President Donald Trump’s Make America Healthy Again Commission announced sweeping policy changes across multiple executive agencies and departments on Tuesday as part of its efforts to improve children’s health.
Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Agriculture Department Secretary Brooke Rollins, and Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin, among others, were tapped by Trump this spring to develop an inter-departmental approach to improving rates of chronic disease among children and adolescents.
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The report highlights several policy goals and priorities for the Trump administration, hitting several longtime wishlist items of Kennedy and other MAHA advocates, including some that are sure to prompt greater conflict with the public health establishment.
The report was released during an event at the HHS building on Tuesday, hosting several Cabinet officials as well as Domestic Policy Council Director Vince Haley.
Here are the main highlights from the report.
Dietary guidelines for Americans and other nutrition policy
The strategy report outlines the key priorities for the Dietary Guidelines for Americans, a policy document set every five years jointly by HHS and USDA.
The DGA’s are particularly important as they establish the standards for all federally-funded food programs, ranging from the federal school lunch program to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. Kennedy and Rollins are obligated to release the updated DGA, which will be in effect through 2030, before the end of the year
The strategy report outlines that both HHS and USDA will launch an education campaign based upon the updated DGAs emphasizing the concepts of “food for health,” “real food first,” and “healthy foods for healthy families.”
The Trump HHS has already moved to pressure food companies to change the ingredients they use, including by reducing the use of food dyes and seed oils.
The document also outlines that USDA “will develop options to get whole, healthy food to SNAP participants” under the category of “MAHA Boxes.”
This follows an attempted plan from the first Trump administration to replace traditional food stamps with physical boxes of food.
Investigating vaccine side effects
The strategy report says that the White House Domestic Policy Council, along with HHS, will develop a new framework regarding vaccine policy, including ensuring that the U.S. has the “best childhood vaccine schedule” and “addressing vaccine injuries.”
The proposed reforms come amid significant tension over vaccine policy at the Food and Drug Administration and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention as Kennedy, a long-time skeptic of vaccines, has played a heavy hand in vaccine approvals in recent weeks.
Kennedy also has been a long-time advocate for those who claim to have had negative side effects or injuries from taking vaccines, including from parents who argue that their children have developed neurodevelopmental disorders like autism following vaccination.
Under the new MAHA strategy, the National Institutes of Health under HHS will also start a new vaccine injury research program to “investigate vaccine injuries with improved data collection and analysis.”
Root causes of infertility
According to the report, HHS will be launching a “MAHA education campaign to improve health and fertility in men and women looking to start a family.”
Fertility rates across the developed world and in the U.S. have plummeted in recent years, reaching all-time lows after a small, brief uptick following the 2020 COVID-19 restrictions.
Improving natural fertility capacity as well as access to assisted reproductive technologies like in vitro fertilization has been a priority for Trump and other Republicans.
The MAHA strategy report outlines that Kennedy’s department will launch a “HHS Root Causes of Infertility Award Challenge Competition” to fund research on preventing, diagnosing, and treating root causes of infertility.
HHS will also create an Infertility Training Center to train federally-funded Title X family planning clinics around the country on identifying and treating chronic reproductive health conditions.
Both HHS and USDA will also be working to “increase breastfeeding rates” through nutrition assistance funding.
Restructuring EPA
The EPA will also undergo significant restructuring with the creation of a new Office of Applied Science and Environmental Solutions with the intention “to refocus research initiatives to better support statutory responsibilities throughout the agency and provide technical assistance to states.”
“EPA will use the increased scientific capacity from new hires in the Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention and the Office of Water to ensure more timely reviews and to use advanced technology and science to inform decisions,” reads the report.
Much of the report emphasized the joint responsibility of the USDA and EPA to promote farming solutions “that focus on soil health and stewardship of the land,” including reducing pesticides like glyphosate, a target of Kennedy and the border MAHA coalition for several years.
Improving water quality and air quality as well as reducing exposure to microplastics was also referenced in the report.
Medications for children
A core principle of the report is the “concerning trend of overprescribing medications to children,” which the report alleges is driven by conflicts of interest in medical research.
The report outlines that several agencies under the HHS umbrella, including the NIH, FDA, and Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, will form a working group on prescription patterns for children and adolescents.
The medications under review include “selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, antipsychotics, mood stabilizers, stimulants, and other relevant drugs for children,” that are prescribed for anxiety, depression, attention deficit hyper-activity disorder, and other conditions.
“HHS will also evaluate the therapeutic harms and benefits of current diagnostic thresholds, overprescribing trends, and evidence-based solutions that can be scaled-up to improve mental health, including through school-based interventions, diet, and foster care services,” reads the report.