Does 2nd MAHA Report Temper RFK Jr.’s Anti-Ag Crusade?

The MAHA Commission has publicly released its long-awaited Strategy Report, aimed at tackling the “crisis” of chronic illnesses facing our children. It compliments the MAHA Assessment published in May 2025, which identified four major causes of the crisis: poor diet, chemical exposures, lack of physical activity and stress, and overmedicalization. (You’ll recall that that report contained several fake citations written with the help of a generative AI platform like ChatGPT.)

The main strategies discussed in this newly released followup document by the Robert F. Kennedy Jr.-led commission align around four areas that sound pretty reasonable: advance research, realign incentives and systems, increase public awareness, and foster private-sector collaboration. It throws around words like deregulation, research, and innovation — who can argue with those? And, quite frankly, who doesn’t want healthy children?

But like everything RFK Jr. has touched since his appointment as Secretary of Health and Human Services, the strategy report isn’t very good at hiding his real agenda. If you’re familiar with him or the MAHA movement, the plays are obvious.

Take, for example, the following — very odd — recommendation about sunscreen:

FDA will promote innovation in the sunscreen market, and improve regulatory processes for over-the-counter sunscreen, which has fallen behind other countries.

Most people probably don’t know that the MAHA crowd has a particular angst about sunscreen. Boosted by viral social media content, the theory is that sunscreen has chemicals (read: cHemiKillz) that will actually cause cancer, not prevent it. And despite the overwhelming amount of research about how harmful the sun’s UV rays are, MAHA leans into the sun being natural and, therefore, having a hardcore tan is good for you (RFK Jr. even routinely visits tanning salons — very natural).

This is literally the type of stupid we’re dealing with here. If you don’t believe me, there are plenty of examples of major medical institutions and others publishing articles debunking this disinformation and pleading with people to use sunscreen. (See what I did there?) For the record, these institutions are right.

But if you weren’t paying attention, that little mention in the big MAHA strategy report wouldn’t throw up any red flags. You might think, “Oh, I didn’t know sunscreen was regulated and we probably should make sure we review and implement the latest data to help prevent skin cancer.”

Put in context though, it’s clear that this isn’t about rigorous, scientific research at all.

The same can be said for the report’s references to agriculture. Sure, there are some farmer friendly recommendations, such as expanding research for precision agriculture, reducing regulatory burdens, and investing and encouraging new crop protection tools. There’s even a call to allow whole milk in schools, allowing dairies more opportunities to process and sell milk directly to consumers (it doesn’t mention raw milk …), and advancing Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) programs.

But the overall theme is clear: Pesticides are bad, farmers use too many, and we need to drastically reduce their use. That’s not surprising because “chemical exposure” is supposedly one of the main drivers of chronic childhood disease (do they know that water is a chemical?). And RFK Jr. has crusaded against pesticide use for decades.

Consider the recommendation for “cumulative exposure” research that directs federal agencies to develop “a research and evaluation framework for cumulative exposure across chemical classes.” The federal Environmental Protection Agency will then use this framework to “improve methods for evaluating human health and environmental risks of chemical contaminants.”

This is how the MAHA faithful downplay the effectiveness of the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act, which provides a robust regulatory scheme for pesticide use. FIFRA, in part, considers levels of pesticide residue that pose no threat to human health. That’s how we know that an adult male can consume 1,190 apples in any given day without encountering any negative impacts from pesticide residue (based on the highest amount ever detected, no less).

But RFK Jr. and his acolytes will tell you that FIFRA doesn’t consider how your body reacts to all the chemicals all the time in all the world. When you think all chemicals are bad, the dose or mode-of-action be damned, then the cumulative exposure is super important, even if it likely doesn’t mean much scientifically.

It’s true though that the report does not call for banning any pesticides, phasing them out, or declaring they’re all the cause of autism. Don’t be fooled: RFK Jr. hasn’t decided to actually pick up a scientific journal or consult someone with a relevant degree. Instead it’s been reported that President Donald Trump instructed him not to touch pesticides, specifically glyphosate, after the May report was decried by many major farm groups. I suppose he thought it was better to malign sunscreen and keep his head.

By no means does this mean agriculture is out of his crosshairs. We’ve seen him systematically dismantle the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention while he says he’s just trying to bring in experts and eliminate conflicts of interest. RFK Jr. isn’t done yet — once a snake oil salesman, always a snake oil salesman.

Amanda Zaluckyj blogs under the name The Farmer’s Daughter USA. Her goal is to promote farmers and tackle the misinformation swirling around the U.S. food industry.