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WASHINGTON: The Trump administration directed the nation’s public health and environmental agencies to prioritize investigations into vaccine injuries, prescription drug use and autism’s causes in its latest “Make America Healthy Again” report released Tuesday.
The 20-page report, overseen by Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., echoes many of the talking points Kennedy and those in his wide-ranging and politically diverse “MAHA” movement have united around. The document promises to put an end to childhood diseases and to make children healthier, but does not lay out regulatory changes to ensure an overhaul of Americans’ health.
Among the report’s recommendations is a call for more rigorous government investigations into vaccine injuries, a move that could stir more uproar as lawmakers raise alarm over how the health secretary’s anti-vaccine policies have thrown the nation’s public health agency into weeks of tumult.
Kennedy promised to “recast the entire program” for investigating vaccine injuries as he joined administration officials to unveil the MAHA report. Currently, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention investigates injuries that are reported by individuals or providers.
“They will be welcomed and we will learn everything we can about them so we can improve the safety of these products,” Kennedy said of people who report vaccine injuries. He added that doctors are not currently compensated for filing complaints for vaccine injuries.
A bipartisan group of senators has raised alarm over Kennedy’s actions at the CDC, which was thrown into chaos last month when Kennedy abruptly fired his hand-picked director and other top leaders walked out on the job, citing disagreements over immunization recommendations. Last week, senators grilled Kennedy over his anti-vaccine agenda and leadership of the public health agencies.
The Trump administration’s cuts to federal health programs, including Medicaid, as well as Kennedy’s anti-vaccine rhetoric, could ultimately lead to worse health outcomes for children, Dr. Susan J. Kressly, the president of the American Academy of Pediatrics, said in a statement.
“It lacks details on how the Administration plans to address those issues and omits key drivers that harm children’s health, including gun violence and environmental hazards,” Kressly said of the report. “We also cannot ignore the fact that this report is being published in the context of other recent harmful actions by the Administration and Congress that undermine many of the report’s recommendations.”
An earlier version of the report was first leaked and publicized in August. Slight changes have been made to the final draft, which was developed by a “MAHA” commission that included Kennedy and other members of the president’s cabinet. Despite pledging “radical transparency,” the commission never held a public meeting ahead of the report’s release.
Among the differences in the final version of the report released on Tuesday is a call for the National Institutes of Health to use personal medical records and health insurance claims data to investigate the cause of diseases and disorders, including autism.
“The NIH will link multiple datasets, such as claims information, electronic health records, and wearables data, into a single integrated dataset for researchers studying the causes of, and developing treatments for, the chronic disease crisis,” the report says.
Kennedy has vowed for months that he would unveil the cause of autism, a complex developmental disorder that impacts the brain, by September. He has promised to execute a massive research effort to identify the disorder’s causes, but has stayed mum on details regarding who is conducting that research and when it will be released.
Last month, President Donald Trump pressed Kennedy for his findings during a cabinet meeting.
Those who have spent decades researching autism have found no single cause. Besides genetics, scientists have identified various possible factors, including the age of a child’s father, the mother’s weight, and whether she had diabetes or was exposed to certain chemicals.
Trump ordered his first action as a result of the MAHA report’s recommendations on Tuesday evening, signing a memorandum to beef up enforcement of pharmaceutical ads that run across TVs, websites and social media accounts. Administration officials said during a call on Tuesday that they would be sending “hundreds” of letters to pharmaceutical companies that have run misleading ads.
The “MAHA” report addressed a number of other issues, including ultraprocessed food consumption, water quality, fluoride and the use of prescription drugs in children. Agencies, including the health department and the Department of Justice, should increase enforcement and oversight of prescription drug ads, especially those published by social media influencers and telehealth companies, the report says.
The National Institutes of Health, which is facing a 40 percent cut to its budget, is tasked with undertaking much of the MAHA-related research in the report.