The Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) Commission released its first report, a data dump detailing the medical and scientific backing for its worldview of a chronic health crisis among American youth.

However, the report is light on next steps or detailing specific initiatives that the commission’s various executive branch department heads will do after forming this worldview. That’s slated to come later, in mid-August. Without too many potential action points, it’s still unclear how the MAHA Commission’s potential actions will impact behavioral health.

Previously, industry leaders had voiced concerns about the MAHA Commission’s skepticism about pediatric behavioral health medications. The group — headed by U.S. Health and Human Services Department Secretary Robert F. Kennedy — casts these medications as a cause of the chronic health crisis, not a symptom of it.

The report heaps further skepticism on these kinds of medications and several others as sources of harm to American children. Overall, it suggests that youth are “overmedialized,” citing research that claims as much as a third of care is unnecessary. But at the same time, the report states that there is an actual increase in distress among children when it comes to their behavioral health.

“Children’s mental health in America presents a paradox for clinicians and policymakers: overdiagnosis of conditions like ADHD, depression, and anxiety coexists with a genuine rise in distress,” the report reads. “This tension, driven by factors like screen time, social isolation, and academic pressure discussed earlier, complicates efforts to address youth mental health effectively.”

It further clarifies that it prioritizes randomized controlled trials to the point of casting treatments or medications as harmful if they “offer no benefit when compared to placebo are harmful” regardless of what other models of study show.

The report specifically points to the so-called “black box warning” that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration mandated in 2018 be included with selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) for children due to randomized controlled trials showing an elevated risk of suicidality in the first few months of taking the medication. It also questioned the value of stimulants, often used to treat ADHD, citing research that finds that on average, children treated with stimulants are on average half an inch shorter than those that did not at adulthood and that superior outcomes didn’t persist after 36 months of treatment. 

It also generally questions the value of medications for psychiatric conditions, listing several known potential side effects that could include chemical dependency, seizures, manic episodes, the growth of breasts in boys and neurological impacts — depending on the medication.

However, the bulk of the report is spent decrying the influence of corporate interests over several aspects of the American economy and government. It specifically highlights corporation’s power over the global food supply, medical research and practice and government oversight.

“The pharmaceutical industry, with its vast resources and influence, is a primary driver of this capture, though similar dynamics pervade the food and chemical industries, further exacerbating health challenges,” the report states.

Because of regulatory capture by private industry, corporations are able to engage in practices or create products that are ultimately harmful for Americans in the interest of financial gain, the report alleges.

The report echoes many of the mandates detailed in the executive order that created it: requiring less involvement of big business in assessing safety standards, a reworking of funding and standards for federally backed research and an increased focus by the federal government on prevention and wellness initiatives.

Perhaps surprisingly, the report lacks specific mention of a link between autism and vaccines or any other environmental toxin other than a glancing mention of research on food coloring. An abstract of that study states, “The research does not prove that food coloring actually causes autism spectrum disorder, but there seems to be a link.”

RFK Jr. has said that the federal government will release a comprehensive report on the causes of autism in August.