Tuesday’s long-awaited “Make America Healthy Again” (MAHA) report steered clear of calling for regulation of the pesticide and food industries, despite Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s belief that they are responsible for the childhood chronic disease epidemic.
It called for raising public awareness of the Environmental Protection Agency’s “robust” pesticide review procedures and developing “more targeted and precise pesticide applications.”
Health officials have argued industry cooperation is key to the MAHA agenda. But Kennedy allies in the MAHA movement said they were disappointed.
MAHA activist Zen Honeycutt, founder of Moms Across America, said the report read as though “Bayer and Monsanto wrote it.” Bayer is the manufacturer of the herbicide Roundup.
“We are also extremely concerned about this administration’s elimination of necessary funds,” Honeycutt said. “The USDA’s gutting of so many programs directly contradicts the MAHA report’s recommendations.”
David Murphy, a former finance director for Kennedy’s presidential campaign last year, said the report was a “major missed opportunity for the Trump administration.”
Murphy said it was “a clear sign that Big Ag, Bayer, and the pesticide industry are firmly embedded in the White House and intentionally short-circuiting Trump’s campaign promise to the millions of MAHA voters who helped him return to power.”
Pesticide manufacturers expressed their support for the strategy.
CropLife America, the industry’s main lobbying group, in a statement said it “appreciates this Administration and the MAHA Commission for inviting feedback and listening to America’s farmers and agriculture industry — and recognizing that pesticides are important tools that help farmers grow healthy, affordable, and abundant food for American families.”
Read more here, from The Hill’s Nathaniel Weixel and Joseph Choi.
