What’s Controversial About the MAHA Commission Report?

Conflicting reactions suggest it hit the sweet spot.

(Photo By LIZ HAFALIA/The San Francisco Chronicle via Getty Images)

The 69-page MAHA Commission Report offers a fresh analysis of America’s escalating health crisis. It delivers on the “Make America Healthy Again” campaign pledge that drew independents and Democratic Party walkaways to join team MAGA’s Trump-Kennedy alliance in the 2024 election. Both corporate America and organic food proponents are dissatisfied, but that is what a sensible compromise looks like.

Children’s Health Crisis

Improving health outcomes for children should not be controversial. The report thoroughly documents what any open-eyed observer can see: Americans and their children are unhealthy, and the catastrophe is increasing. Childhood chronic diseases – including cancer, mental health disorders, allergies, diabetes, and neurological conditions – are rising as visibly as the body weights of morbidly obese five-year-olds.

A Cabinet-wide initiative to address such a daunting, complex challenge can hardly be expected to please all the people all the time. Inaction appears to be the favored course of Bayer, large farms, Big Pharma (that peddles “cures”), and the chemical industry. Purists who desire a toxin-free food and ecosystem for every child demand a radical turnaround. The report seeks a Goldilocks pathway – not too hot and not too cold.

The US spends a lot of money on health care aimed at response rather than prevention, and ranks last in life expectancy among high-income countries. The nation can shamefully boast that it has higher rates of asthma, autism, and autoimmune diseases compared to other nations, and the highest global cancer rate: an 88% increase in cancers from 1990 to 2021.

Pre-Release Pushback

No government agency can please all the people all the time. Unsurprisingly, the National Corn Growers Association, American Soybean Association, and National Association of Wheat Growers – industries dependent on massive federal crop insurance, glyphosate, pesticides, and industrial processing methods – criticized the report before it was issued.

One of Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s campaign mantras was that America’s regulatory agencies are captured by the food, chemical, and pharmaceutical industries, so complaints hiding behind the authority of the EPA ring hollow. As the report notes, the EPA has controversially determined that glyphosate is not a risk to humans, while the World Health Organization categorizes the chemical as a probable human carcinogen. Few informed consumers have confidence in the ultra-processed food supply these groups champion, and for good reason.

Recent scientific revelations about the influx of microplastics in the human brain support the MAHA Commission Report’s cautions that Americans’ food supplies have become sickening. In a powerful May 20 article in Brain Science documenting the rapid escalation of microplastics in American brains and bodies, Ma-Li Wong sends a warning that industrial agriculture does not want American consumers to hear:

“RFK Jr’s framing of the crisis not as ‘pollution’ but as ‘market failure’ echoes precisely what our researchers have documented: systems-level collapse requiring systems-level intervention. The Secretary’s commitment to ‘fix the incentives and stop this toxic cycle’ represents the policy response our findings demand. Whether through rewarding companies developing sustainable packaging or regulating chemicals near food sources, we are witnessing the rare moment when scientific alarm translates to governance action.”

A Logical Course Forward

Wong emphasized that America’s disease crisis is caused by the “mutually reinforcing” interaction of mechanisms of inflammation, oxidative stress, and endocrine disruption. There are few studies of microplastics and many pesticides in foods, and industry regulation is lax. Wong implicitly counters the industrial siren of Big Corn: “We … need to tolerate uncertainty, act before every causal arrow is known, and discard the illusion that caution means waiting.”

Big Ag and Big Pharma advise waiting, lest profits be hurt. But there is no price tag on a child with cancer or diabetes. The MAHA Commission Report takes a tack that is hard to credibly challenge: It documents the spike in illness and proposes to urgently study these interconnections with scientific integrity. It is also holistically couched to address additional risk factors, including non-food chemical exposures, overmedication, physical inactivity, emotional stress, and social media. Facebook, TikTok, and Instagram did not issue a peremptory objection to the report pre-release: The corn lobby knows no shame.

Industrial histrionics proved unfounded. To the disappointment of food advocates who understandably demand cleaner school lunches, elimination of toxins from baby foods and formulas, and improved SNAP options for the poor, the report does not take any steps to ban pesticides or other potential toxins – it calls to thoroughly and credibly study them. It references European dietary guidelines in comparison to US policies, but EPA head Lee Zeldin calmed panicked chemical manufacturers, stating: “This cannot happen through a European mandate system that stifles growth.”

MAHA Shows Its Teeth

The report proposes that the MAHA Commission submit a detailed strategy by August 12, 2025, per President Trump’s February 13, 2025, order. It is expected that the Commission will recommend phasing out harmful food dyes, banning some additives in school meals, reviewing pesticide and fluoride regulations, holding public hearings, and gathering expert input toward these ends. Many of these initiatives are already underway in state and federal initiatives.

The report reflects political compromises necessary to implement transparency and prevention initiatives, and an overdue discussion of Americans’ health crisis. The report calls to “begin reversing the childhood chronic disease crisis by confronting its root,” using “growth policies and innovations to restore children’s health.” Who could argue with that?

If Donald Trump and Bobby Kennedy deliver on their campaign pledges to improve Americans’ health, the MAHA Commission Report’s bold but balanced approach was a critical first step. It is not only their political legacy that depends on its success but also the future mental and physical safety of Americans and their children.

(Originally published at Liberty Nation News.)