Trump forms ‘MAHA Commission’ with RFK Jr. at helm

• President Donald Trump signed an executive order forming the “Make America Healthy Again Commission” (MAHA). Chaired by HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., it will address chronic disease rates in American youth.

• The commission has 180 days to present a strategy to restructure the federal response to childhood chronic disease. It will focus on nutrition, physical activity, healthy lifestyles, and reducing reliance on medication.

• The commission’s goals and objectives closely resemble RFK Jr.’s presidential platform.

---

Full Story

President Donald Trump on Thursday signed an executive order forming a new commission chaired by HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. that will focus on lowering chronic disease rates in America’s youth and ending childhood chronic disease.

Trump prefaces his order with the glaring difference between American life expectancy compared to the rest of the world’s developed countries. Before the COVID-19 pandemic, the United States life expectancy averaged 78.8 years, while comparable countries averaged 82.6 years.

The order forms the “Make America Healthy Again Commission.” It gives the newly formed panel 180 days before it must submit a strategy to restructure “the Federal Government’s response to the childhood chronic disease crisis, including by ending Federal practices that exacerbate the health crisis or unsuccessfully attempt to address it.” The commission will also add solutions that the president expects will end childhood chronic disease.

“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,” the order said. “We must ensure our healthcare system promotes health rather than just managing disease.”

The “Make Our Children Healthy Again Assessment” is due on the president’s desk 100 days after the order is signed.

The “MOCHA” assessment will examine the “prevalence of and threat posed by the prescription of selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, antipsychotics, mood stabilizers, stimulants, and weight-loss drugs.” It will also “assess the threat that potential over-utilization of medication, certain food ingredients, certain chemicals, and certain other exposures pose to children with respect to chronic inflammation or other established mechanisms of disease.”

The order’s provisions resemble much of RFK Jr.’s “Make America Healthy Again” platform during his presidential run. The newly confirmed Health and Human Services secretary will chair the MAHA Commission.