Report details

Children's health

In the report, the Commission says American children are stressed, sleep-deprived, and addicted to screens. It also notes that rising rates of conditions like obesity, diabetes, and mental illness threaten America's health, economy, and military readiness.

"Today's children are the sickest generation in American history in terms of chronic disease," the report says.

The report specifically calls out technology companies and social media platforms that it says have helped create a "technology-driven lifestyle."

"Since 2010, smartphones, social media, and gaming have reshaped childhood, and have likely helped to drive mental health declines through social deprivation, sleep disruption, attention fragmentation, and addiction," the report says, citing author Jonathan Haidt's book "The Anxious Generation," which links the rise of smartphones and social media to declining mental health among children.

The report also says that electromagnetic radiation exposure from cellphones and wearable devices could have an impact on children's health. However, it also notes that "a systematic review of over 50 studies found low to inadequate evidence on impact on children and called for more high-quality research."

Poor sleep, chronic stress, loneliness, and excess diagnosis or treatment are also listed as possible causes of childhood mental health problems in the report. It also specifically calls for additional research on whether "trauma-informed care and gentle parenting potentially pathologize normal emotions, undermine resilience, and contribute" to anxiety and depression, though the report admits the idea is "controversial and disputed by many experts."

The report also partly blames the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program as well as federal school meals programs for increased chronic disease among children, saying the programs have "drifted from their original goals."

In addition, the report scrutinizes the rise in prescription medications among children, specifically calling out antibiotics, weight-loss drugs, and mental health medications like antidepressants, antipsychotics, and stimulants, and saying the United States is facing a "crisis of overdiagnosis and overtreatment."

The report places much of the blame for its claims that children are overmedicated on the pharmaceutical industry and "corporate capture," in which industry interests dominate and distort scientific literature, legislative actions, academic institutions, regulatory agencies, medical journals, physician organizations, clinical guidelines, and the media.

The report discounted the role of peer-reviewed journals as sources of scientific evidence, saying that drugmakers have a large role in funding clinical trials and can selectively provide data for researcher and reviewer analysis.

"Peer review, the gatekeeping attribute that defines medical journals, is ineffective and biased; reviewers at top journals are untrained, ineffective when tested, and many have financial ties to drug companies," the report said.

Vaccines

The report reiterates views Kennedy has previously said regarding vaccines; however, it does not suggest that vaccines could be responsible for the rise in autism diagnoses among American children.

The report implies that the increase in routine immunizations given to children could be harmful — something that many scientists say is based on an incorrect understanding of immunology, as today's shots are more efficient and contain far fewer stimulants to the immune system than they did decades ago.

The report also states that childhood vaccines haven't been tested in clinical trials involving placebos. However, new vaccines are generally tested against placebos whenever it's necessary, feasible, and ethical to do so.

Specifically, the report notes that "vaccines benefit children by protecting them from infectious diseases," but like any other medication, "vaccines can have side effects" and "the expansion of childhood vaccine mandates and public health — combined with efforts to combat vaccine hesitancy" has made "open scientific discussion and inquiry" about vaccines more difficult.

In addition, the report notes that U.S. surveillance systems that detect the side effects of vaccines have significant shortcomings. It urges federal agencies to "build systems for real-world safety monitoring of pediatric drugs," but isn't clear on how that would differ from the systems currently in use.

"The ultra-processing of these ingredients displaces nutrient-dense whole foods, resulting in a reduction of essential vitamins, minerals, fiber, and phytonutrients needed for optimal biological function," the report says.

The report also blames "compromised dietary guidelines" that have been too heavily influenced by food manufacturers for poor health outcomes among American children.

Discussion

In an event unveiling the report, Kennedy said it served as "a call to action for common sense" and "an invitation to the American people and the American press to have a complex conversation about a nuanced subject." Kennedy also said during a call with reporters that solutions for the health crisis will come within 100 days.

Philip Landrigan, a pediatrician and epidemiologist who directs the Program for Global Public Health and the Common Good at Boston College, said the report accurately describes worsening health among American children and notes a number of synthetic chemicals like pesticides and microplastics that could play a role.

"The first 18 pages of the report are brilliant," he said. However, he noted the report understates the known risk of many chemicals.

For example, Landrigan noted the report downplays the hazards of phthalates, which are used to make plastics, and of certain pesticides that have been determined to be dangerous to children's health but are still widely used.

"They mentioned correctly that phthalates can trigger hormone dysregulation, but they could have also said that phthalates produce birth defects of the male reproductive organs and can lead to infertility," Landrigan said.

Dariush Mozaffarian, director of the Food is Medicine Institute at Tufts University, said it's "terrific to see such a clear, direct admission from the government that we are failing our children's health — and that our food is one dominant driver."

Mozaffarian said the report appropriately calls out an excess of ultraprocessed foods and not enough fruits and vegetables as problems with children's diets, but it "misses the massive problem of high salt," which can cause high blood pressure in children. He also said he wished the report had focused on the "many other severe deficiencies in the American diet," like a lack of legumes, nuts, minimally processed whole grains, fish, yogurt, and healthy plant oils.

Marion Nestle, an emerita professor of nutrition, food studies, and public health at New York University, said the report overall "did a phenomenal job" describing how ultraprocessed foods are hurting children's health.

The question is how the Trump administration will fix the problems that are articulated in the report, Nestle added. "In order for them to do anything about this, they're going to have to take on corporate industry," including agriculture, food, and chemical industries, she said.

Regarding vaccines, the report doesn't provide any evidence that the current childhood vaccine schedule is to blame for rising obesity, diabetes, or autism rate, said Amesh Adalja, an infectious disease physician at Johns Hopkins University.

"It's not as if they're positing any kind of causal link," he said, adding that Kennedy is "trying to devalue vaccines in the minds of Americans."

"In this report, there are these ideas that we need to get back to some nostalgic, pre-existing state where children didn't have cellphones, slept more, and went camping," said Peter Lurie, president and executive director of the Center for Science in the Public Interest. "It doesn't seem to really live in the real world."