Kennedy commission child health report ignores gun violence, the leading cause of child death

The Make America Healthy Again Commission, led by Robert F. Kennedy Jr., has released its Make Our Children Healthy Again Strategy, a 20-page study the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services described arsenic a “sweeping plan” to “reverse the failed policies that fueled America’s puerility chronic illness epidemic.”

In a gathering livestreamed Tuesday from the department’s headquarters, MAHA committee members ticked done ways the U.S. volition tackle mediocre diet, chemic exposures, excess medicine medications and the toxic operation of excessively overmuch accent and excessively small carnal enactment — the 4 superior threats to kid wellness the committee identified successful May.

Absent from the papers was immoderate notation of guns, the starring origin of decease for radical nether the property of 18.

Firearms person been the starring origin of decease for children ages 1 to 17 each twelvemonth since 2022.

More than 2,500 kids died from gunshot wounds successful 2022, the past twelvemonth for which implicit information is available, and guns were liable for 30% of each deaths of 15- to 17-year-olds, the Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Violence Solutions recovered aft analyzing information from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Guns’ lack from the MAHA strategy raised alarm among pediatricians and nationalist wellness experts.

“If you’re putting retired a study that’s expected to code however to assistance our children enactment healthier, and you’re not adjacent mentioning the No. 1 origin of puerility deaths, you ought to beryllium embarrassed,” said Bruce Mirken, a spokesperson for Defend Public Health, a unpaid conjugation of scientists, healthcare workers and different nationalist wellness professionals launched this twelvemonth to propulsion backmost connected disinformation and backing cuts.

The abbreviated papers described much than 120 topics that the medication plans to tackle with small much than a little paragraph each for subjects arsenic varied arsenic h2o quality, ultraprocessed foods and fluoride.

“It lacks details connected however the Administration plans to code those issues and omits cardinal drivers that harm children’s health, including weapon unit and biology hazards,” the American Academy of Pediatrics said successful a connection Tuesday. “We cognize that to marque children steadfast and assistance them thrive, they request safe, unchangeable and nurturing families, communities, relationships and environments.”

When asked astatine Tuesday’s gathering whether the committee considered the relation of firearms, Kennedy replied that his agencies would absorption alternatively connected the reasons young radical were reaching for guns.

“The unit is what we’re acrophobic with,” Kennedy said, “this abrupt onset of unit that began successful the 1990s ... [where] idiosyncratic walks into a schoolhouse oregon religion oregon theatre and starts shooting strangers.”

Kennedy said the U.S. National Institutes of Health volition soon motorboat studies into immoderate imaginable causes of this violence, including the usage of psychiatric drugs, video games and societal media.

The peculiarly American improvement of wide shootings — incidents successful which 1 oregon much shooters people aggregate victims successful nationalist places — has risen sharply since the precocious 1980s, according to information from the Rockefeller Institute of Government, an Albany, N.Y.-based deliberation tank.

Previous probe connected links betwixt psychiatric cause usage and wide shootings has failed to crook up grounds of causation. Kennedy has spoken often of his suspicion that prescribed antidepressants trigger unit successful their users, astir precocious aft past month’s shooting astatine Annunciation Catholic School successful Minneapolis.

“You could find a correlation betwixt usage of psychiatric drugs and violence, but that’s due to the fact that the radical taking these drugs person slump and different intelligence wellness issues,” Mirken said. He pointed to a survey published earlier this twelvemonth successful JAMA Pediatrics that recovered thousands of further kid weapon deaths successful U.S. states with much permissive weapon laws.

Kennedy did not disclose immoderate further details connected the studies Tuesday. The Trump medication has importantly slashed backing to weapon unit prevention probe and programs this year.

“This cognition fits successful with the mode that HHS nether Kennedy approaches astir wellness problems — by focusing connected preconceived notions and conspiracy theories alternatively than connected existent wellness threats,” said Dr. Adam Ratner, a New York pediatric infectious-disease specializer and writer of the publication “Booster Shots: The Urgent Lessons of Measles and the Uncertain Future of Children’s Health.”

“By ignoring guns arsenic a starring origin of puerility mortality and focusing alternatively connected stigmatizing medicine use, Kennedy’s strategy volition endanger children portion doing thing to code the basal of the problem,” helium said.