processed foods with obesity.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says that more than four out of 10 children in the United States have at least one chronic health condition, such as asthma. About 75 percent of American youth are not eligible for military service, primarily due to obesity and poor fitness, according to the Department of Defense.

Other recommendations include funding studies to evaluate how ingredients historically deemed generally safe by the Food and Drug Administration affect human health; creating a task force to apply artificial intelligence to federal datasets to detect early chronic disease trends; and investing in non-animal testing models.

Ahead of the report’s release, some farmers and lawmakers expressed concern that the report would recommend the removal of pesticides such as glyphosate. On the other hand, hundreds of people who said they were Kennedy supporters, including Kennedy speech writer Charles Eisenstein, wrote in a May 22 letter that pesticides such as glyphosate are disruptive and should be banned.

The report says that the best way to reverse the childhood chronic disease crisis “is to put whole foods produced by American farmers and ranchers at the center of healthcare.” It notes that some studies have found possible effects from glyphosate, including autism.

It also states that human studies are limited and does not advise, at least for now, making adjustments to the availability of any pesticides. Instead, it calls for launching a new initiative that would “map gene–environment interactions affecting childhood disease risk, especially for pollutants, endocrine disruptors, and pharmaceuticals.”

Kennedy told a Senate panel this week that there were no portions of the report that should worry American farmers.

“There’s a million farmers who rely on glyphosate, 100 percent of corn in this country relies on glyphosate, and we are not going to do anything to jeopardize that business model,” he said.

Trump established the commission in February. Its main goal is to address the childhood chronic disease crisis.

The president directed the commission to “study the scope of the childhood chronic disease crisis and any potential contributing causes, including the American diet, absorption of toxic material, medical treatments, lifestyle, environmental factors, Government policies, food production techniques, electromagnetic radiation, and corporate influence or cronyism.”

Kennedy chairs the commission. Vince Haley, an assistant to the president, is the executive director. Members include Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins, Housing Secretary Scott Turner, and FDA Commissioner Dr. Marty Makary.

The executive order directed the commission to submit a report to the president within 100 days, and within 180 days, to present a strategy to the president to address chronic diseases in children, including obesity and diabetes.