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The nation’s top federal health official criticized the U.N.’s road map for addressing chronic disease, falsely claiming it promotes abortion and “radical gender ideology.”
Sept. 25, 2025, 5:26 p.m. ET
Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on Thursday said the United States would reject a United Nations declaration on chronic diseases because the document, he claimed, included references to abortion and “radical gender ideology” and ignored “the most pressing health issues.”
Mr. Kennedy, who gave his remarks to a U.N. meeting on preventing and combating chronic illnesses like cancer, cardiovascular disease and diabetes, did not elaborate on the issues he said had been ignored.
The text of the declaration does not mention reproductive rights or gender ideology. The word “gender” appears several times in the document, but only in the context of the specific health challenges that women face around the world.
Despite opposition from the United States, the declaration, a list of health targets, is expected to win approval from a majority of the body’s 193 member states.
President Trump, a frequent critic of the U.N., earlier this year ordered the United States to withdraw from the World Health Organization, a U.N. agency, over claims that it mishandled the coronavirus pandemic and for what he called its “failure to adopt urgently needed reforms.”
Public health advocates said they were confounded and disappointed by Mr. Kennedy’s remarks, which were also posted on social media. Many of the U.N.’s aspirational goals for reducing noncommunicable disease would seem to dovetail with the health secretary’s Make America Healthy Again agenda, with its focus on chronic illness, childhood obesity and ultra processed food.
