President Trump on Thursday will release a report that is expected to identify what Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. believes are key drivers of chronic disease in children, including ultra-processed foods, vaccination and environmental toxins like chemicals.
The report, from the White House’s Make America Healthy Again Commission, led by Mr. Kennedy, will not offer specific policy prescriptions, according to people familiar with it who insisted on anonymity to speak in advance of its release. Rather, it will be a high-level statement declaring that the nation is in a health crisis, identifying certain causes and offering a blueprint for further investigation and reform.
Mr. Trump established the commission in February to examine what he called the “growing health crisis in America.” But he asked the panel to begin by looking at chronic disease in children.
Mr. Kennedy has repeatedly said that the United States is suffering from an epidemic of chronic disease that is particularly acute in children, citing the rising incidences of autism and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.
“To fully address the growing health crisis in America, we must re-direct our national focus,” the executive order establishing the commission declared, adding, “This includes fresh thinking on nutrition, physical activity, healthy lifestyles, over-reliance on medication and treatments, the effects of new technological habits, environmental impacts, and food and drug quality and safety.”
The executive order paints an especially dark picture of Americans’ health. It notes, for instance, that the United States had the highest incidence rate of cancer in 2021 out of 204 countries and territories, and has experienced an “88 percent increase in cancer” since 1990. But it does not note that death rates for cancer have been steadily declining in the United States.
Among other instructions, the order directs the commission to examine harms it suggests are caused by antidepressants and electromagnetic radiation.
The order does not mention two factors that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention lists as the main causes of chronic disease: smoking and excessive alcohol use. The Trump administration is shuttering the C.D.C.’s Office on Smoking and Health, and has fired the top tobacco regulator at the Food and Drug Administration.
Mr. Kennedy has previously blamed ultra-processed foods, which are expected to feature heavily in the report, as a major cause of chronic diseases in the United States, and has promised to “fix our food supply.”
But administration actions in the last few months have in some cases contradicted that goal. In March, the Agriculture Department abruptly ended a program that provided produce from local farms to schools. Scientists at Harvard and Cornell have lost funding for research aiming to improve the diets of children and teens. And Kevin Hall, a researcher who led some of the most highly cited studies on ultra-processed foods, left the National Institutes of Health in April, citing censorship.
The report is being spearheaded by Calley Means, who is a special adviser to the White House on health issues and a Kennedy ally. The commission is composed of cabinet secretaries and top federal health officials, including the heads of the C.D.C., the F.D.A. and the N.I.H.
The panel’s report has been generating pushback even before its release. Some Republican lawmakers and industry representatives complained this week about the report’s expected focus on widely used agricultural chemicals, including glyphosate, the key ingredient in an herbicide marketed as Roundup.
When Mr. Kennedy testified on Tuesday before members of the Senate Appropriations Committee, Senator Cindy Hyde-Smith, Republican of Mississippi, warned him and the commission to not to insinuate that the agricultural chemical is unsafe or responsible for childhood disease because doing so could greatly damage farmers. She referred to scientific studies, including an assessment from the Environmental Protection Agency that found the chemical safe when used as directed.
“I trust your report will be described as an initial assessment of things to be considered but yet to be determined,” the senator said. Mr. Kennedy assured her that he understood that farmers rely on glyphosate and “we are not going to do anything to jeopardize that business model.”
Alice Callahan contributed reporting.
Sheryl Gay Stolberg covers health policy for The Times from Washington. A former congressional and White House correspondent, she focuses on the intersection of health policy and politics.
The post Kennedy and Trump to Release Report Calling Chronic Disease a Crisis appeared first on New York Times.
