On February 13, 2025, President Donald Trump signed an executive order for the creation of the “Make America Healthy Again” commission. The order itself, like many other articles produced by the federal government, is written in such a way that is difficult to read for the average person. So, I want to give an unbiased breakdown of the executive order, and then apply a historical lens to analyze and attempt to make some predictions about the possible ramifications of the executive order.
The Executive Order
Section 1 is a preamble to the actions of the order, establishing the purpose and background of the commission. Notable within the section is the inclusion of statistics about America’s declining life expectancy when compared to similar nations, and rises in the rates of chronic, mental illnesses, and cancer. The order also notes increasing rates of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and autism spectrum disorder (ASD), before stating that these combined statistics “poses a dire threat to the American people and our way of life.” To solve these issues, the order calls for a new approach to nutrition, physical activity, lifestyles, medication, technological habits, and food/drug quality and safety. The section ends with the statement: “We must restore the integrity of the scientific process by protecting expert recommendations from inappropriate influence and increasing transparency regarding existing data.”
Section 2 focuses on research policy and reporting. The four subsections generally call for greater transparency and quality in the health research process. Specifically, it calls for all federally funded research to be transparent and open source, without conflicts of interest, and focus on the “root causes” as to why Americans are getting sick. It also calls upon agencies to work with farmers to ensure healthy, abundant, and affordable harvests, as well as more plentiful and flexible treatment options offered by health insurance.
Section 3 establishes the structure of the commission, the Secretary of Health and Human Services, currently Robert F. Kennedy Jr, and directed by the Assistant to the President for Domestic Policy. It also calls upon involvement from the Secretaries of Agriculture, Housing and Urban Development (HUD), Education, and Veteran Affairs, as well as officials from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), National Economics Council, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), National Institutes of Health (NIH), the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), and other governmental bodies.
Section 4 focuses on childhood chronic diseases, and how to “combat” them. This includes potential causes, such as diet, toxic materials, medical treatments, lifestyle, environment, policy, food production, electromagnetic radiation, and “corporate influence or cronyism.” It reiterates the transparency mentioned in Section 2 and calls for recommendations on strategy to identify the causes and eliminate childhood chronic diseases.
Section 5 incorporates two immediate calls to action, given a timeframe of 100 days from the date of the order. This call to action is an assessment, submitted to the president, studying childhood chronic diseases in America compared to the rest of the world, assessment of the threat of over medication and food ingredients, report on the best practices of preventing childhood health issues, evaluation of educational and federal programs, and establish a framework for transparency and ethics review in industry-funded projects. The second call to action, given a timeframe of 180 days, should address possible restructuring of the government’s response to childhood chronic illnesses, which could including ending any federal program that is deemed to contribute to the “crisis.” Section 6 simply states that the commission should not reconvene until the President has had a chance to address these orders and give an updated directive.
The final section, Section 7, is rather boring and serves to minimize potential legal conflicts and confusion. Establishing that the commission can’t impair other authority granted by law, must be consistent with existing law, or create any new rights or privileges for any person (e.g., shan’t be used for personal gain).
Analysis
On a first reading, without any outside analysis, the order itself does seem to be purely for the benefit of the average American. A non-rigorous fact check of the statistics provided in Section 1 seems to hold up: America is indeed behind on many health metrics. The United States has also lagged behind on food and drug regulations, with many ingredients and drugs being permitted in the United States despite being banned in similarly developed jurisdictions such as the European Union. Famous examples include classes of additives, preservatives, and dyes that a recent article by the Times reports could be a risk due to the process in which regulations are applied in the United States. In 2022, the CDC reported that one in five adults live sedentary lifestyles, which if curtailed, could prevent one in every 10 premature deaths.
Indeed, the executive report does seem to correctly identify some major health problems in society, but it doesn’t take anything past Section 1 to start seeing some of the problems. Most notable to me is the way in which the order describes mental disabilities. It is true that the diagnosing rates of both ASD and ADHD have increased dramatically over the last 40 years, but the report seems to imply this is caused by external conditions and medicine prescription respectively. In an article discussing the “rise” in ASD on the Scientific American, Jessica Wright affirms the expert consensus that this rise is more so down to greater understanding about ASD, both in experts and the general public, leading to a greater ability to correctly diagnose the disorder. And in a Standford Article by May Wong, Wong argues that the ADHD diagnosis differential may be caused by a comparative effect when diagnosing younger versus older children, rather than any causal effect due to medicinal prescriptions. In fact, it only takes a second read to realize that yes, ADHD diagnoses and prescriptions treating ADHD would obviously be correlated — the response to ADHD lends itself towards treatment.
But there’s something more concerning than just misattribution of correlational relationships within Section 1. Immediately after the text regarding ADHD, and in close proximity to the text regarding ASD is one of the quotes provided previously: “[These illnesses] pose a dire threat to the American people and our way of life.” This application of severe language regarding chronic illnesses, which includes mental disorders, is very alarming. Infamously, under a Nazi government, Germany legalized the sterilization and euthanasia of disabled people under the guise of public health measured that posed a threat to Germany, according to the Jewish Virtual Library. Interests of public health have also been used to justify health crimes against American citizens too, from the use of Zyklon B to handle lice from immigrants to the Tuskegee Syphilis Study. While the executive order does not make calls for anything as drastic, the alarmist language and broadness of the commission could become the foundations for horrible things. While it is easy to criticize the state of health in the United States, the current hesitancy towards drastic action does serve to slow and prevent such incidents.
It’s also important to realize the purpose of this commission. While there may be good that comes out of it for the general American populace, that is not the critical concern of the commission. To quote the executive report, “Seventy-seven percent of young adults do not qualify for the military based in large part on their health scores. Ninety percent of the Nation’s $4.5 trillion in annual healthcare expenditures is for people with chronic and mental health conditions.” This is a military and money concern for the Trump administration first and foremost.
And to end my analysis, I will finally move past Section 1 and skip to Section 3. To say that Robert F. Kennedy Jr. being the head of this commission is a disappointment is an understatement. Factcheck.org published an article in 2023 that contains a long list of false claims made by Kennedy on just vaccines alone. Kennedy either has complete negligence or intentionally falsifies a variety of claims relating to public health. He has been consistently wrong about vaccine testing procedures, the nature of vaccines, “vaccine injuries,” and much, much more. In a 2024 article, Forbes goes into the conspiratorial nature of Kennedy’s claims, including bogey claims about 5G, COVID denialism, HIV/AIDS, and a link between mass shootings and prescriptions. Just a few months ago, NPR reported that Kennedy’s solution to drug addiction and overdoses was to send vulnerable peoples to what is essentially glorified labor camps. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is the epitome of public health progress. He does not have full control of the commission, but his undue influence on the commission will run contrary to the mission of public health. The only conceivable reason Kennedy is in this position is as a reward for his loyalty to the President after he dropped out of the 2024 presidential election to endorse then-candidate Trump. One can only hope that Kennedy will meet the same fate of the average employee working close to Trump — quickly replaced with someone new. Only then does this commission have even a chance at making America healthy again.