Make America Healthy Again Commission Issues Report for Making our Children Healthy Again

Topic(s):

Legislation & Regulation

On May 22, 2025, the President’s Make America Healthy Again Commission published the MAHA report. The report raises concerns about the chronic childhood disease, processed food, environmental chemicals, lack of physical activity, mental health, and overmedicalization of American children.
The report argues that many children are taking too much prescription medication, stating that “One in five U.S. children are estimated to have taken at least one prescription medication in the past 30 days, with ongoing use most pronounced among adolescents, among whom 27% take one or more daily prescription drugs.”
The report lists examples of interventions that it claims show no benefit compared to a placebo but that also bring potential risks, such as biological adverse effects, cost, resource investment, opportunity cost, and human capital. Among the examples are antibiotics and psychiatric drugs including antidepressants and stimulants.
The report also lists examples of drugs where there may be potentially hidden negative effects with long term implications, including SSRIs, stimulants, GLP-1 Agonists, gender-affirming care, antibiotics, and acid suppressants.
The report draws attention to the growing number of vaccines recommended by the CDC, calling for more thorough clinical trials to investigate their safety and any connections to chronic illnesses. The report critiques existing systems for monitoring vaccine safety as being incomplete and biased. The report claims that while vaccines benefit children by protecting them from infectious diseases, potential side effects must be balanced against these benefits.
The report argues that corporate motives heavily sway scientific literature and practices, putting profits over children’s health and contributing to overdiagnosis and excessive prescribing of medications for children.
The report concludes by recommending and proposing next steps, including post-marketing surveillance of pediatric drugs, expanding the NIH-CMS autism real-world data platform, nutrition studies, lifestyle interventions, expanded drug safety research, alternative testing models, and precision toxicology.