RFK Jr. Releases Childhood Health Report

For all of Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s high-profile moves over the last few weeks, a new report from the “Make America Healthy Again” commission he leads released Tuesday arrived with little fanfare — or teeth.

The White House commission report, which outlines strategies to combat childhood chronic disease, lands at a time when the health secretary has plunged the nation’s public health apparatus into chaos. It comes days after Mr. Kennedy testified before the Senate Finance Committee in a combative hearing, and about two weeks after he ousted the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The New York Times obtained a draft of the report in August. The final report is largely unchanged, and does not always clearly explain how the government will implement its recommendations.

In the report, Mr. Kennedy has returned to his usual talking points: that American children are sick, stressed and screen-addicted, and that corporate interests and prescription medications are to blame. It is the clearest articulation yet of how the administration plans to carry out the aims of the MAHA movement.

Yet even with the familiar rhetoric, the report is very likely to disappoint some corners of Mr. Kennedy’s MAHA coalition.

It demonstrates both the ambitions and limits of his agenda. It stops short of calling for direct restrictions on pesticides and ultraprocessed foods, which Mr. Kennedy has called major threats. The strategy suggests collaboration — not confrontation — with the food and agriculture industries, saying that the government will back “precision agricultural techniques” to help farmers use less pesticides. After The Times reported on the draft, some members of the MAHA movement expressed frustration at what they saw as signs of Mr. Kennedy’s capitulations to these industries.