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Healthcare has always been intrinsically tied to the shift in the socio-political climate of the United States of America. And that is no different now, considering the current administration’s latest unveiling: MAHA or Make America Healthy Again.
The healthcare reforms had been a long-standing talking point for President Trump’s second term in office, so it was only a matter of time before the White House released the MAHA report.
Outlined as a response to the President’s executive order earlier this year, the MAHA report stated that initiatives will be taken to deliver on the promises made by the President on his campaign trail and ‘completely transform the food, health, and scientific systems’.
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It details a lot, such as the significantly poor life expectancy and how American children are currently the sickest generation in the country’s history. However, it was proposed more as a ‘diagnosis’ than a comprehensive list of actions to counteract these issues. Today, let’s discuss the main proponents of the MAHA report and examine how logical they appear in hindsight:
- Discussing The MAHA Report’s Cliff Notes
- MAHA And How It Tackles Public Healthcare
- Estimating The Accuracy Of The Statistics Cited In The MAHA Report
Make America Healthy Again: What Does It Promise To Tackle?
At its core, the “Make America Healthy Again” report is about reforming public healthcare for the benefit of future generations. It places a great emphasis on the well-being of children, in particular, and the current status of pediatric care in the U.S.. Which is why the report itself can be summed up into 5 main areas:
- Nutrition Deficit and Child Obesity
- Environmental and Chemical Toxins
- A ‘Complex’ Vaccine Schedule
- Too Much Screentime
- The Overmedicalization Of Children
All of these are valid concerns. Despite the U.S. having the biggest budget in the world dedicated to healthcare, the system isn’t giving us the results we need. Especially when you compare it to other high-income nations such as Canada or Australia. Not only do those countries have universal healthcare, but they are also more accessible and have better patient outcomes.
So, the President’s executive order regarding healthcare wasn’t out of the blue. It’s true that the U.S. has long been overdue for healthcare reforms to ensure public health standards rise accordingly.
And it had been a big part of the current government’s stand, with Robert Kennedy becoming Secretary of Health on the basis of wanting to improve healthcare for children, specifically.
However, some of the information in the full Make America Healthy Again report is interesting, to say the least. Written by cabinet officials in collaboration with White House-approved academics, the report identifies environmental toxins and excessive screen time as the primary contributors to declining health nationwide.
And while those can be considered additional factors, there is a lot more to these issues than simple external factors.
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This isn’t even addressing some of the more concerning statistics further in the report that cast suspicion regarding integral parts of the public health sector, such as vaccine schedules. Regardless, the administration is adamant about this report and its grim takeaways.
But the question remains: How medically sound is the MAHA report?
Dissecting the MAHA Report And Its Contents
The best approach is to address everything separately to fully understand the Make America Healthy Again Commission’s intent with this report. From nutrition and obesity to health deregulation, a wealth of data has been revealed, which can be overwhelming to comprehend.
Nutrition deficits due to over-processed food consumption
American diets are heavily dependent on ultra-processed foods, which have been a contributor to rising obesity levels in our country.
Nearly two-thirds of a child’s nutrition is currently coming from highly processed foods, leading to a high propensity for poor health outcomes. Not to mention the link between processed foods and the potential decrease in satiation resulting from their disruption of blood sugar levels.
Doctors had been sounding the alarm for a while now, asking for nationwide obesity to be recognized as a public health crisis. With cardiovascular disease and diabetes ravaging not only rural America but also urban city communities, tackling nutrition deficits in children is a need of the hour.
Too much screen time and dependency on tech
The fact that the next generation is often referred to as the ‘iPad kids’ is not surprising. But while the American youth is entirely too dependent on their screens, the actual numbers portray a less grim outlook.
Children under the age of 12 have an average of 4 hours of screen time per day, and only 14% of teenagers link worsening psyche and concentration to their screen addictions. And yes, the correlation between screen time and lack of sleep is a valid concern, but the biggest issue here is the content they are consuming rather than the time spent on consumption, according to the American Academy of Paediatrics.
It’s why the MAHA report falls flat on this issue, as it focuses more on completely changing habits versus research and adaptation regarding screen time usage.
Environmental and chemical toxins polluting the youth
This is where we start to become more vague about what ‘Make America Healthy Again’ is choosing to target.
While the report discusses chemical toxic exposure as ‘synthetic chemicals that are in our food and water which pose a risk to the long-term health of children’, it doesn’t talk about the popular food toxins such as overuse of pesticides and preservatives in produce.
What we get is some mention of altrazine and glyphosate, two herbicides widely known for their harmful effects and equally as avoided.
The report does mention polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS, which are carcinogenic water contaminants; however, the commitment to restricting them appears lackluster.
Children and overmedication
As the world observes a concerning rise in antibiotic resistance, the conversation around children getting prescribed to many medications feels apt. So does the mention of overmedicating children on harsh psychiatric medication or weight-loss treatments they don’t need.
However, the actual research mentioned that links a rise in suicidal ideation and psychiatric medication is distorted.
While those medications shouldn’t be the primary form of treatment in mentally unwell children, that doesn’t mean they aren’t reliable when conventional therapy isn’t working. It’s why the updated research rectified that their results could’ve been skewed due to a change in practice rather than long-term usage being ineffective on a whole.
There is also a case to be made for the lack of research that has gone into paediatric psychiatry up until recently, hence the limited data on its efficacy regarding prescription medication.
Growth in vaccine schedule or lack thereof
Immunization is a core tenet of public welfare, and it has helped the U.S. curb serious illnesses such as polio and measles. However, the increase in vaccine shots over the last 30 years has led to ‘vaccine skepticism’ that is also reflected in the MAHA report.
And it is this section that has the most concerning outlook, specifically in the eyes of the medical fraternity. The idea of ‘limited insight into vaccine injuries’ being a good enough argument against vaccination itself is risky, alongside the purported link to chronic illnesses.
Because while children might be getting more vaccine shots now, that does not directly translate to higher rates of negative reactions and acute medical issues. If anything, vaccines now trigger fewer immune issues than ever before, and are regularly going through vaccine safety surveillance systems.
So, the idea feels more like it’s coming from the rise of the anti-vaccination phenomenon rather than a strictly scientific and health-focused lens.
The Make America Healthy Again report is just the beginning of the proposed changes to public health we will be seeing in the next four years. And as part of the medical community, it impacts us just as much as it does our patients. Therefore, it is essential for us to understand what is being discussed so that we can adapt and deliver the best care possible.
