In late August, the committee met to discuss a new document: a draft strategy road map written as a follow-up to the May MAHA report, intended to execute its agenda.
The final MAHA strategy report, with input from multiple agencies, was released from the White House on Tuesday.
While multiple international bodies, including the EPA, have deemed these pesticides safe for use, some research has linked exposure to these chemicals to a variety of health issues, including cancer.
The MAHA movement has largely united around the need to keep pesticides out of the food supply, with many, including Honeycutt, naming these two pesticides as a particular problem.
However, Zeldin has said that under his supervision, the agency has new “expedited review processes” for pesticides and chemicals.
Jean-Marie Kauth says she was “excited about some of the things they identified” when she first read the White House’s May release of the Make America Healthy Again commission report. They pointed out unequivocally that industry has a harmful influence on the EPA’s lack of success in regulating chemicals, particularly pesticides. “”.
After being exposed to the insecticide chlorpyrifos, which the EPA outlawed in 2021, Kauth claims that her daughter passed away from leukemia at the age of eight. In 2023, a court order lifted that prohibition. Now a professor at Benedictine University in Illinois, Kauth is a part of the EPA’s Children’s Health Protection Advisory Committee (CHPAC), which is a panel of outside experts that provides the agency with advice on matters pertaining to children’s health.
The committee convened in late August to deliberate on a new document: a draft strategy road map that was created as a follow-up to the May MAHA report and was meant to carry out its agenda. EPA leadership, some of whom had previously worked for and with the chemical and agricultural industries, had few answers for CHPAC regarding how the agency’s numerous recent regulatory rollbacks around chemicals would help to protect children’s health, which undermined Kauth’s optimism about some aspects of MAHA’s potential mission.
Kauth asks, “How are they going to do anything at all now that they’ve taken away the little protections we had at EPA?”.
The White House released the final MAHA strategy report on Tuesday, which was influenced by several agencies. The plan described in the document would “ensure our kids and our environment are protected,” according to a statement from EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin. But given how supportive the EPA is of corporate interests, some critics, including those in the MAHA movement, are wondering how the agency can actually safeguard public health.
Moms Across America is the grassroots advocacy organization at the heart of the MAHA movement, and Zen Honeycutt serves as its executive director. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is a member of the advisory board. Overall, Honeycutt says she has been “extremely encouraged by this administration’s collaborative initiatives to welcome bipartisan experts.”. However, the way the new strategy document addressed the pesticide issue drew harsh criticism from her. “Blatant pandering to the pesticide companies” is how she describes the new report. “.”.
Two common pesticides, atrazine and glyphosate, were specifically mentioned in the May MAHA commission report as possibly hazardous to human health. (WIRED examined the footnotes in the sections on these two chemicals because other outlets have claimed that the report may have used artificial intelligence (AI) to fabricate research; all of the studies cited are real. Although these pesticides have been approved for use by a number of international organizations, including the EPA, some studies have connected exposure to these chemicals to a number of illnesses, including cancer.
Many, like Honeycutt, have identified these two pesticides as a specific issue, and the MAHA movement has mainly come together around the need to prevent pesticides from entering the food supply. In particular, glyphosate has a lengthy history with RFK Jr., the current secretary of health and human services and the leader of the MAHA movement. On behalf of a terminally ill man who claimed that his cancer was brought on by exposure to Roundup, a weed killer whose primary ingredient is glyphosate, Kennedy was a member of a legal team that prevailed in a 2018 lawsuit against the massive agribusiness corporation Monsanto.
Numerous industry groups, including influential farmers’ and growers’ groups, criticized the May report for including pesticides because of its inclusion. Almost fifty farm and food groups were invited by the White House to discuss the report during the summer.
This week’s new strategy report reverts to its earlier clear stance on pesticides by omitting the names of glyphosate and atrazine and only mentioning a few specific actions related to pesticides. Honeycutt finds the EPA’s pledge to “work to ensure that the public has awareness and confidence in EPA’s pesticide robust review procedures” unsatisfactory.
“My children’s allergies, autoimmune diseases, and mental health problems won’t be lessened by a few words on a website that explains the pesticide review process to the American people,” Honeycutt claims. “Reducing our kids’ exposure to those pesticides is the only way to lessen their chronic health and mental health problems. “.”.
Working on Kennedy’s presidential campaign, David Murphy echoes Honeycutt’s criticisms. He told Politico that the strategy report was “a major missed opportunity for the Trump administration” and that “the pesticide industry is in the White House and purposefully short-circuiting Trump’s campaign promise to the millions of MAHA voters who helped him return to power.”. White House spokesman Kush Desai told WIRED that the Trump administration is dedicated to working with its stakeholders to achieve more MAHA victories for the American people. ).
It’s possible that the final report will indicate the opposite of what MAHA desires. The strategy document states in its section on “Process Efficiencies and Deregulation” that the agency will “work to reform the approval process” for both biological and chemical pesticides. Nevertheless, Zeldin has stated that the agency has new “accelerated review processes” for chemicals and pesticides under his direction.
“It appears that they are attempting to expedite the approval process,” says Betsy Southerland, a 33-year EPA veteran who came forward as a whistleblower during the initially Trump administration. The MAHA supporters, however, did not anticipate doing that. By reviewing these pesticides, they hoped to advance health protection rather than merely expedite the process and release more. “”.
The EPA referred inquiries about the strategy document to the White House and the Department of Health and Human Services and did not answer a question about whether it plans to implement new reforms based on the MAHA agenda. Regarding the strategy, HHS did not respond to specific inquiries. “To restore America’s health, HHS is implementing ambitious reforms,” HHS spokesperson Andrew Nixon told WIRED. We refuse to be influenced by partisan detractors. Our priorities are openness, science, and providing the American people with outcomes. “.”.
EPA’s chemical work is currently led by three key individuals who have deep connections to the chemicals and pesticides industry. Nancy Beck, the head of the Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention, pushed behind the scenes to have pesticides left out of the initial MAHA commission report, according to a May New York Times story.
“By the way, no lamestream media outlet has accurately reported that President Trump made a great choice in appointing Dr. Beck, who has never been a lobbyist in her life,” EPA press secretary Bridget Hirsch told WIRED in a statement. As Hirsch stated, Beck and her colleagues “remain committed to being led by the science, unlike Biden EPA appointees with major ethical issues that were beholden to radical groups.” “. “.”.
In the last seven months, Zeldin has met with lobbying groups and chemical and plastics companies at least six times, according to his public calendar. In June, he met with Bayer AG, the company that acquired Monsanto in 2018.
To paint an inaccurate picture and support your false narrative, Hirsch stated, “It is a disservice to your readers to cherry-pick six of Administrator Zeldin’s numerous meetings over the last nine months from his very full calendar.”. “Any suggestion that Administrator Zeldin is not dedicated to safeguarding the environment and public health is merely your opinion. “”.
According to an email from Brian Leake, Bayer’s director of external communications, the company was “pleased to see feedback provided by the agriculture industry—in particular, farmers—was solicited and received by the commission, helping inform the report.”.
“Bayer is committed to the safety of our glyphosate-based products, which have undergone rigorous testing, received regulatory approval, and been used for 50 years worldwide,” Leake stated. Thousands of studies are taken into account during the EPA’s multi-year, highly stringent review process, which also includes numerous independent risk assessment specialists. “.”.
3,000 workers had already quit the agency as of May. The Office of Research and Development, EPA’s independent scientific arm that employed over 1,000 scientists at the beginning of the year, was to be disbanded, with some scientists being laid off and others being transferred to other parts of the agency, according to a statement made by EPA leadership that month. In July, that reorganization got underway. According to Hirsch, the restructuring will “align EPA’s organizational structure with its core statutory requirements and improve the effectiveness and efficiency of EPA operations.”. “”.
The agency’s work with per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), also known as forever chemicals, is another area of concern for the MAHA movement, and employees say these crises may be impacting that work. These chemicals don’t break down in the environment, and an increasing amount of research has connected them to a number of health issues. The EPA and National Institutes of Health will assist the CDC in “updating recommendations” about the health risks of PFAS in water, according to the strategy document that was made public this week.
The strength of such a review is unknown. Six PFAS chemicals in drinking water were limited by the Biden administration in 2024. The EPA said it would be reevaluating the restrictions on four of those in May.
Two EPA workers on PFAS issues told WIRED that they are having trouble hiring lab technicians, acquiring supplies, and carrying out their duties as a result of agency reorganizations. These staff members were not permitted to speak to the media, so they agreed to speak to WIRED on the condition of anonymity. Hirsch, the press secretary for EPA, told WIRED, “We are confident EPA has the resources needed to accomplish the agency’s core mission of protecting human health and the environment, fulfill all statutory obligations, and make the best-informed decisions based on the gold standard of science.”. ).
One worker told WIRED, “I’ve been here for months.”. “For me, including Covid, it is the least productive time of year, and it appears that everyone else feels the same way. “.”.
