On February 13, 2025, at the swearing-in of Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS) Robert F. Kennedy Jr., President Donald Trump signed Executive Order “Establishing the President’s Make America Healthy Again Commission” (MAHA Commission or the Commission). The purpose of the Commission is to “re-direct our national focus, in the public and private sectors, toward understanding and drastically lowering chronic disease rates and ending childhood chronic disease.”
The MAHA Commission is tasked with rethinking policy on “nutrition, physical activity, healthy lifestyles, over-reliance on medication and treatments, the effects of new technological habits, environmental impacts, and food and drug quality and safety.” In addition, the Commission is charged with protecting “expert [scientific] recommendations from inappropriate influence” and “increasing transparency regarding existing data.”
Representatives from multiple federal agencies and offices focused on health — including the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the National Institutes of Health (NIH), and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) — make up the Commission.
It also includes representatives from the departments of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), Education, Agriculture and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), indicating that the recommendations coming out of the Commission could sweep across sectors and not be limited to products and services overseen by HHS.
A Commission assessment to the president is due within 100 days, and a more fulsome strategy is due within 180 days. To do this, the Commission can hold “public hearings, meetings, roundtables, and similar events,” and may solicit input from expert “leaders in public health and government accountability.”
The executive order devotes particular attention to topics that Secretary Kennedy has spoken publicly about. It specifically calls out the rise in autism, citing a statistic that he has used many times: that “autism spectrum disorder now affects 1 in 36 children in the United States — a staggering increase from rates of 1 to 4 out of 10,000 children identified with the condition during the 1980s.”
The executive order also directly references both ultra-processed foods and prescription drug utilization — two other areas that Secretary Kennedy has highlighted as priorities — in the MAHA Commission’s mission statement.
The breadth of the Commission’s charge may also sweep in other products that are thought to have a health impact, including products regulated by agencies other than HHS, such as pesticides regulated by EPA.
The presence of the secretary of Agriculture on the Commission also suggests that we may see recommendations regarding the Women, Infants and Children (WIC) program and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), both of which are administered by the Agriculture department and directly impact nutritional recommendations and grocery shopping habits for low-income families.
We anticipate that many of the MAHA Commission’s recommendations will track closely to policies that Secretary Kennedy has spoken publicly about before, including:
- Vaccine safety.
- Reducing food additives.
- Consumption of ultra-processed foods.
- Reforming government practices that may lead to apparent conflicts of interest between the government and regulated industry.
We will closely track the public-facing activities of the Commission as well as the ultimate 100-day report and 180-day strategy document. (For more on this topic, see our February 13, 2025, article “Under RFK Jr., US Health Policy and FDA Operations May See Major Shifts.”)
See the Executive Briefing publication
This memorandum is provided by Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP and its affiliates for educational and informational purposes only and is not intended and should not be construed as legal advice. This memorandum is considered advertising under applicable state laws.