The Trump administration’s efforts to address the causes of chronic diseases will all be based on “unbiased science,” HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said Tuesday.
“We will convene representatives of all viewpoints to study the causes for the drastic rise in chronic disease,” Kennedy said in a speech to HHS employees. “Some of the possible factors we will investigate were formally taboo or insufficiently scrutinized — the childhood vaccine schedule; electromagnetic radiation; glyphosate; other pesticides; ultra-processed foods … SSRIs [selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors] and other psychiatric drugs; PFAS [per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances]; PFOA [perfluorooctanoic acid]; microplastics — nothing is going to be off-limits.”
“Whatever belief or suspicion I have expressed in the past, I’m willing to subject them all to the scrutiny of unbiased science,” Kennedy said in the speech, a portion of which was posted on X. “That is going to be our template — unbiased science. That’s something that will make us all proud of this agency and of our role in restoring American health.”
“Let’s commission research that will satisfy all the stakeholders once and for all,” he continued. “Let’s use protocols that we all agree on in advance and not alter the outcomes of studies when they’re halfway through [because] they look inconvenient. Let’s all depoliticize these issues and reestablish a common ground for action, and renew the search for existential truths with no political impediments and no preconceptions.”
Kennedy said the convening of stakeholders was in response to an executive order from President Trump that established the Make America Healthy Again Commission, which will be aimed at fighting chronic diseases in children. That order, signed on Feb. 13, said that “Across 204 countries and territories, the United States had the highest age-standardized incidence rate of cancer in 2021, nearly double the next-highest rate” and that “In 2021, asthma was more than twice as common in the United States than most of Europe, Asia, or Africa … Overall, the global comparison data demonstrates that the health of Americans is on an alarming trajectory that requires immediate action.”
“To fully address the growing health crisis in America, we must re-direct our national focus, in the public and private sectors, toward understanding and drastically lowering chronic disease rates and ending childhood chronic disease,” the order continued. “This includes fresh thinking on nutrition, physical activity, healthy lifestyles, over-reliance on medication and treatments, the effects of new technological habits, environmental impacts, and food and drug quality and safety. We must restore the integrity of the scientific process by protecting expert recommendations from inappropriate influence and increasing transparency regarding existing data. We must ensure our healthcare system promotes health rather than just managing disease.”
The order called for establishing a commission chaired by the HHS secretary and including among its members the secretaries of agriculture, housing and urban development, education, and Veterans Affairs, as well as the heads of the FDA, CDC, NIH, and the Office of Science and Technology Policy, in addition to other high-level officials, with members to be added at the HHS secretary’s discretion.
The commission will “study the scope of the childhood chronic disease crisis and any potential contributing causes, including the American diet, absorption of toxic material, medical treatments, lifestyle, environmental factors, government policies, food production techniques, electromagnetic radiation, and corporate influence or cronyism” and will advise the president on how to inform the American people; it will also “provide to the president government-wide recommendations on policy and strategy related to addressing the identified contributing causes of — and ending — the childhood chronic disease crisis.”
Within 100 days of the order — meaning by May 24 — the commission must submit a “Make Our Children Healthy Again Assessment” that takes into account the factors mentioned above, and in 180 days — by Aug. 12 — the commission must submit a “Make Our Children Healthy Again Strategy” based on the findings from the assessment. The strategy will “address appropriately restructuring the federal government’s response to the childhood chronic disease crisis, including by ending federal practices that exacerbate the health crisis … and by adding powerful new solutions that will end childhood chronic disease.”
The commission chair “may hold public hearings, meetings, roundtables, and similar events, as appropriate, and may receive expert input from leaders in public health and government accountability,” the order said.
But on Monday — the day before Kennedy spoke — Jim Jones, the FDA’s director of its human foods division, resigned, citing the administration’s “indiscriminate firing” of about 89 employees. Jones said that although he was looking forward to helping the Trump administration reduce diet-related chronic disease, “it has been increasingly clear that with the Trump administration’s disdain for the very people necessary to implement your agenda, however, it would have been fruitless for me to continue in this role.”
Jones noted that “the secretary’s comments impugning the integrity of the food staff, asserting they are corrupt based on falsities, is a disservice to everyone,” according to an account in the New York Times.
Those fired included staff working on nutrition and infant formula safety, and staff hired to review potentially unsafe food ingredients, according to two sources with knowledge of the firings.
![author['full_name']](https://clf1.medpagetoday.com/media/images/author/JoyceFrieden_188.jpg)
Please enable JavaScript to view the