The Trump administration has declared that it will aggressively combat chronic disease in America.
Yet in its feverish purge of federal health programs, it has proposed eliminating the National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion and its annual funding of $1.4 billion.
That’s one of many disconnects between what the administration says about health — notably, in the “MAHA Report” that President Donald Trump recently presented at the White House — and what it’s actually doing, scientists and public health advocates say.
Among other contradictions:
The report says more research is needed on health-related topics such as chronic diseases and the cumulative effects of chemicals in the environment. But the Trump administration’s mass cancellation of federal research grants to scientists at universities, including Harvard, has derailed studies on those subjects.
The report denounces industry-funded research on chemicals and health as widespread and unreliable. But the administration is seeking to cut government funding that could serve as a counterweight.
The report calls for “fearless gold-standard science.” But the administration has sowed widespread fear in the scientific world that it is out to stifle or skew research that challenges its desired conclusions.
“There are many inconsistencies between rhetoric and action,” said Alonzo Plough, chief science officer at the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, a philanthropy focused on health.
The report, a cornerstone of President Donald Trump’s “Make America Healthy Again” agenda, was issued by a commission that includes Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and other top administration officials.
News organizations found that it footnoted nonexistent sources and contained signs that it was produced with help from artificial intelligence. White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt described the problems as “formatting issues,” and the administration revised the report.
Trump …