The MAHA Report – Making Our Children Healthy Again, was published on Thursday, with a specific focus on how toxic chemicals and ultra-processed foods are damaging the health of Americans. The report’s concentration on cumulative impacts of envionmental exposures has received widespread praise from independent experts, many of whom have been working to protect children’s health for decades.
The MAHA Report supported independent gold standard science and is the first such report from the U.S. government to strongly link toxic chemicals to “the chronic disease crisis facing America’s children.”:
“No country in the world has fully accounted for the fact that children are often exposed to complex mixtures of chemicals. The rapid progression of Al technology creates new opportunities to develop tools to better evaluate the environmental exposures of chronic diseases in children.
“The U.S. government is committed to fostering radical transparency and gold standard science to better understand the potential cumulative impacts of environmental exposures. We must understand and ameliorate any potential links between cumulative chemical exposure and childhood chronic disease.
“Children are not “little adults” when it comes to environmental chemicals. Exposure to these substances can begin at conception and continue throughout childhood, adolescence, and into adulthood, accumulating over time. The placenta and umbilical cord do not serve as impenetrable barriers; they can allow hundreds of industrial chemicals and pollutants to reach the developing fetus. Once children are exposed to these substances, several unique characteristics make newborns, children, and adolescents particularly vulnerable.
“Some studies have raised concerns about possible links between some of these products (pesticides, herbicides and insecticides) and adverse health outcomes, especially in children, but human studies are limited. For example, a selection of research studies on a herbicide (Glyphosate) have noted a range of possible health effects, ranging from reproductive and developmental disorders as well as cancers, liver inflammation and metabolic disturbances. In experimental animal and wildlife studies, exposure to another herbicide (Atrazine) can cause endocrine disruption and birth defects.”
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The report also targets other toxic chemicals including PFAS, Phthalates and Bisphenols, as well as Heavy Metals – “The brain undergoes a second phase of remodeling during adolescence, particularly in regions responsible for impulse control and emotion. Neurotoxic substances—such as solvents and heavy metals— can have lasting effects that extend well beyond the teenage years.”
Dr. Philip Landrigan, Director of the Program for Global Public Health and the Common Good at Boston College, told E&E News that the report’s “section on environmental chemical exposures “presents a brilliant diagnosis of the problem.”
“The current regulatory framework should be continually evaluated to ensure that chemicals and other exposures do not interact together to pose a threat to the health of our children,” the MAHA Report says, echoing a sentiment Dr. Landrigan and other public health experts have been repeating for decades. The specifics on how the U.S. government plans to achieve these goals will come in a later report, due in August.
“This is the first U.S. government report to shine a light on the damage to our health being caused by the world’s most used weedkiller, glyphosate. Glyphosate herbicides, such as Roundup, were already under the spotlight due to the Billions of dollars that Bayer/Monsanto has had to pay out to cancer victims, and this report is another nail in the coffin of such companies who are knowingly poisoning our children,” Henry Rowlands, Director of The Detox Project and owner of the Glyphosate Residue Free certification program stated Thursday.
George Kimbrell, Legal Director of Center for Food Safety continued; “The need to reform our broken industrial agriculture system to build a better future for our food is paramount. The MAHA commission recognizes that the overuse of pesticides in America’s industrial food system is a critical piece of the nation’s health crisis and acknowledges the now well-established scientific evidence of the dire harm these toxins are causing children, public health, and the environment. However, the report falls woefully short of providing any next steps in how the government is going to stop this health epidemic from continuing.
“Much more is required – and urgently – in order to meaningfully address the twin public health and environmental crises we face. Protecting children’s health and building a healthy food system must trump pesticide corporations’ profits. Policy and governance must be based on sound science and reject fearmongering and lobbying influence alleging that these toxins are needed for a healthy food system or agricultural economy. Our organization will continue to watchdog federal agencies to protect the public interest and ensure regulators comply with their duties to protect public health and the environment from these dangerous toxins. To be meaningful, the findings of the report must translate into concrete actions that truly advance a healthier, more sustainable food system for America’s farmers and consumers,” Kimbrell concluded.
To read the full MAHA Report itself please download here.
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