White House Targets Food, Chemicals, Overtreatment in Childhood Disease Report

By Ahmed Aboulenein, Leah Douglas, and Michael Erman

WASHINGTON, May 22 (Reuters) – A commission led by U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on Thursday issued a report that said processed food, chemicals, stress, and overprescription of medications and vaccines may be factors behind chronic illness in American children.

Kennedy said the commission’s report was a “clarion call to do something with utmost urgency to end this crisis” of increasing rates of childhood obesity, diabetes, cancer, mental health disorders, allergies and neurodevelopmental disorders like autism.

The report did not call for specific regulatory changes or restrictions on pesticides used in farming, as some farm groups had feared, but it did highlight studies linking health disorders in humans and animals to the weed killers glyphosate and atrazine. It said the chemicals should be further researched.

Bayer BAYGn.DE, which is involved in thousands of lawsuits surrounding its glyphosate-based herbicide Roundup, said some details around pesticides in the report were not “fact based.”

“We believe a fact and data-driven approach with robust science that follows international gold standards is necessary to support these important initiatives,” Bayer said.

The report echoed previous Kennedy statements that highly processed foods and additives are health risks and that the food industry is too influential in the crafting of public health recommendations like the Dietary Guidelines.

Speaking at a press conference, he said there was a consensus to prioritize what he called the ultra-processed food crisis.

The American Soybean Association was critical of the report, which they said was “drafted entirely behind closed doors” and inaccurately suggests that pesticides and soy oils contribute to negative health outcomes.

“We’re discouraging people from consuming heart-healthy oils and driving them to instead use fats that will make them less healthy and cost them more in the process. This is the exact opposite of what our government should be doing,” said ASA Director Alan Meadows, a soybean farmer.

The report also takes aim at the U.S. childhood vaccination schedule, saying the number of vaccines American children are recommended to receive is more than in many European countries.

It said the links between vaccines and chronic disease and the impacts of vaccine injury should be studied. Kennedy, a longtime vaccine skeptic, has for many years pushed debunked theories about the safety of vaccines contrary to scientific evidence.

Farm Lobby Pressure

Thursday’s report will be followed by policy prescriptions due in August.

President Donald Trump signed an executive order in February establishing the Make America Healthy Again Commission to investigate chronic illness and deliver an action plan to fight childhood diseases.

The commission is jointly run by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and the White House, with Kennedy serving as its chair and the Domestic Policy Council chief as executive director. Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins and other cabinet members sit on it, as do federal health agency chiefs and senior White House officials.

Before the report’s publication, farm lobby groups had warned that criticizing specific farm practices could impede collaboration on the administration’s health agenda and put food production at risk.

According to a source familiar with the matter, the lobby groups had strongly pressured the administration to not mention pesticides in the report.

Environmental Protection Agency head Lee Zeldin said on a call with reporters that farmers are key partners in enacting the MAHA agenda and that any changes to pesticide regulations would need careful consideration.

“American farmers rely on these products, and actions that further regulate or restrict crop protection tools beyond risk-based and scientific processes set forth by Congress must involve thoughtful consideration of what is necessary for adequate protection alternatives and costs of production,” he said.

In 2018, Kennedy collaborated with a team of attorneys led by firm Wisner Baum that won a $289 million verdict in a lawsuit brought by a California man who was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma after he regularly used Roundup as part of his work. The verdict was later reduced to $20.5 million.

Kennedy has also said he was part of at least two other cases against Roundup-maker Monsanto, which was acquired by Bayer.

As next steps, the report called for enhanced surveillance and safety research into drugs and childhood health outcomes and clinical studies comparing whole-food to processed-food diets in children.

The report says that ultra-processed foods, which it describes as industrially-manufactured food products, are associated with poor health. It cites infant formula as an ultra-processed food that is concerning, saying that parents are increasingly buying European brands.

MAHA activists have voiced worries about the use of certain oils in infant formula, but those ingredients add important fats.

(Reporting by Ahmed Aboulenein, Leah Douglas in Washington, and Michael Erman in New York; Additional reporting by Renee Hickman and Diana Jones in Chicago and Jessica DiNapoli in New York; Editing by Caroline Humer and Bill Berkrot)