From LifeSiteNews

By Doug Mainwaring

The order repeatedly underscores the declining health and fitness of America’s children as its number one priority, noting that ‘the health of Americans is on an alarming trajectory that requires immediate action’ and that this ‘applies urgently to America’s children.’

Shortly after Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was sworn in as secretary of the Department of Health & Human Services (HHS), President Trump signed an executive order titled Establishing The President’s Make America Healthy Again Commission (MAHA EO) to investigate and address the root causes of America’s escalating health crisis, with a focus on childhood chronic disease. 

Chaired by Kennedy, the commission has four main policy directives to reverse chronic disease: Empower Americans through transparency and open-source data and avoid conflicts of interest in all federally funded health research; Prioritize gold-standard research on why Americans are getting sick in all health-related research funded by the federal government; Work with farmers to ensure that U.S. food is the healthy, abundant, and affordable; and ensure expanded treatment options and health coverage flexibility for beneficial lifestyle changes and disease prevention. 

“To fully address the growing health crisis in America, we must redirect our national focus, in the public and private sectors, toward understanding and drastically lowering chronic disease rates and ending childhood chronic disease,” declares the order. “This includes fresh thinking on nutrition, physical activity, healthy lifestyles, over-reliance on medication and treatments, the effects of new technological habits, environmental impacts, and food and drug quality and safety.”  

“We must restore the integrity of the scientific process by protecting expert recommendations from inappropriate influence and increasing transparency regarding existing data,” it continues. “We must ensure our healthcare system promotes health rather than just managing disease.” 

The MAHA EO comes at a time when many Americans have lost trust in the nation’s healthcare system and are increasingly skeptical as to whether they are receiving honest answers about the causes of the country’s health crisis and how to improve it.  

The order repeatedly underscores the declining health and fitness of America’s children as its number one priority, noting that “the health of Americans is on an alarming trajectory that requires immediate action,” and that “This concern applies urgently to America’s children.”  

Immediate assessment and strategy to make children healthy again 

At the outset, the commission will “advise and assist the President on how best to exercise his authority to address the childhood chronic disease crisis” and within 100 days, will submit to the president its “Make Our Children Healthy Again Assessment.” 

Within 180 days, the commission will present a “Make our Children Healthy Again Strategy,” “restructuring the Federal Government’s response to the childhood chronic disease crisis, including by ending Federal practices that exacerbate the health crisis or unsuccessfully attempt to address it, and by adding powerful new solutions that will end childhood chronic disease.” 

The order notes that:   

In 2022, an estimated 30 million children (40.7 percent) had at least one health condition, such as allergies, asthma, or an autoimmune disease.  Autism spectrum disorder now affects 1 in 36 children in the United States — a staggering increase from rates of 1 to 4 out of 10,000 children identified with the condition during the 1980s.  Eighteen percent of late adolescents and young adults have fatty liver disease, close to 30 percent of adolescents are prediabetic, and more than 40 percent of adolescents are overweight or obese. 

To fully address the growing health crisis in America, we must redirect our national focus, in the public and private sectors, toward understanding and drastically lowering chronic disease rates and ending childhood chronic disease.  This includes fresh thinking on nutrition, physical activity, healthy lifestyles, over-reliance on medication and treatments, the effects of new technological habits, environmental impacts, and food and drug quality and safety.  We must restore the integrity of the scientific process by protecting expert recommendations from inappropriate influence and increasing transparency regarding existing data.  We must ensure our healthcare system promotes health rather than just managing disease. 

“Thank you, President Trump, for your leadership, your confidence in me, and your deep concern for the health of the American people,” said Kennedy. “You have truly heard the calls of the millions of mothers who simply want the tools – and the truth – so they can make informed decisions for their children.”

“I have prayed each morning for the past two decades for God to put me in a position to solve the childhood chronic disease epidemic,” Kennedy continued, “and now, thanks to you Mr. President, we will make this promise a reality.”