Madeline Ashley – Becker’s Hospital Review
President Donald Trump has signed an executive order creating the Make America Healthy Again Commission after Robert Kennedy Jr. was confirmed Feb. 13 as HHS secretary in a 52-48 Senate vote.
Mr. Kennedy will chair the commission, which is tasked with investigating “the root causes of America’s escalating health crisis,” with an initial focus on pediatric chronic disease, according to a Feb. 13 White House fact sheet on the executive order.
The commission will release its childhood chronic disease assessment in the next 100 days and will follow up with a strategy to improve children’s health within the next 180 days. The key priorities of the investigation include funding studies on what causes disease, promoting healthier food, expanding preventative treatment options and increasing health research transparency.
“The commission aims to restore trust in medical and scientific institutions and hold public hearings, meetings, roundtables and similar events to receive expert input from leaders in public health,” the release said.
The commission also has four policy directives to help reverse chronic disease:
Ensure open access and transparency to federally funded health research data while preventing conflicts of interest.
Focus federally funded health research on high-quality studies to help understand the cause of American illness.
Work with U.S. farmers to ensure food in America is affordable, abundant and healthy.
Provide flexible health coverage and expand treatment options to support lifestyle-based disease prevention.
The release pointed to information consistent with CDC data that found 6 in 10 adults in the U.S. live with at least one chronic illness, and 4 in 10 have two or more. It also touched on a spike in autism rates, childhood cancers and overmedication, with more than 3.4 million children in the U.S. on medication for attention-deficit disorder and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, with diagnoses on the rise, according to Children and Adults with Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder data.
It also pointed to information consistent with a 2023 Gallup poll that found only one-third of Americans have trust in the U.S. health system.
During his two confirmation hearings on Jan. 29-30, Mr. Kennedy frequently discussed his Make America Healthy Again agenda, which aims to cut chronic disease, tackle obesity and diabetes, and improve food policy, prevention-based care and environmental health.
In his new role, Mr. Kennedy’s portfolio will comprise HHS agency and program oversight, as well as a nearly $2 trillion budget. Among the agencies under his purview are CDC, CMS, FDA and the National Institutes of Health.
