A BMJ article looks at the recent Making Children Healthy Again report. Citation and extracts below.
CITATION: What MAHA’s new Making Children Healthy Again report says—and what it doesn’t
BMJ 2025; 390 doi: https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.r1922 (Published 12 September 2025)
Cite this as: BMJ 2025;390:r1922
US health secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr has officially unveiled the much anticipated second report of the Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) Commission.1
He labelled it a “sweeping plan with more than 120 initiatives to reverse the failed policies that fuelled America’s childhood chronic disease epidemic.”2
As with the first MAHA report, published in May,3 the primary focus is on tackling childhood obesity through improved nutrition and promoting physical activity, increasing the oversight of food additives and chemicals, and tackling environmental exposures.
However, critics said the report was more of a manifesto than a detailed strategy, pointing to a lack of specific detail and concrete regulatory action...
“HHS and CMS will address the current monopolies that exist for the accreditors of medical education programs by using their regulatory authorities to bring in competing accreditors of medical education programs, including those with a focus on treating the root causes of chronic disease in the United States.” However, it gives no specific detail on how this would be achieved.
HIFA profile: Neil Pakenham-Walsh is coordinator of HIFA (Healthcare Information For All), a global health community that brings all stakeholders together around the shared goal of universal access to reliable healthcare information. HIFA has 20,000 members in 180 countries, interacting in four languages and representing all parts of the global evidence ecosystem. HIFA is administered by Global Healthcare Information Network, a UK-based nonprofit in official relations with the World Health Organization. Email: neil@hifa.org