US health secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr has published the first major report under his “Make America Healthy Again” (MAHA) initiative, ambitiously claiming, “During this administration, we will begin reversing the childhood chronic disease crisis by confronting its root causes—not just its symptoms.”
The report, Making Our Children Healthy Again,1 has had a mixed reception. Tom Frieden, the former director of the US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, said he welcomed the report’s support for clear food labelling, limiting overmedicalisation, and promoting physical activity.
Others were more sceptical. Peter Lurie, president of the Center for Science in the Public Interest, a food and health watchdog, said that the report “selectively cherry picks the literature to support the idiosyncratic biases of Kennedy . . . rather than focusing on the root causes and well studied solutions to chronic disease.”
The report also ruffled feathers among major industry groups. The agriculture sector, for instance, condemned the report for “sowing doubt” about the safety of US food and farming practices.
Marion Nestle, professor emeritus of nutrition, food studies, and public health at New York University, said the report represented a “powerful indictment of the state of health of American children and a powerful call to action to reverse a wide range of problems. But she cautioned: “We won’t know what they have in …