As the Trump administration pushes for deep cuts in federal health agencies, Robert F Kennedy Jr. has produced a 72-page summary on the environmental toxins, chemicals and ultraprocessed foods he said are causing an “existential crisis” in the United States.
In an interview Thursday afternoon with Tom Llamas, senior national correspondent for NBC News and upcoming anchor of “Nightly News,” Kennedy, the secretary of health and human services, said the “Make America Healthy Again” report, which blamed sedentary, technology-driven lifestyles and the overprescribing of medications, represented “the first time in history” that the federal government has recognized the “negative impact of these environmental exposures on the American people.”
The lengthy report went into great detail about what’s wrong with kids in the United States but didn’t offer much depth about what the federal health agencies would do to “make them healthy again.”
Llamas asked Kennedy why, “in the spirit of government efficiency,” the report didn’t offer more solutions, “because you could have written this on Day 1.”
Kennedy promised that “we’re going to do something about it” within 60 days. “We’re going to deliver the prescription of the initiatives that we need to do.”
The MAHA report released Thursday gave a dark view of children’s health, focusing on chronic diseases like diabetes, obesity and neurodevelopmental disorders, yet it makes no mention of socioeconomic factors or lack of access to health care that contribute to such conditions in kids.
Instead, said Kennedy, who has authority over Medicaid, “health care costs are expanding at 2% greater than our economy.” About 40% of all children in the United States receive health insurance through Medicaid.
Ultraprocessed foods and environmental toxins were at the top of Kennedy’s list of problems that need to be urgently addressed to curb increases in chronic diseases during childhood.
He has already said the government will work with the food industry to replace artificial, synthetic food dyes with natural alternatives.
“I brought the food companies in two weeks after I came into office, and I got a lot of them at that point, early on, to agree that they were going to do something about it,” Kennedy told Llamas on Thursday. “We have fast-tracked the approval already, last week, of three new vegetable-based dyes.”
Here are few key takeaways:
User-friendly dietary guidelines are coming
Kennedy said the Trump administration is working to simplify what he called “lengthy” and complicated documents meant to advise people on healthy eating.
New guidelines in the works, he said, would prompt families to focus on whole foods rather than ultraprocessed foods.
He highlighted state efforts to prohibit the purchase of soda and energy drinks under the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, formerly known as food stamps.
Can childhood diabetes be reversed?
Kennedy said many childhood diseases can be treated with food, including Type 1 diabetes, which he called juvenile diabetes.
“In many cases, juvenile diabetes and prediabetes, which now affects 38% of teens, can be reversed completely by changing diet,” Kennedy said. “Food is medicine, and food also affects mood, it affects mental illness, it affects the immune system, and we need to make sure our kids have access to good food and that parents have access to the best information so they can make good choices for their children.”
Type 1 diabetes is an autoimmune disease in which the body doesn’t make insulin, and it isn’t connected to obesity. About 2 million people in the United States have Type 1 diabetes, according to the American Diabetes Association. It’s usually first diagnosed in children and young adults. People with Type 1 diabetes can manage symptoms with insulin and are advised to follow a diet high in vegetables and fiber, but the disease isn’t reversible.
Are childhood vaccines safe? Do they contain fetal tissue?
Kennedy asserted that the measles-mumps-rubella vaccine (MMR) contains “millions of particles that are derived from fetal tissue.”
That’s misleading, experts said.
It’s true that some vaccine research used cells from elective abortions from more than 50 years ago. That’s because some viruses simply grow better in those cells and can therefore be studied more extensively.
But in the lab, those cells go through an intense purification process to ensure no human DNA is transferred into vaccines.
“No new cell lines are being generated,” said a nationally respected pediatric infectious disease doctor. The physician’s employer didn’t authorize an on-the-record interview.
“Theologically, I’m pretty conservative,” the doctor said. “If we were taking new cell lines from new terminations of pregnancies, I would have a different feeling about it.”
What’s up with that dip in contaminated water?
On May 11, Kennedy posted photos on X of him and his grandchildren splashing in a Washington, D.C., creek known to be contaminated with raw sewage.
The photos, especially ones that circulated online showing him shirtless in the creek, prompted questions about whether Kennedy knew the potential dangers of swimming in a body of water that had been contaminated for decades.
Kennedy said it’s up to the American public to keep public waterways free of contamination. “We have a right to use them for swimming, for fishing, and we should be concerned about people who are polluting them.”
