Analysis of the MAHA Report and EPA's Actions

I. Initial Reactions to the MAHA Commission Report

When Jean - Marie Kauth, a professor at Benedictine University in Illinois and a member of the EPA’s Children’s Health Protection Advisory Committee (CHPAC), first perused the Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) commission report released by the White House in May, she expressed enthusiasm for certain aspects. “They clearly identified the industry as a detrimental influence on the EPA’s lack of success in regulating chemicals, particularly pesticides,” she noted. Kauth’s personal stake in this issue is profound; her daughter succumbed to leukemia at the age of 8 following exposure to the insecticide chlorpyrifos, which the EPA initially banned in 2021, only to have the ban overturned by a court order in 2023.

II. August Committee Meeting and EPA Leadership's Response

In late August, the CHPAC convened to deliberate on a new draft strategy road map, a follow - up to the May MAHA report designed to implement its agenda. However, Kauth’s initial optimism regarding MAHA’s potential mission was undermined. EPA leadership, some of whom had prior associations with the chemical and agricultural industries, struggled to provide satisfactory answers to CHPAC regarding how the agency’s recent regulatory rollbacks on chemicals would safeguard children’s health. Kauth questioned, “By what mechanism are they going to achieve anything when they’ve rolled back the minimal protections we had at the EPA?”

III. Release of the Final MAHA Strategy Report and Criticisms

1. EPA's Assertion vs. Critics' Doubts

The final MAHA strategy report, incorporating input from multiple agencies, was issued by the White House on Tuesday. Lee Zeldin, the EPA administrator, stated that the strategy outlined in the document would “ensure the protection of our kids and our environment.” Nevertheless, critics, including some within the MAHA movement, are skeptical. They question the EPA’s ability to genuinely protect public health given its perceived closeness to corporate interests.

1. Zen Honeycutt's Critique

Zen Honeycutt, the executive director of Moms Across America, a key grassroots advocacy group in the MAHA movement (with Robert F. Kennedy, Jr on its board of advisers), had a mixed reaction. While she was “encouraged by the administration’s collaborative initiatives to welcome bipartisan experts,” she was highly critical of how the new strategy document addressed pesticides. She labeled the new report as “blatant pandering to the pesticide companies.”

1. Pesticide - Related Content in the Reports

2. The May MAHA commission report specifically named glyphosate and atrazine as pesticides potentially harmful to human health. Although multiple international bodies, including the EPA, have deemed these pesticides safe for use, some research has associated exposure to them with various health issues, such as cancer. The MAHA movement has rallied around the goal of keeping pesticides, especially these two, out of the food supply. RFK Jr, the movement’s leader and current secretary of health and human services, has a notable history with glyphosate. In 2018, he was part of a legal team that won a lawsuit against Monsanto on behalf of a terminally ill man who claimed Roundup, a glyphosate - based weed killer, caused his cancer.

3. The new strategy report, released this week, has retreated from explicitly naming glyphosate and atrazine. It only makes a few passing references to concrete actions on pesticides, stating that the EPA will “work to ensure that the public has awareness and confidence in EPA’s pesticide robust review procedures.” Honeycutt was unimpressed, stating, “A few words on a website explaining the pesticide review process to the American people is not going to reduce my children’s allergies, or their autoimmune issues, or their mental health issues. The only thing that would reduce our children’s chronic health issues and mental health issues would be if they reduced the exposure to our children of those pesticides.”

IV. Additional Criticisms and Industry Responses

1. David Murphy's Views

David Murphy, who worked on Kennedy’s presidential campaign, echoed Honeycutt’s critiques. He called the strategy report “a major missed opportunity for the Trump administration,” alleging that “the pesticide industry is firmly entrenched in the White House and intentionally undermining Trump’s campaign promise to the millions of MAHA voters who helped him return to power.” In response, the White House spokesman Kush Desai told WIRED that “The Trump administration is committed to continuing to work with our stakeholders to deliver more MAHA wins for the American people.”

1. Industry Ties and Reactions

2. Three key individuals leading the EPA’s chemical work have extensive connections to the chemicals and pesticides industry. The New York Times reported in May that Nancy Beck, the leader of the Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention, had pushed behind the scenes to exclude pesticides from the original MAHA commission report. EPA press secretary Bridget Hirsch defended Beck, stating, “President Trump made a fantastic choice in selecting Dr. Beck, who has never been a lobbyist in her life—no mainstream media outlet has reported that correctly. Beck and her colleagues remain committed to being led by the science, unlike Biden EPA appointees with major ethical issues that were beholden to radical groups.”

3. Zeldin’s public calendar reveals that he has met at least six times in the past seven months with chemical and plastics companies and lobbying groups, including a meeting with Bayer AG in June 2018, which acquired Monsanto. Hirsch dismissed the significance of these meetings, saying, “It’s a disservice to your readers to cherry - pick six of Administrator Zeldin’s many meetings over the last nine months from his very full calendar to paint an inaccurate picture and bolster your false narrative. Administrator Zeldin is committed to protecting human health and the environment 100 percent—any implication otherwise is your opinion and nothing more.”

4. Brian Leake, the director of external communications for Bayer, said in an email that the company was “pleased to see feedback provided by the agriculture industry—in particular, farmers—was solicited and received by the commission, helping inform the report. Bayer stands behind the safety of our glyphosate - based products, which have been tested extensively, approved by regulators, and used around the globe for 50 years. The EPA has an extremely rigorous review process which spans multiple years, considers thousands of studies, and involves many independent risk assessment experts at the EPA.”

V. EPA Reorganization and Its Impact on PFAS Work

1. EPA Reorganization

As of May, 3,000 employees had already left the EPA. In that same month, EPA leadership announced plans to dissolve the Office of Research and Development, its independent scientific arm. At the start of the year, this office employed over 1,000 scientists. The reorganization, which began in July, involved redistributing some employees to other areas of the agency while laying others off. Hirsch said that the reorganization will “improve the effectiveness and efficiency of EPA operations and align core statutory requirements with its organizational structure.”

1. Impact on PFAS Work

These internal crises may be affecting the EPA’s work on per - and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), or “forever chemicals,” a concern for the MAHA movement. Research has linked these non - degradable chemicals to various health issues. The new strategy document states that the EPA and National Institutes of Health will assist the CDC in “updating recommendations” regarding the health risks of PFAS in water. However, it’s unclear how comprehensive this review will be, especially considering that in 2024, the Biden administration set limits on six PFAS chemicals in drinking water, and in May, the EPA announced it would reconsider limits on four of those.

Two EPA employees working on PFAS issues, speaking on condition of anonymity as they were not authorized to talk to the press, told WIRED that due to the agency’s shake - ups, they are facing difficulties in procuring supplies, hiring lab techs, and carrying out their work. One employee said, “I’ve been here for several years. It is the least productive period for me, including Covid, and it seems like everyone else is in the same boat.” In response, Hirsch stated, “We are confident EPA has the resources needed to accomplish the agency’s core mission of protecting human health and the environment, fulfill all statutory obligations, and make the best - informed decisions based on the gold standard of science.”