RFK Jr. Plays the Hits
Plus: NYC can't build a damn park, violence against diplomats, worrying news from Anthropic, and more...
MAHA commission releases report: "Over the past two generations, we have failed to address the alarming rise in childhood chronic disease," reads a new report issued by the president's Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) Commission, helmed by Health and Human Services head Robert F. Kennedy Jr. "Federal and state policy have sometimes been guided more by corporate profit than the public interest. Many of our leading scientific and medical institutions have grown complacent, defaulting to symptom management rather than harnessing gold-standard science to prevent and reverse root causes."
"The U.S. food and agricultural systems have embraced ultra-processed ingredients and synthetic chemicals," continues the report. "Meanwhile, our healthcare system has over-medicalized children, frequently masking and compounding underlying issues. Coupled with rising screen addiction and sedentary lifestyles, these factors are converging to produce a chronically stressed, sick, and isolated generation. This crisis is undermining national resilience and competitiveness." Though I think some of the specifics cited within the report rely on causal leaps and faulty research, I'm not sure this diagnosis of the problem is really incorrect. Kennedy's team continues, noting that the goal is for "the next ten years [to] see a revolution in living standards and prosperity," during which "we understand how to better manage the increased threats to our children's health that come from industrialization." These are worthy goals, if you can stomach some of the anti-corporate leftism that creeps in throughout.
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At times, the MAHA report basically echoes Jonathan Haidt's argument: "Over the past four decades, American children have transitioned from an active, play-based childhood to a sedentary, technology-driven lifestyle, contributing to declines in physical and mental health. Specifically, these declines have been driven by increased screen time, reduced physical activity, and psychosocial stressors like loneliness, chronic stress, and sleep deprivation." The report notes that children and teens are "fail[ing] to meet the 2024 federal guideline of 60 minutes of daily moderate-to-vigorous physical activity"; that daily non-school screen time is extremely high; that loneliness, anxiety, and depression have been skyrocketing; and that ADHD prescriptions have increased drastically (250 percent!) from 2006 to 2016 (ditto with antidepressant and antipsychotic medications). RFK Jr. has a long history of overconfidence in implying or saying that certain medications and vaccines are responsible for specific disorders, but the way he lays it out here is a bit more measured: The standard American childhood has gotten less active, and it looks like more children are suffering both physically and mentally as a result.
Elsewhere, Kennedy points to ultra-processed foods as a major contributor to obesity rates; artificial sweeteners as possibly responsible for gut microbiome imbalances; red dye 40 and other food colorings as "associated" with "symptoms consistent with ADHD." At times, he takes an anti-corporate tone, showing some of his lefty roots: He points to the consolidation of food companies as a major issue, noting that "four companies control 80% of the meat market in the U.S." (but…that's also how meat is so affordable in the United States, and on the preceding page, he touted the nutritional value of eating beef).
The report is sharply critical of federal nutrition guidelines—something Reason has been critical of for decades—as well as the nutritional outcomes of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program and the National School Lunch Program. It seems RFK Jr. is looking to European countries' welfare models, with more nutritional strings attached, as an example of how to remake our own.
At times, RFK Jr. plays the hits—electromagnetic radiation possibly affecting sperm motility! Atrazine in the water supply! The childhood vaccine schedule is too damn long!—but, honestly, it's somewhat refreshing to have a federal commission that's willing to look at, say, the obesity rate, the high consumption of ultra-processed foods, and teens' exploding screen time, and say: This is not good, and we actually bear costs to our health care system the more we allow this to continue.
Of course, he's also giving indicators that he favors a more paternalistic state that intervenes in people's personal choices to stop them from making (what he perceives to be) bad ones.
Scenes from New York: Apologies for going hyperlocal today, but I have made it my mission to liberate this park, for which construction has been inexplicably paused. (I believe it's a permitting issue but have contacted multiple Department of Parks and Recreation representatives for more insight.) Note the most hilarious part (which I have also inquired about): COVID-19 is being used as an excuse for scheduling delays.
I hate to be an Abundance betch over here, but isn't it straight-up insane that the city can't just…build? Like, why does every component of a project like this happen behind schedule? The design was projected to be finished in October 2019, but was actually finished in April 2021. Procurement was supposed to be completed January in 2022, but was actually completed in July 2023. Construction was supposed to be finished in October 2024, and the workers keep saying this summer is the real completion but…summer's here, guys, and it's not open. Imagine if you did this in the private sector. Imagine if I did this with Roundup. ("Sorry guys, it won't be published this morning. Maybe I'll publish in a month or two! It's a COVID-19 delay.")
The whole project was started in 2018, and maybe be finished in 2025—or possibly 2026. In what universe should it take seven years and $10 million to finish a small park? ("The Empire State Building was built faster than this park," snarked my neighbor.)
QUICK HITS
- We'll have no Roundup on Monday. God bless all those who gave their lives in service to our country. And please do enjoy some time outside, firing up that grill, or maybe taking a dip in the ocean or a nice lake.
- Diplomats and embassy staffers, rattled by the killing of two Israeli embassy staffers—a young couple about to get engaged—are wondering whether they need heightened security measures, per Politico. Violence directed at diplomats was more common in the '70s—the Philippine ambassador to Washington was taken hostage, the former Chilean ambassador Orlando Letelier was killed (by his own government) in a car bombing, and an Israeli military attaché was killed outside his home in Maryland—but has, blessedly, become more rare in recent decades.
- More details about the couple, Yaron Lischinsky and Sarah Milgrim.
- "The European Union has stepped in to provide Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty an infusion of millions of dollars to keep functioning as the international broadcaster battles the Trump administration to release funds Congress has already designated for it," reports NPR. Isn't this exactly how it should work? Why should the U.S. government have been funding it in the first place, when the E.U. could have been doing that all along (to the extent that it needs government funding at all)? (Their origin story—they were initially funded to counter Soviet propaganda and provide reliable news to Eastern Europe, where a free press was suppressed—surely it has something to do with it, but at a certain point, it seems absurd that the U.S. government is still on the hook.)
- "One of Anthropic's latest AI models is drawing attention not just for its coding skills, but also for its ability to scheme, deceive and attempt to blackmail humans when faced with shutdown," reports Axios. "Researchers say Claude 4 Opus can conceal intentions and take actions to preserve its own existence—behaviors they've worried and warned about for years." This is all especially ironic because Anthropic was started by ex-OpenAI employees who were worried about the safety of the AI products being developed by their old company; Anthropic's whole shtick is that they're the good guys, developing a superior, safer artificial intelligence product.
- How might the national debt affect you?
- On the new OpenAI device:
We'll smash these things like bugs, as foreseen by Philip K. Dick, six+ decades ago. pic.twitter.com/rVcehhoRWe
— Ken Layne (@KenLayne) May 23, 2025
