Immediately following Robert F Kennedy Jr.’s confirmation as Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) on February 13, Trump issued a new executive order (EO): Establishing the President’s Making America Healthy Again Commission. Kennedy will lead the ‘MAHA’ Commission, which is tasked with “aggressively combat[ing] the critical health challenges facing our citizens, including the rising rates of mental health disorders, obesity, diabetes, and other chronic diseases,” particularly those found in children. The Commission, comprised of leaders from fourteen departments and select agencies (e.g., Secretaries of Education and Agriculture, Directors of the National Institutes of Health and Centers for Disease Control), is directed to present to the president within 100 days an assessment of childhood chronic diseases. Within 180 days, the commission is to present a strategy for restructuring the federal government to respond to chronic diseases in children, “including by ending Federal practices that exacerbate the health crisis or unsuccessfully attempt to address it, and be adding powerful new solutions.”
Of interest to FABBS members, the EO acknowledges that policy, lifestyle, and environmental factors play an important role in health outcomes. In order to better understand and reduce chronic illness rates, the EO seeks “fresh thinking on nutrition, physical activity, healthy lifestyles, over-reliance on medication and treatments, the effects of new technological habits, environmental impacts, and food and drug quality and safety.” The behavioral and brain sciences can provide exactly this, as evidenced in the FABBS journal, Policy Insights from the Behavioral and Brain Sciences. Furthermore, our scientists and researchers have long supported the EO’s goal of ensuring that “our healthcare system promotes health rather than just managing disease.”
