The final recommendations from the MAHA Commission align more with the agricultural industry’s goals than the MAHA movement’s asks.
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The final recommendations from the MAHA Commission align more with the agricultural industry’s goals than the MAHA movement’s asks.
September 9, 2025
September 9, 2025 – Despite criticisms from Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) supporters who have been calling for action on the use of pesticides linked to health risks, the MAHA Commission’s Strategy Report, released Tuesday, removed one of the only mentions of “reducing” pesticide use included in an earlier draft.
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The first MAHA Commission report, released in May, delivered an assessment of possible drivers of childhood chronic disease—including “chemical exposure”—and included some mentions of health concerns tied to American agriculture’s use of specific pesticides, like glyphosate. The second report outlines the Trump administration’s overall plan to address chronic disease in children via research and policies enacted across multiple federal agencies.
In the months between the two reports, agriculture industry groups criticized the mention of pesticide use as harmful,and the White House held meetings with many of them. Some farm groups received a preview of the second document before it was submitted to the White House. During a recent Senate Finance hearing, Kennedy said he had met with 140 farm interests, and assured lawmakers that agriculture was being incorporated into the MAHA agenda.
A MAHA banner is hung from the headquarters of the Department of Health and Human Services on September 9, 2025. (Photo credit: Lisa Held)
A draft of the second report was leaked to Politico and The New York Times in early August. In it, the main pesticide policy recommendations were to increase chemical approvals and to build trust in that approval process, rather than restrict chemical use or take a more precautionary approach to safety evaluations. Those provisions are intact in the final report.
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) will “increase the timely availability of more innovative growing solutions for farmers,” it says, and “work to ensure that the public has awareness and confidence in EPA’s pesticide robust review procedures” in conjunction with food and agricultural groups.
Critics say the policy recommendations amount to a public relations campaign with few effectual changes.
“The commission’s directive for the EPA and Big Ag to coordinate on a PR campaign aimed at convincing Americans that our pesticide regulatory process is robust is frankly insulting,” Lori Ann Burd, environmental health director at the Center for Biological Diversity, said in a statement. “The reality is that our pesticide regulatory process is as full of holes as Swiss cheese, and a slick PR campaign can’t change that.”
The final report also includes a section saying the EPA and U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) will “prioritize research and programs to help growers adopt precision agricultural techniques.”
The draft of the report said such research would include techniques “that will help growers further reduce pesticide usage.” In the final report, however, that was replaced with the phrase, “that will further optimize crop applications.” The final draft did keep language around precision technology’s potential to “decrease pesticide volumes, improve the soil microbiome, and have a significant financial benefit for growers.” Taken together, the language eliminates the proactive directive to cut pesticide use.
The final report also says federal agencies will develop a research and evaluation framework for “cumulative exposure” across chemical classes. Advocacy groups and researchers have for years been calling for more research and attention on the health risks of multiple pesticides when combined with other chemicals.
While the draft did not include details on “forever chemicals”—another concern of many MAHA supporters—the final strategy added that with data and scientific review from the EPA and the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) “will update recommendations regarding fluoride and PFAS in water.”
While the CDC can make recommendations, the EPA regulates chemicals in drinking water. In May, Administrator Lee Zeldin rolled back limits on four PFAS (per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances) that had been set by the Biden administration, leaving two in place. In the last few months, the EPA has also approved four new pesticides that qualify as PFAS, based on an internationally recognized definition that the EPA does not use.
Other agricultural provisions in the final report include recommendations to streamline organic certification processes, reduce regulatory burdens on small farms, and provide farmers with new tools to implement soil health practices. (Link to this story.)
This is the first of multiple news stories on the MAHA Commission Strategy Report. Civil Eats will also be reporting on a report release event taking place at 2 pm ET today.
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