Lessons from the USA- III
RFK Jr after 100 days
Earlier this year in my Substack entry (2025 Feb 24) I expressed hope with the Trump appointment of Robert Francis Kennedy Jr as Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services. At that time, he had expressed plans to improve the health of American citizens through addressing the root cause of multiple chronic diseases, with less emphasis on drug treatment symptoms. He asked HHS employees to help address these issues through a culture of radically improved transparency, genuine informed consent and ethics. In essence, he raised a lot of hope in me.
RFK did not disappoint. Recently, the White House has released the MAHA report or more precisely the Make Our Children Healthy Again Assessment, as directed by presidential executive order 14212. The initial mission of the MAHA Commission was “to advise and assist the President on how best … to address the childhood chronic disease crisis”. The commission comprised a breadth of leaders from relevant government agencies, and included Drs. Jay Bhattacharya and Marty Makary who are known for their willingness to articulate positions outside of the official government narrative during COVID-19. This Assessment is 73 pages long and may not be read thoroughly by many people including readers of this Substack article. For this reason, I am summarizing my take here.
This Assessment starts with an identification of the crisis of chronic disease crisis among American children. The first figure graphically summarizes the poor state of health of USA chidren; the red symbols show more health spending and shorter life expectancy compared with other wealthy countries.
One statistic stood out. “Over 75% of American youth (aged 17-24) are ineligible for military service” due to poor physical or mental health.
It then identified four potential drivers of chronic diseases, which are-
· Ultra processed food
· Environmental chemicals
· Inadequate physical activity and chronic stress
· Over-use of prescription medications
SECTION 1. Ultraprocessed foods (UPF)
Their working definition of UPF was “packaged and ready-to-consume products that are formulated for shelf life and/or palatability but are typically high in added sugars, refined grains, unhealthy fats, and sodium and low in fiber and essential nutrients.” They point out that ~70% of an American child’s calories are derived from UPF, and UPFs makeup over half of the diets of pregnant and postpartum mothers.
UPFs are thus nutrient depleted with reduced amounts of vitamins, minerals, fiber, and phytonutrients. They also interfere with brain reward pathways and satiety hormones which results in faster eating and lesser fullness perception. These foods tend to spike blood sugar and insulin levels.
UPFs contain thousands of food additives, such as emulsifiers, binders, sweeteners, colorings, and preservatives which can make UPFs palatable by improving taste and texture as well as increase shelf life. Various additives have been associated with ADHD, DNA damage, estrogenic activity, cancers and metabolic disease.
Also addressed were- consolidation of control of the food industry by a few large corporations, distorted research and marketing, compromised dietary guidelines and government programs that complicate the issues. Some examples of these problems were: $60 Billion spent by industry on nutrition research compared with $1.5 Billion by NIH; studies funded by the food industry that made 0 % unfavourable conclusions regarding soft drinks, juices or milk compared with 37% of studies funded by non-industry sources; children were subjected to 15 food ads per day with 90% promoting foods high in sugar, fat and sodium. The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (formerly known as food stamps) allowed recipients to buy almost any foods, which results in twice as much spending on UPFs and sugar-sweetened beverages as fruits and vegetables.
SECTION 2. The Cumulative Load of Chemicals in our Environment
The assessment noted that progress has been made in some areas (heavy metals, air pollutants) but greater exposures in other areas are a concern, namely pesticides, endocrine disruptors, water borne chemicals, persistent chemicals and physical agents (EMF, microplastics).
Moreover, children are not just little adults but are particularly vulnerable for a number of reasons, including sensitive brain development and immune development.
“In 2024, the chemical-manufacturing lobby spent roughly $77 million” on federal lobbying.
SECTION 3. The Crisis of Childhood Behavior in the Digital Age
The decline of physical activity of USA children has resulted in them being ranked 47th out of 50 comparable nations. Contributing factors might be a drop in self propelled (walking or bicycling) access to schools where 48% of K-8 students did so in 1969 and this declined to 13% in 2009.
A big factor in the decline of physical activity has been the increased amount of time that children, especially teenagers, spent on screen time.
Chronic stress is another factor identified by the assessment, particularly since 2010.
The prevalence of loneliness was reported to be 73% among 16-24 year-olds, with the rate being lower (20%) among 6-11 year-old group.
Social media are a contributing problem with some 95% of teens spending hours/day on one or more platforms. This has been associated with significant amounts of anxiety and distress.
SECTION 4. The Over-medicalization of Kids
· Stimulant prescriptions for ADHD, doubled from 2006-2016;
· Antidepressant prescriptions were written for greater than 2 million adolescents in 2022, a 1400% increase from 1987-2014
· Antipsychotic use in US kids rose 800% from 1995 to 2009
· Asthma drug prescriptions increased 30% from 1999 to 2008.
· GLP-1 drug (such as Ozempic) use is increasingly common among US kids, very likely influenced by the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) strong recommendation to use weight loss drugs and surgery “early and at the highest available intensity.”
· “Since 1986, for the average child, by one year of age, the number of recommended vaccines on the CDC childhood schedule has increased from 3 injections to 29 injections (including in utero exposures from vaccines administered to the mother)”
Financial disincentives for vaccine manufacturers to ensure safety were created by the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act of 1986, which shields them from liability for vaccine-related injuries.
The Assessment correctly identified the AMA as problematic with respect to stifling open discourse about medical information; see the “AMA adopts new policy aimed at addressing public health disinformation” here. The AMA claimed to address medical disinformation while identifying several inaccurate claims as being correct and valid. Its hubris is nothing short of remarkable. But the AMA is not unique because our Canadian counterparts (colleges of physicians and surgeons) were equally out of touch when they instructed their members to not use certain generic drugs (like ivermectin) for the treatment of COVID-19.
The over-medicalization of USA children was attributed to corporate capture of “scientific literature, legislative actions, academic institutions, regulatory agencies, medical journals, physician organizations, clinical guidelines, and the news media.” Kennedy and his colleagues have challenged a formidable foe in the pharmaceutical industry and will need all their tools to correct this problem. But this problem really needs to be rectified. I wish them good luck and will be cheering for them every bit of the way.
CALL TO ACTION. Next Steps – Supporting Gold-Standard Scientific Research and Developing a Comprehensive Strategy.
RFK has consistently insisted on making decisions based on sound evidence. This is how medical science should be used. Don’t start with foregone conclusions. Conduct good research. Evaluate it objectively. Make sound interpretations based on the evidence. Make the evidence available to the citizens.
OTHER NOTABLE ACTIONS. Working with likeminded colleagues such as Lee Zeldin. I watched Jillian Michaels interview Zeldin, the head of the Environmental Protection Agency. He said that his approach is to gather the information/evidence, evaluate it and then make decisions. These are exactly what RFK has stated.
The BC ostrich situation. On May 22, 2025 RFK spoke with Paul McKinnon, Head of the Canadian Food Inspection Agency about sparing the lives of the ~400 ostriches on a farm in Edgewood, BC. On the following day he followed up with a letter to McKinnon, which he made public here. Therein he identified scientific reasons for preserving the ostriches for the valuable information that they might provide. He offered to collaborate with CFIA by providing resources through the auspices of the NIH; the letter was co-signed by Jay Bhattacharya, director of NIH and Mary Makary, Commissioner of FDA.
GRADE TO DATE- A. So far RFK has lived up my hopes in his role as Secretary of HHS. Is our Canadian government watching and listening? Like it or not RFK’s actions will have an effect far beyond the USA borders. Canada should jump on board and benefit as much as possible from RFK’s successes. Are Mark and Pierre noting the promise of radical transparency? Are they noting gold standard science? Are they noting providing citizens with information and letting them make decisions for themselves and their families? Have they noted the absence of government imposed mandates?