MxM News

Quick Hit:

Health Secretary RFK Jr. released a new report Thursday blaming diet, chemicals, inactivity, and overmedication for chronic illnesses now impacting 40% of U.S. children.

Key Details:

• The Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) Commission report identified four primary culprits: ultra-processed diets, environmental chemicals, sedentary lifestyles, and overreliance on pharmaceuticals.

• The commission called for renewed scrutiny of vaccine safety, arguing there has been “limited scientific inquiry” into links between immunizations and chronic illness.

• President Trump called the findings “alarming” and pledged to take on entrenched interests: “We will not be silenced or intimidated by corporate lobbyists or special interests.”

"Our children's bodies are being besieged," says @SecKennedy on the new MAHA Report.

"These root cause factors are at the foundation of what's driving the chronic disease crisis — but until today, the government didn't speak about them." pic.twitter.com/dhF9wEUJGg

— Rapid Response 47 (@RapidResponse47) May 22, 2025

Diving Deeper:

On Thursday, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. released a long-anticipated report from the Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) Commission, outlining what the Trump administration sees as the root causes of the chronic disease epidemic among American children. The commission concluded that roughly 40% of U.S. children now suffer from some form of persistent health issue, including obesity, autism, mental health disorders, and autoimmune diseases.

The report identifies four leading contributors: poor nutrition, chemical exposure, lack of physical activity and time outdoors, and overmedicalization of childhood ailments. One of the most alarming statistics cited is the extent to which children’s diets are now composed of what the commission called “ultra-processed foods” (UPFs), with 70% of a typical child’s diet made up of high-calorie, low-nutrient products that contain additives like artificial dyes, sweeteners, preservatives, and engineered fats.

“Whole foods grown and raised by American farmers must be the cornerstone of our children’s healthcare,” the commission urged. It also criticized government-supported programs like school lunches and food stamps for failing to encourage healthy choices, while noting that countries like Italy and Portugal have far lower consumption of UPFs.

The report also raised red flags about widespread chemical exposure through water, air, household items, and personal products. Items of concern included nonstick cookware, pesticides, cleaning supplies, and even fluoride in the water system. The commission referenced research indicating a 50% increase in microplastics found in human brain tissue between 2016 and 2024. It recommended that the U.S. lead in developing AI tools to monitor and mitigate chemical exposure.

Electromagnetic radiation from devices such as phones and laptops was also flagged as a potential contributor to rising disease rates, alongside a marked drop in physical activity among youth. Data cited from the American Heart Association shows 60% of adolescents aged 12-15 do not meet healthy cardiovascular benchmarks, and the majority of children aged 6-17 do not meet federal exercise guidelines.

The commission also tackled what it called a dangerous trend of overmedicating children without considering environmental or lifestyle factors first. Roughly 20% of U.S. children are on at least one prescription medication, including for ADHD, anxiety, and depression.

The commission specifically called out the American Medical Association’s recent stance on curbing health “disinformation,” arguing that it suppresses legitimate inquiry into vaccine safety and efficacy. It further noted that over half of European countries do not mandate vaccinations for school attendance, unlike all 50 U.S. states.

Trump, who established the MAHA Commission by executive order in February, signaled full support for Kennedy’s findings. “In some cases, it won’t be nice or it won’t be pretty, but we have to do it,” he said. “We will not stop until we defeat the chronic disease epidemic in America.”

Policy recommendations based on the report are expected to be delivered to President Trump by August. Among the initial proposals are expanded surveillance of pediatric prescriptions, creation of a national lifestyle trial program, and a new AI-driven system to detect early signs of chronic illness in children.

From the Fraser Institute

By Mackenzie Moir

It’s unusual to see a provincial government take on health-care reform. But not so in Alberta, where major reforms have been underway for almost a year. The province has long struggled with lengthy waits for non-emergency care and a majority (58 per cent) of Albertans last year were unsatisfied with the government’s handling of health care.

And who could blame them?

The median wait last year in Alberta was 19.2 weeks to see a specialist (after getting a referral from a family doctor) followed by the same amount of time to receive treatment. This combined 38.4-week wait marked the longest delay for non-emergency care in Alberta since data were first published more than 30 years ago. Also last year, an estimated 208,000 patients waited for care in Alberta. These waits are not benign and can result in prolonged pain and discomfort, psychological distress, and can impact our ability to work and earn money.

In fact, according to our new study, last year health-care wait times in Alberta cost patients $778 million—or more than $3,700 per-patient waiting. This estimate, however, doesn’t include leisure time after work or on weekends. When this time was included in the calculation, the total cost of these waits balloons to more than $2.3 billion or around $11,000 per patient.

Again, to its credit, the Smith government has not shied away from reform. It’s reorganized one of province’s largest employers (Alberta Health Services) with the goal of improving health-care delivery, it plans to change how hospitals are funded to deliver more care, and it continues to contract out publicly funded surgeries to private clinics. Here, the government should look at expanding, based on the success the Saskatchewan Surgical Initiative (SSI), which helped increase that province’s surgical capacity by delivering publicly funded surgeries through private clinics and shortened the median health-care wait from 26.5 weeks in 2010 to 14.2 weeks by 2014.

The SSI also “pooled” referrals in Saskatchewan together and allowed patients to choose which specialist they wanted to see for treatment, and patients received estimates of how long they would wait before choosing.

In Alberta, however, family doctors still refer patients to one specific specialist at a time yet remain potentially unaware of other appropriate doctors with shorter waits. But if Alberta also put specialist wait lists and referrals into one list, and provided updated wait times information, a family doctor could help patients choose a specialist with a shorter wait time. Or better yet, if Albertans could access that information online with an Alberta health card, they could make that decision on their own while working with their family doctor.

Make no mistake, change is in the air for health care in Alberta. And while key policy changes are now underway, the Smith government should consider more options while this window for reform remains open.