Farm groups quaking in their mud boots – MAHA report
Farm groups quaking in their mud boots
All eyes on MAHA report due out Thursday
May 21, 2025
The chickens – as my dear late grandmother might say – appear to be coming home to roost.
Not literal chickens, of course, but rather the type who have spent decades working to avoid exactly what is unfolding this week in Washington, DC – US government recognition that heavy use of pesticides in agricultural food production can be harmful to our health.
After decades of surreptitious spin, “ghost-writing” of scientific studies, currying cozy connections with regulators and heavy spending on lobbying lawmakers over the impacts of chemical agriculture, industry efforts to hide the risks of pesticides remain as aggressive as ever.
But now, those tactics could be losing some of their firepower, thanks to a combination of emboldened grassroot groups, a Trump administration that pledges to prioritize human health improvements (even as it rolls back protective environmental rules), and a robust loyal fan following for new Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a long-time foe of the pesticide industry.
On Thursday, the “Make America Healthy Again” (MAHA) commission led by Kennedy is set to release a key report as a first step to “advise and assist the President” in countering the factors that contribute to high rates of chronic disease in the US, particularly in children.
The White House cites data marking an “alarming trajectory that requires immediate action,” including statistics showing that among more than 200 countries and territories, the US had the highest age-standardized incidence rate of cancer in 2021 and experienced an 88% increase in cancer from 1990-2021, the largest percentage increase of any country evaluated.
For children, 2022 data shows more than 40% of the country’s youth – roughly 30 million – suffered from at least one chronic health problem, with nearly 30% of adolescents prediabetic. More than 3.4 million children are medicated for attention deficit disorders, with diagnoses continuing to climb, the White House states.
The MAHA commission is called on “to study the scope of the childhood chronic disease crisis and any potential contributing causes, including the American diet, absorption of toxic material, medical treatments, lifestyle, environmental factors, Government policies, food production techniques, electromagnetic radiation, and corporate influence or cronyism…”
It is not clear if the commission report will specifically call out pesticide use and the corporations marketing the chemicals as among the culprits of chronic disease.
But the farm industry is sure afraid that it will.
Photo by Olga Kononenko on Unsplash
A preemptive strike
In a firestorm of preemptive shots aimed at keeping pesticide concerns out of the commission’s report, several of the largest and most powerful farm organizations, including the National Corn Growers Association and the American Soybean Association have been “imploring” the Trump administration to “carefully consider the content and consequences” of the commission report, warning that if the commission raises concerns about “production practices” – code for pesticide use – the actions have the potential to “put American food production at risk.”
The very livelihoods of hundreds of thousands of US farmers “are at stake”, the groups said.
On Tuesday, US Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith used a congressional subcommittee hearing to warn Kennedy against any suggestion that “vital crop protection tools” (pesticides), are “suddenly in need of examination.”
Last month, dozens of US lawmakers issued their own warning, writing in a letter to Kennedy that “environmentalists are advancing harmful health, economic, or food security policies under the guise of human health.”
The lawmakers acknowledged pesticide residues are commonly found on foods consumed nationwide, but said the residues meet “extremely conservative limits… according to the best available science.”
They failed to mention the fact that annual government testing of food samples sold around the country shows the majority of food samples carry pesticide residues. And they failed to mention that many scientists and health professionals have come to doubt regulatory assurances about the safety of a steady diet of pesticide residues, questioning what long-term consumption of trace amounts of pesticides in food could be doing to human health.
Roughly 80% of domestic fruits sampled by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in its most recently completed annual sampling program. contained pesticide residues, for example, and 61% of US vegetable samples contained residues. About 56% of US grains sampled showed residues. Overall, pesticide residues were detected in 57% of 731 domestic human food samples tested, according to FDA. A total of 209 different pesticides were detected in a total of 3,030 human and animal foods from both domestic and imported sources.
While the FDA deems the vast majority safe because the pesticide residues found do not exceed allowed levels established by the US government, many other countries do not allow pesticide residues in foods at the levels allowed in the US.
Cancers and more
The only trouble with the outpouring of outrage over the possibility that a finger of blame may point to pesticides as one among many factors contributing to chronic disease is the fact that years of scientific research have shown exactly that – links between many commonly used farm chemicals and cancers, reproductive harms, neurodevelopmental problems and more.
Glyphosate, the active ingredient in Roundup herbicide, is the most widely used weed killer in the world and a mainstay in US agriculture, despite numerous studies linking it to cancer and a 2015 classification by the World Health Organization’s cancer experts dubbing it a probable human carcinogen.
Paraquat, another widely used weed killer, has been linked to Parkinson’s disease, while an herbicide called atrazine has been shown to pose a range of risks to human health, including impairing reproductive functions.
The insecticide chlorpyrifos was used in farming even after research showed it damages the brains of unborn children.
Dr. Philip Landrigan, a pediatrician, epidemiologist and director of the Global Observatory on Planetary Health at Boston College, said the evidence of pesticide dangers is decades old.
“I chaired a 1993 report at the National Academy of Sciences, which documented very clearly that pesticides can cause disease in humans, and that infants and children are especially vulnerable to these effects,” he said. “In the more than 30 years since that time, the evidence that pesticides can cause disease and death has only strengthened. These are not benign chemicals.”
Whether or not Kennedy and the White House will withstand the pressure from the agrochemical industry is unclear. The report to be issued Thursday is being closely watched by advocates for and against the pesticide industry.
“America uses 24% of the worlds pesticides, while being only 4% of the worlds population,” said food activist, influencer and author Vani Hari, also known as “The Food Babe”.
“We have the worst rates of chronic disease of any other developing nation,” Hari said. “If the rates can be reversed, this report will go down in history for being the catalyst for crucial policy making that will protect the American people instead of the profits of industry.”