Will the Findings in the "Make America Healthy Again" Report Really Put Us on Track to Make America's Kids Healthy?

On May 22, 2025, the “Make America Healthy Again” Commission released its report on childhood chronic diseases. The report is riddled with dangerous falsehoods, fails to address key factors in childhood chronic disease prevention and would roll back decades of progress on infectious disease prevention.

The American Lung Association shares the report's concerns about the increase in childhood chronic diseases, including asthma. However, we are also very troubled that this report treats correlations as if they prove cause and effect without strong scientific evidence to back it up.

What the science tells us:

• Childhood vaccines work. They’ve helped eradicate, eliminate or drastically reduce deadly diseases and have saved millions of lives. Casting doubt on their safety is irresponsible and endangers the very children this report wants to protect. 

• Antibiotics are lifesavers. Antibiotic treatments have dramatically lowered childhood mortality. While we support antibiotic stewardship and agree overuse must always be avoided, this report fails to acknowledge how many children are alive today because of the timely, appropriate use of antibiotics. 

Yes, we absolutely need to address the rise in chronic disease across the United States, but the answer is not to weaken the tools that have made such progress possible. It’s to build on them, with science, not suspicion. Many kids are alive today because of vaccines and antibiotics.  

Where the report contradicts the administration's actions:

The stated priorities in the MAHA report are also at odds with the administration’s own recent actions that undermine the nation’s response to chronic disease.  

• The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) recently shut down the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's (CDC) National Asthma Control Program, the CDC’s Office on Smoking and Health and the CDC’s Chronic Disease Education & Awareness Program. 

• The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is now allowing major polluters to bypass requirements that limit toxic emissions – emissions that directly worsen asthma and other chronic lung conditions in children. 

• The EPA also announced the shut down of its Office of Research and Development, which does exactly the kind of research the MAHA report calls for on the topics of the impacts of toxic exposures on kids. 

• The President’s own budget request proposes to slash funding for the very programs tasked with preventing childhood chronic disease–including the CDC’s Chronic Disease Center itself.  

• By gutting funding, cutting staff and rolling back health protections, the administration is dismantling the very infrastructure needed to keep kids healthy. 

What the report fails to mention:

• Big polluters. We have always agreed that children require special attention when it comes to environmental health. And while the report does list pollutants like particulate matter, smog, VOCs, NOx and others as particularly dangerous for children to breathe, the report fails to make any mention of the main drivers of those pollutants – industrial facilities, power plants, oil and gas wells and gas-powered vehicles. While Congress and the EPA are taking steps to strip away clean air protections, the failure of this report to acknowledge the largest culprit of making kids breathe toxic air will allow for further degradation of clean air policy. 

• Access to care. The report also fails to mention one of the most basic determinants of children’s health: access to healthcare. This silence is especially striking given that the report came out on the same day that the House of Representatives passed a bill to slash Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act, policies that would take healthcare away from millions of children and families. 

At the end of the day, this report does not give us a clear path forward to make America's kids healthy. The way to protect kids from chronic illness is not by undermining proven, lifesaving measures that have saved millions of lives. It is by using all the evidence-based strategies at our disposal.   

Rather than moving forward to address today’s chronic disease challenges, this report lays the groundwork to bring us back to an era when kids routinely died or suffered lifelong harm from preventable infectious diseases like measles, mumps, polio and pertussis. 

We urge members of the Commission to revise and expand their report to include proven measures that address asthma and other chronic diseases in kids, including clean air protections, tobacco prevention, access to care and sustained public health investment.  

The Commission has stated that it will next release an agenda for work moving forward; this agenda must include these actions. We stand ready to engage with the Commission to ensure that its strategy can help achieve our shared goal: a world where every child breathes clean air and lives free from lung disease, ensuring a healthier future for all.  

About the American Lung Association 

The American Lung Association is the leading organization working to save lives by improving lung health and preventing lung disease through education, advocacy and research. The work of the American Lung Association is focused on four strategic imperatives: to defeat lung cancer; to champion clean air for all; to improve the quality of life for those with lung disease and their families; and to create a tobacco-free future. For more information about the American Lung Association, a holder of the coveted 4-star rating from Charity Navigator and a Platinum-Level GuideStar Member, or to support the work it does, call 1-800-LUNGUSA (1-800-586-4872) or visit: Lung.org.