MAHA report draws fire as critics say corporate pressure trumps public health

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By Carey Gillam and Shannon Kelleher

A long-awaited and highly controversial report issued on Tuesday by the Trump administration’s “Make America Healthy Again” (MAHA) Commission provides a few “crumbs” for public and environmental health advocates, but big wins for powerful food and chemical industries seeking to skirt limits on their products and practices.

The report, unveiled in a press event in Washington DC, is significantly more friendly to corporate interests than a prior MAHA report released in May, which called for sweeping changes to US food, health, science and regulatory systems to address rising rates of chronic disease.

In contrast, the new report speaks of already “robust” regulatory oversight from the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and removes or softens language about health risks stemming from exposures to pesticides and other chemicals. It also stresses a need for deregulation in farming operations to reduce the “regulatory burden” of permitting requirements for such things as hazardous waste handling.

The Trump administration said the new report outlines its “approach to pursuing rigorous, gold-standard scientific research to guide informed decisions, promote healthy outcomes for children and families, and drive innovative solutions.”

But nutrition experts and health advocates said the report falls far short of the type of aggressive actions needed to address Americans’ poor health, and appears to be rife with corporate influence.

“The report has a lot of ideas for actions that really could improve health, but is short on specifics and weak on regulatory action,” said Marion Nestle, professor of Food, Nutrition, and Public Health, Emerita, at New York University (NYU). “Its overriding message is still ‘more research needed.’ It does not say nearly enough about what needs to be done to improve the diets of America’s children.”

The watered-down final report also indicates that Trump’s Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a longtime environmental lawyer who has railed against chemical dangers and who leads the MAHA commission’s work, has been effectively neutered, at least when it comes to addressing chemical industry concerns, critics said.

George Kimbrell, legal director of the Center for Food Safety, said while there are “some crumbs around the edges,” the report is a “betrayal” of the “MAHA grassroots movement.”

Erasing pesticide concerns

In a move many critics found particularly egregious, MAHA’s final report has erased any mention of the controversial weed killer glyphosate, the world’s most widely used herbicide, which scientific studies have linked to cancer and other health problems. The May MAHA report specifically cited the risks of glyphosate as well as another commonly used weed killer called atrazine, which has been linked to birth defects.

The prior report also noted that people are exposed to these pesticides through farming, lawn care and through consumption of food carrying residues of herbicides, insecticides and fungicides.

But those and other points in the earlier report drew the ire of the agricultural industry and sparked a fierce push by industry organizations for the language to be removed. The final report makes no mention of pesticide exposure routes or risks.

The final report has also eliminated language in the prior report that specifically criticized corporate influence over research, regulators and lawmakers as factors contributing to the America’s chronic health problems.

Zen Honeycutt, founder of the Moms Across America movement and a vocal MAHA supporter, said her group is “deeply disappointed that the committee allowed the chemical companies to influence the report.”

Eliminating scrutiny of glyphosate and atrazine “is not a result of new science that shows these two most widely used herbicides to be safe, but rather a tactic to appease the pesticide companies,” Honeycutt said.

“We would rather that this MAHA Commission report had put the health and safety of our children first and made a bold commitment to reduce our children’s exposure to thousands of harmful pesticides; many of which are banned in other countries, many more which have been given emergency use authorization without safety studies,” Honeycutt said. “Reducing exposure to these pesticides is crucial to making America healthy again.”

Parroting pesticide lobby

Several sections of the new report adopted policy language sought by CropLife America, the lobbying organization for companies selling agricultural chemicals, such as Bayer, Syngenta, the former Monsanto Co., BASF and others.

CropLife said the May report includes “misleading and alarmist statements about pesticides” and recommended instead that the MAHA report “reiterate the robust, respected process used by EPA to review pesticides…”

The final version of the report states that “EPA, partnering with food and agricultural stakeholders, will work to ensure that the public has awareness and confidence in EPA’s pesticide robust review procedures and how that relates to the limiting of risk for users and the general public and informs continual improvement.”

Multiple other CropLife points are adopted in the final MAHA report, including language about prioritizing research and programs to help farmers use precision agriculture technology, the Environmental Working Group noted in a press release following the report’s release.

CropLife did not respond to requests for comment.

The report also sparked anger for recommending exclusions under the National Environmental Policy Act for “low volume meat processing operations from water discharge and hazardous waste permitting.”

The report also calls for “fast-track approvals” for “regional meat infrastructure” and for ensuring flexibility for “farms to manage manure and process water without triggering industrial-grade permitting requirements and avoiding the forced mandates of costly technologies or practices…”

Offering “additional guardrails”

Several provisions within the report were cautiously welcomed by health advocates, including moves to increase nutrition research, update dietary guidelines, add a new arm of HHS called the Administration for a Healthy America, and reduce consumption of ultra-processed foods and artificial food dyes.

Also among the measures applauded by health advocates is a pledge that the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) will reform regulations related to food additives that are allowed into the food supply if they are designated “generally recognized as safe” (GRAS). Companies currently are encouraged to voluntarily submit notice of new additives to the FDA but the agency will close the “GRAS loophole,” and implement a mandatory GRAS notification program, the report states.

”We welcome the recommendations in the MAHA report that have the potential to improve the food we grow and eat, and in turn, improve our health,” US PIRG Education Fund Public Health Associate Liam Sacino said in a statement. “Closing the Generally Recognized as Safe (GRAS) loophole, and working to reduce the amount of food dyes in school lunch programs, could make eating in the United States safer.”
PIRG criticized the commission, however, for failing to set a plan to mitigate chronic exposure to toxic chemicals, including pesticides.

In another point welcomed by health advocates, the report said HHS and agencies within HHS oversight will “require more transparency, as well as additional guardrails needed to protect public health from corporate influence.”

The report also calls for the exploration of “potential” new guidelines to limit the direct marketing of junk food to children. Several studies have detailed the billions of dollars spent annually on US food advertising of sugary drinks, candies, and other unhealthy foods that specifically target children.

Jennifer Harris, senior research advisor with the Rudd Center for Food Policy & Obesity at the University of Connecticut, said she is skeptical that particular provision will make a difference.

“For the past almost 20 years various US government entities have proposed and developed voluntary guidelines for industry to improve food marketing to kids – and the food industry has promised to do better. Yet kids continue to be bombarded with marketing that almost exclusively promotes junk food, including sugary drinks, fast food, candy, salty and high-sugar snacks,” she said.

“Without government regulation, or some credible threat of regulation, I am skeptical that we will see any meaningful improvements in junk food marketing to kids,” Harris said.

Kennedy’s longtime focus on vaccine regulation and safety is also noted in the report, with a section stating that the White House and HHS will develop a framework focused on “addressing vaccine injuries,” modernizing vaccines, “correcting conflicts of interest and misaligned incentives” and “ensuring scientific and medical freedom.”

Heightened scrutiny of fluoride, which many studies have shown to pose health risks, is also called for in the MAHA report.

“Sickest country in the world”

The  White House cites data showing that among more than 200 countries and territories, the US had the highest age-standardized incidence rate of cancer in 2021 and experienced an 88% increase in cancer from 1990-2021, the largest percentage increase of any country evaluated.

For children, 2022 data shows more than 40% of the country’s youth – roughly 30 million – suffered from at least one chronic health problem, with nearly 30% of adolescents prediabetic. More than 3.4 million children are medicated for attention deficit disorders, with diagnoses continuing to climb, the White House states.

“We are now the sickest country in the world,” Kennedy said in a press conference on Tuesday, citing data he said shows more than 76% of Americans are suffering from chronic disease. “We spend nearly as much in our country for health care as all the other nations in the world combined and yet we have the worst health outcomes.”

Kennedy ducked a question at the press conference asking about the changes in the report with respect to pesticides.

But US Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins weighed in, touting the EPA and what she said is the necessity of pesticides in producing the “safest, most abundant, the best food in the world.”

“The EPA is arguably the most rigorous, the most data-backed, the most scientifically deep review process in the world. To approve any product that is used by our farmers, it will have gone through years upon years upon years of research,” Rollins said. “A crop protection tool such as pesticides is absolutely essential for America not to compromise our food supply system at this point.”

NYU’s Nestle said the report overall represents a wasted chance for meaningful change.

“What’s still missing is regulation. So much of this is voluntary, work with, promote, partner,” she said. “MAHA has so much bipartisan support. This is such an opportunity.  I sure wish they had taken it.”

(Featured photo of MAHA Sept. 9. 2025 press conference by Shannon Kelleher.)