Today, the White House released a report, helmed by Department of Health & Human Services Secretary Robert Kennedy Jr., detailing the factors it claims are sickening America’s children. The report takes aim at critical anti-hunger programs, while ignoring industrial agriculture’s well established public health crisis. The report is right to highlight the health impacts of ultra-processed foods, microplastics, PFAS, and pesticides, but falls short of directing real policy recommendations capable of reigning in corporate polluters. 

The report pulls punches on the well-documented impacts of pesticides including glyphosate-based products like Roundup, whose key ingredient the World Health Organization defines as a probable carcinogen; and fails to mention the health impacts of factory farming. These include widespread antibiotic use which encourages antibiotic resistance and disease spread; and largely unregulated water pollution which contaminates drinking water with cancer-linked nitrates.

In response, Food & Water Watch Senior Food Policy Analyst Rebecca Wolf issued the following statement:

“Improving public health in America cannot happen without reigning in corporate control. It is a grave mistake to exclude Big Ag from culpability. Half-baked finger-pointing that blames the sick is no replacement for robust policy making. Any administration serious about public health must strictly regulate the corporations putting our food and water supplies at risk. That includes closing the GRAS loophole that allows corporations to police themselves; fully funding and staffing food safety agencies; cancelling plans to roll back existing PFAS regulations; and stopping Bayer’s Cancer Gag Act.”

The report release comes as Roundup-manufacturer Bayer pushes Cancer Gag Act legislation across the country to limit pesticide manufacturer liability from health-related lawsuits. The corporation has spent over $11 billion to date settling more than 100,000 cancer lawsuits related to Roundup. 

Earlier this month, public opposition successfully stopped passage of Bayer’s Cancer Gag Act in Iowa, where fully 89% of voters oppose pesticide immunity legislation. Copycat bills failed in eight other states, and passed in two. Reintroduction of the federal version of this legislation, the Agricultural Uniformity Labeling Act, is expected this year.