The White House’s Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) Commission, led by Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., unveiled a sweeping new strategy on September 9, 2025, aimed at tackling the myriad health challenges facing America’s children. The 20-page document, released by the Trump administration, outlines more than 120 recommendations to improve childhood health. Yet, as experts and advocacy groups pore over the details, or lack thereof, it’s clear the report has sparked both praise and skepticism across the political and scientific spectrum.
At first glance, the MAHA report appears to be a bold effort. It pledges to define ultraprocessed foods at the federal level for the first time and promises to regulate the process that allows food companies to self-certify the safety of their ingredients, sidestepping third-party review. These moves, long called for by nutrition advocates, could reshape the American food landscape if implemented robustly. Dr. Dariush Mozaffarian, director of the Food Is Medicine Institute at Tufts University, told ABC News, "From a food and nutrition perspective, the report is excellent. It is comprehensive, it's specific, and if many of these actions are implemented, it could really have a high impact."
But there’s a catch. As Dr. Marion Nestle, an emerita professor at New York University, noted in an email to ABC News, "The report has a lot of ideas for actions that really could improve health, but is short on specifics and weak on regulatory action. So much of this is voluntary, work with, promote, partner. Where's the policy?" For all its ambitious bullet points—128 in total—the report often stops short of laying out how these goals will be achieved or funded.
Secretary Kennedy, in a Fox News interview on the day of the report’s release, pushed back against criticism over the lack of specifics. "For many of them, we're already doing them," he said. "We're getting rid of [synthetic] dyes ... we're changing the GRAS loopholes so that people can't just put anything they want in our food anymore without showing that it's safe. We're changing nutrition standards in baby formula. We are requiring medical schools to do nutrition education." He also promised, "Many of the 128 policy recommendations would be accomplished before the end of 2025."
Still, the report’s approach to some of the most contentious issues—pesticides and vaccines—was noticeably soft. Despite Kennedy’s history of criticizing both, the report avoided harsh language. Vaccines were briefly mentioned, with a pledge to create a new "vaccine injury research program at the NIH Clinical Center" and a commitment to ensuring "America has the best childhood vaccine schedule." Yet, it stopped short of calling for limits on vaccine access. The omission stands out given Kennedy’s recent moves as Health Secretary, including firing the CDC director and the entire immunization advisory committee, replacing them with individuals skeptical of vaccines, as reported by PBS News.
Pesticides, another Kennedy target, were also treated with kid gloves. After a summer of intense lobbying by agricultural groups, the MAHA Commission’s recommendations on pesticides focused on promoting "precision agricultural techniques" to reduce chemical use, rather than advocating for stricter regulation or outright bans. Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins defended the current regulatory process, telling reporters, "A crop protection tool such as pesticides is absolutely essential for America not to compromise our food supply system at this point." The National Corn Growers Association praised the approach as "reasonable and science-based," while the Center for Food Safety condemned the lack of concrete regulatory steps, saying the report "fails to offer any concrete regulatory steps towards achieving the Commission's stated goals." Environmental health advocates like Lori Ann Burd of the Center for Biological Diversity went further, calling the document evidence of the Environmental Protection Agency "teaming up with the agricultural industry" rather than protecting public health.
The report did, however, include some notable public health pledges. It called for increased testing for heavy metals like lead in infant formula, efforts to boost breastfeeding rates, and updated CDC recommendations for fluoride and PFAS in drinking water—though the latter move drew criticism from dental health experts who consider fluoride a proven tool in cavity prevention. The MAHA Commission also announced the launch of an NIH "Initiative on Chronic Disease" to take a "whole-person-health" approach to chronic illness in children. This includes research on the possible connections between children’s oral health and chronic disease, and the creation of a Real World Data Platform linking insurance claims, electronic health records, and other datasets.
Yet, for all its breadth, the report was conspicuously silent on one of the gravest threats to children’s health: gun violence. As PBS News highlighted, firearms are now the leading cause of death among U.S. children and teens, but the MAHA report offered no guidance or policy recommendations on this issue. Dr. Susan Kressly, president and CEO of the American Academy of Pediatrics, acknowledged the report’s "opportunities to add pediatric expertise and research," but criticized it for omitting "key drivers that harm children’s health, including gun violence and environmental hazards." When pressed by PBS News Hour’s Lisa Desjardins about the absence of gun violence in the report, Kennedy responded, "we’re doing research," and noted, "this is not happening in other countries."
Other contentious areas include the administration’s campaign against fluoride and its controversial overhaul of federal advisory committees. The report calls for updating recommendations on fluoride and PFAS in drinking water, despite longstanding public health consensus supporting fluoride’s role in preventing dental decay. Meanwhile, Kennedy’s decision to fire the entire CDC immunization advisory committee and appoint vaccine skeptics has alarmed many in the scientific community. Dr. Richard Besser, president and CEO of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and a former CDC director, stated, "But neither his record as health secretary nor most of the policies outlined in this report inspire confidence that he is the right person to solve this problem."
Finally, the MAHA Commission pledged to study the root causes of autism, with a more extensive report promised later this year. The current document briefly mentions plans for an integrated dataset hosted by the National Institutes of Health to link electronic health records, wearables data, and insurance claims, raising some privacy concerns among critics.
For all its ambition, the MAHA report’s impact will hinge on whether its recommendations are backed by meaningful funding and regulatory action. Dr. Mozaffarian warned, "Where I have would have liked to see more is that there's no funding specified, so all of those good ideas will die on the vine if there's not really meaningful dollars shifted there." As the Trump administration touts its commitment to "gold-standard science," experts and advocates alike will be watching closely to see whether this blueprint for children’s health becomes a reality—or remains just another set of lofty promises.
