The White House set forth its vision Thursday for how to “make America healthy again” with the release of an expansive report that blames a crisis of chronic disease in children on ultraprocessed foods, chemical exposures, lack of physical activity, stress and excessive use of prescription drugs, including antidepressants.

The report is the product of a presidential commission led by Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and does not offer specific policy prescriptions. Rather, it offers up carefully selected studies and proposes new research. But it is unmistakably Kennedy’s worldview, echoing many of the talking points — some intensely disputed — that the health secretary, a former environmental lawyer and outspoken vaccine skeptic, has repeated for decades.

The commission paints a bleak picture of American children, calling them “the sickest generation in American history.” It calls out undue corporate influence in federal policymaking and makes the case that the government has invested far too much in research to develop treatments for chronic diseases like heart disease, cancer, obesity and depression — and far too little in understanding the causes of disease and how to prevent it.In some cases, the report misrepresents existing scientific consensus. It implies, for example, that the increase in routine immunizations given to children may be harmful to them, which many scientists say is based on an incorrect understanding of immunology. It calls for further scientific inquiry “into the links between vaccines and chronic disease,” despite dozens of studies that have failed to find a link.

It also assails “the overmedicalization of American children,” which it blames on pharmaceutical industry “capture” of the nation’s biomedical apparatus — including medical journals that publish the results of scientific studies — and “a critical policy failure where corporate profitability supersedes the health of children.”

Kennedy called the report “an invitation to the American people and the American press to have a complex conversation about a nuanced subject.” He said the White House did not have a budget or an estimate of how much it might cost to enact the report’s initiatives but argued that they would save money in the end by reducing treatment costs.

The report reflects a consensus across government agencies and officials, including Kennedy; Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins; Lee Zeldin, the head of the Environmental Protection Agency; and the heads of the Food and Drug Administration and the National Institutes of Health, all of whom joined the health secretary on a morning conference call with reporters.

“We now have the most obese, depressed, disabled, medicated population in the history of the world, and we cannot keep going down the same road,” said Dr. Marty Makary, the head of the Food and Drug Administration. He added, “I hope this marks a grand pivot from a system that is entirely reactionary to a system that will now be proactive.”

The unveiling follows weeks spent by Kennedy to dismantle much of the federal public health and research apparatus that might provide answers to the questions he poses. It suggests a number of new initiatives for the NIH, which like other federal health agencies is suffering from mass layoffs and budget cuts.

The report diverges drastically from standard government thinking about chronic disease prevention. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention declares that “most chronic diseases are caused by a short list of risk factors: tobacco use, poor nutrition, physical inactivity and excessive alcohol use.”

But the Make America Healthy Again Commission — or the MAHA Commission — does not dwell on smoking or excessive alcohol use. The Trump administration has dismantled the Office on Smoking and Health at the CDC, and has fired the top tobacco regulator at the FDA.

The report reflects the thinking of Kennedy, a former environmental lawyer who has long railed against ultraprocessed foods and chemicals as dangers to Americans’ health. Kennedy has repeatedly said that the United States is suffering from an epidemic of chronic illness that is particularly acute in children, citing the rising incidences of autism and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder.

The report, however, does not distinguish children by age range. That means it does not address any of the other behavioral health issues that post significant risks to teens and preteens, including smoking, vaping, drinking, opioids, cannabis use and sexually transmitted diseases, many of which can cause immediate and chronic severe health issues.

The report also does not address gun violence, which is the leading cause of death for children and teens.

The report says little about vaccine safety, the issue that catapulted Kennedy to the fore during the coronavirus pandemic. It notes that “vaccines benefit children by protecting them from infectious diseases” but that like any medicine, “vaccines can have side effects.”

It complains that “the expansion of childhood vaccine mandates and public health — combined with efforts to combat vaccine hesitancy” — has made “open scientific discussion and inquiry” about vaccines more difficult.

The report notes that American children are “uniquely vulnerable to environmental chemicals,” including the “forever chemicals” known as PFAS, microplastics and fluoride, which is added to water to prevent tooth decay.

It also singles out electromagnetic radiation exposure from cellphones and wearable devices, while noting that “a systematic review of over 50 studies found low to inadequate evidence on impact on children and called for more high-quality research.”

Ultraprocessed foods

Echoing the concerns of many public health experts, the report says that young people in the United States consume far too many ultraprocessed foods, which studies have linked with a host of chronic health conditions, including obesity in children. The report blames American children’s poor diet on a food system that has prioritized profit over health, a lack of federal investment in nutrition research and on “compromised dietary guidelines.”

Ultraprocessed foods, which include industrially manufactured foods and drinks like sodas, chicken nuggets, instant soups and many packaged snacks, make up nearly 70% of the calories consumed by children and adolescents in the United States.

They tend to be high in refined grains, added sugars and fats, and they drive greater calorie consumption, research suggests. The report also calls out food additives often found in ultraprocessed foods, like synthetic food dyes and artificial sweeteners, and which carry some health concerns.

Kennedy has promised to “fix our food supply.” But in March, the Agriculture Department abruptly ended a program that provided produce from local farms to schools. Scientists at Harvard and Cornell have lost funding for research aiming to improve the diets of children and teens. And Kevin Hall, a researcher who led some of the most highly cited studies on ultraprocessed foods, left the NIH in April, citing censorship.

The report also scrutinizes the rise in prescription medications among children, specifically calling out antibiotics, weight loss drugs and mental health medications like antidepressants, antipsychotics and stimulants. The United States is facing a “crisis of overdiagnosis and overtreatment,” the report states.

Rates of prescriptions of many mental health medications have grown over the past decade, in part because of rising awareness about symptoms of mental illness. Researchers have pointed to the coronavirus pandemic as a major driver of antidepressant prescriptions, particularly for young women, but doctors had increasingly prescribed the drugs to children and teens for years before COVID hit.

Division over agriculture

Parts of the report highlight growing factions within the Trump administration’s MAHA movement, even as the report strained to appease opposing forces within the politically diverse coalition that Trump and Kennedy have fostered.

The report makes dozens of references to dietary guidelines and standards in Europe, but Environmental Protection Agency head Lee Zeldin promised it would not yield more rigorous regulations.

“This cannot happen through a European mandate system that stifles growth,” Zeldin said in a call with reporters.

Despite numerous studies and statements throughout the MAHA report that raise concerns about American food products, Trump Cabinet officials insisted during a call with reporters on Thursday that the nation’s food supply is safe.

The report mentions that glyphosate, a commonly used chemical sprayed on crops, may cause serious health problems, including cancer. The World Health Organization has said that the chemical is a probable carcinogen to humans, although the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has said it is unlikely.

Farmers, who — alongside Republican lawmakers — hounded the Trump administration leading up to the report’s release, swiftly criticized the report’s comments on the chemicals.

“The Make America Healthy Again Report is filled with fear-based rather than science-based information about pesticides,” the National Corn Growers Association said in a statement.

But Kennedy’s MAHA supporters were also disappointed, saying the report didn’t go far enough when it came to chemicals used on crops.

“If the Trump White House and Republicans don’t take pesticides and glyphosate’s link to human health issues seriously, it will cost them the MAHA vote in the midterms,” said Dave Murphy, a former Kennedy fundraiser who spearheaded a push for the issue to be addressed in the report.

This report includes information from the Associated Press.