By Thérèse Boudreaux | The Center Square
(Worthy News) – A new report from the Make America Healthy Again commission links the childhood chronic disease epidemic to pesticides, food additives and undue corporate influence on health regulations.
But its recommended reforms shy away from making changes to industry practices, instead focusing on improving dietary guidelines and pharmaceutical trials.
National Institutes of Health director Jay Bhattacharya, a member of the MAHA commission, told reporters that the MAHA report is “not, in any way, an attack on the American farmers or industry.”
“What this is is a commitment to get excellent answers, excellent science, so that we can enable people to do the right thing,” he added.
According to the report, more than 40% of America’s 73 million children have at least one chronic health disease, such as obesity, type 2 diabetes, asthma, food allergies, and mental illness. Antidepressant prescriptions for children in America have also skyrocketed 1,400% between 1987 and 2014.
The report suggests that widespread chronic stress and physical inactivity, coupled with overmedicalization and ultra-processed foods, have all contributed to the highest ever rates of chronic illness in American adolescents.
“We spend on healthcare two to three times what other nations spend, about $4.5 trillion a year, and we have the worst outcomes of any developed nation,” head of U.S. Health and Human Services and the MAHA commission Robert F. Kennedy Jr. told reporters Thursday.
The report suggests federal health agencies reevaluate the current childhood vaccine schedule and conduct more rigorous clinical trials on vaccines, as well as push for more studies on how specific medications affect children versus adults.
But although the document condemns industry-funded – and sometimes entirely ghostwritten – research, it recommends that the government work with the private sector to conduct more studies on the potential links between chemical exposure and chronic illness.
The goal, Kennedy has said, is to ensure that health reforms do not adversely impact the agricultural and private sectors, effectively ruling out a future ban on the controversial and widely-used pesticide glyphosate.
“Precipitous changes in agricultural practices could have an adverse impact on American agriculture and the domestic and global food supply,” the report notes.
United States Department of Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins reiterated this objective in her response to the report’s release.
“America’s farmers and ranchers dedicate their lives to the noble cause of feeding their country and the world, and in doing so have created the safest and most abundant and affordable food supply in the world,” Rollins said. “We are working to make sure our kids and families are consuming the healthiest food we produce.”
Over the next 90 days, the MAHA commission will develop policy recommendations based on the findings.
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