The 20-page report, overseen by Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., echoes many of the talking points Kennedy and those in his wide-ranging and politically diverse “MAHA” movement have united around. The document promises to put an end to childhood diseases and to make children healthier, but does not lay out regulatory changes to ensure an overhaul of Americans’ health.
Among the report’s recommendations is a call for more rigorous government investigations into vaccine injuries, a move that could stir more uproar as lawmakers raise alarm over how the health secretary’s anti-vaccine policies have thrown the nation’s public health agency into weeks of tumult.
Kennedy promised to “recast the entire program” for investigating vaccine injuries as he joined administration officials to unveil the MAHA report. Currently, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention investigates injuries that are reported by individuals or providers.
“They will be welcomed and we will learn everything we can about them so we can improve the safety of these products,” Kennedy said of people who report vaccine injuries. He added that doctors are not currently compensated for filing complaints for vaccine injuries.
A bipartisan group of senators has raised alarm over Kennedy’s actions at the CDC, which was thrown into chaos last month when Kennedy abruptly fired his hand-picked director and other top leaders walked out on the job, citing disagreements over immunization recommendations. Last week, senators grilled Kennedy over his anti-vaccine agenda and leadership of the public health agencies.
The Trump administration’s cuts to federal health programs, including Medicaid, as well as Kennedy’s anti-vaccine rhetoric, could ultimately lead to worse health outcomes for children, Dr. Susan J. Kressly, the president of the American Academy of Pediatrics, said in a statement.
“It lacks details on how the Administration plans to address those issues and omits key drivers that harm children’s health, including gun violence and environmental hazards,” Kressly said of the report. “We also cannot ignore the fact that this report is being published in the context of other recent harmful actions by the Administration and Congress that undermine many of the report’s recommendations.”
An earlier version of the report was first leaked and publicized in August. Slight changes have been made to the final draft, which was developed by a “MAHA” commission that included Kennedy and other members of the president’s cabinet. Despite pledging “radical transparency,” the commission never held a public meeting ahead of the report’s release.
Among the differences in the final version of the report released on Tuesday is a call for the National Institutes of Health to use personal medical records and health insurance claims data to investigate the cause of diseases and disorders, including autism.
“The NIH will link multiple datasets, such as claims information, electronic health records, and wearables data, into a single integrated dataset for researchers studying the causes of, and developing treatments for, the chronic disease crisis,” the report says.
Kennedy has vowed for months that he would unveil the cause of autism, a complex developmental disorder that impacts the brain, by September. He has promised to execute a massive research effort to identify the disorder’s causes, but has stayed mum on details regarding who is conducting that research and when it will be released.
Last month, President Donald Trump pressed Kennedy for his findings during a cabinet meeting.
Those who have spent decades researching autism have found no single cause. Besides genetics, scientists have identified various possible factors, including the age of a child’s father, the mother’s weight, and whether she had diabetes or was exposed to certain chemicals.
Trump ordered his first action as a result of the MAHA report’s recommendations on Tuesday evening, signing a memorandum to beef up enforcement of pharmaceutical ads that run across TVs, websites and social media accounts. Administration officials said during a call on Tuesday that they would be sending “hundreds” of letters to pharmaceutical companies that have run misleading ads.
The “MAHA” report addressed a number of other issues, including ultraprocessed food consumption, water quality, fluoride and the use of prescription drugs in children. Agencies, including the health department and the Department of Justice, should increase enforcement and oversight of prescription drug ads, especially those published by social media influencers and telehealth companies, the report says.
The National Institutes of Health, which is facing a 40 percent cut to its budget, is tasked with undertaking much of the MAHA-related research in the report.
- The meeting, scheduled for 3:00 p.m. in New York (1900 GMT), was requested by Algeria and Pakistan, among others, the sources said Tuesday
UNITED NATIONS, United States: The UN Security Council will hold an
emergency meeting on Wednesday in response to Israel’s strikes targeting
Hamas officials in Qatar, diplomatic sources told AFP.
The meeting, scheduled for 3:00 p.m. in New York (1900 GMT), was
requested by Algeria and Pakistan, among others, the sources said
Tuesday.
Top US immigration official defends rule targeting ‘anti-American’ views in green card, visa process
- Edlow said the agency needs to be aware of what people applying for benefits are saying online and when that speech becomes hateful
CAMP SPRINGS, Maryland: A new rule allowing a US immigration agency to
scrutinize a person’s “anti-American” views when applying for a green
card or other benefits isn’t designed to target political beliefs, but
to identify support for terrorist activity, the organization’s director
told The Associated Press.
In a wide-ranging interview on Monday, the director of the US
Citizenship and Immigration Services, Joseph Edlow, delved into the
agency’s contentious policy — announced last month — which allows
officers to decide whether a foreigner applying for a certain benefit
has endorsed what they believe are anti-American views.
Edlow also detailed problems he sees with a training program that’s
popular with international students, but hated by some Trump supporters.
He described how and why he’s thinking of changing the process by which
hundreds of thousands of people become American citizens every year.
Edlow is overseeing the pivotal immigration agency at a time when
President Donald Trump is upending traditional immigration policy and
charging ahead with an aggressive agenda that restricts who gets to come
into the US through legal pathways.
Questions over what constitutes anti-Americanism
The new policy by USCIS stipulates that its officers could now consider
whether an applicant “endorsed, promoted, supported, or otherwise
espoused” anti-American, terrorist or antisemitic views when making
their decision about whether to grant the benefit.
Critics questioned whether it gives officers too much leeway in rejecting foreigners based on a subjective judgment.
Edlow said the agency needs to be aware of what people applying for
benefits are saying online and when that speech becomes hateful. He said
the agency won’t automatically deny someone a benefit because of what
they said, but it’s a factor they take into consideration.
He said they’re not looking for people who’ve posted anti-Trump speech.
He said criticism of any administration was “one of the most American
activities you can engage in.”
“This goes beyond that. This is actual espousing (of) the beliefs and
the ideology of terrorist, of terrorist organizations and those who wish
to destroy the American way of life.”
In examples of speech that might raise a red flag, Edlow noted students
who post pro-Hamas beliefs or are taking part in campus protests where
Jewish students are blocked from entering buildings.
The Trump administration has made cracking down on student protests a
high priority. The government has said noncitizens who participate in
such demonstrations should be expelled from the US for expressing views
the administration considers to be antisemitic and “pro-Hamas,”
referring to the Palestinian militant group that attacked Israel on Oct.
7, 2023.
In one of the most high-profile examples, federal immigration
authorities in March arrested Palestinian activist and green card
holder, Mahmoud Khalil, who as a student played a prominent role in
Columbia University’s pro-Palestinian protests.
USCIS agents now carry weapons and could make arrests
USCIS recently announced that it could now hire law enforcement agents
who could make arrests, execute search warrants and carry weapons.
That’s a change for the agency that historically investigates
immigration fraud but hands cases over to other agencies to prosecute.
Edlow said their focus would be on “large scale criminal activity” such as large-scale asylum fraud or marriage fraud.
“They’re not a police force. This is going to be a highly trained and
very small section of this agency dealing specifically with rooting out
immigration fraud,” said Edlow. He said previously the agency was
stymied by how far it could take cases because they eventually had to
turn them over to another agency for prosecution.
Edlow said there would be a “couple hundred” of the officers to start,
but put it in the context of the “thousands upon thousands” of other
staff that the agency has to adjudicate benefits.
The agency’s role in verifying voter rolls
The Systemic Alien Verification for Entitlements program was created in
1987 as a way for various government agencies to check whether someone
is eligible for public benefits.
Edlow said his agency has been working with the Social Security
Administration to make it easier for states and local governments to
access. They can now access the system using a Social Security number or
the last four digits of one, instead of needing a specific Homeland
Security identifying number that most of them didn’t have. And they can
submit a number of requests at the same time as opposed to one at a
time.
Edlow also said USCIS is also entering into agreements with secretaries
of state so they can use the system to verify their voter rolls in what
he said was a bid to counter voter fraud.
Critics have questioned the reliability of the data and whether people
will be erroneously dropped from voter rolls as well as whether their
privacy is being protected.
Edlow says the agency has a “huge team” to verify the information is accurate.
Putting ‘parameters’ on work for international students
While Edlow created a furor in his confirmation hearing when he said
he’d like to see an end to post-graduate work authorization for
international students, he told The AP he’s not proposing any specific
changes at this time.
About 240,000 of the 1.1 million people on student visas in the US are
on Optional Practical Training — a one-year post-graduation period when
they are authorized to work in fields related to their degrees. It can
last up to three years for graduates in science, math and technology
fields, which have faced persistent labor shortages in the US.
Edlow said ultimately the fate of the program isn’t just up to his agency to decide, but he wants to put “parameters” on it.
“It creates a competitive, in my opinion, an unfair, competitive
advantage for businesses to hire these students over US students
because, well, they can get in for short term, maybe get them for
cheaper,” he said.
Changes in the offing for citizenship tests
Anyone wishing to become an American must pass tests on English and American government and history.
Edlow said the agency will soon be reverting to using a test introduced
in 2020, during Trump’s first term. That test required applicants to
answer more questions. He’s exploring various changes to the current
test, with no firm timeline. He described it as “too easy,” saying
answers can just be memorized.
“That’s not showing an attachment to the Constitution as required by
the statute,” said Edlow. “Nor is writing a single sentence in English
and reading a single sentence in English really demonstrating a
familiarity at a certain degree with the English language.”
Edlow said he’s weighing having applicants write an essay to assess their understanding of the citizenship process.
H1-B visas and the ‘displacement of American workers’
The H1-B visa program, commonly associated with the tech industry, was
created in 1990 for people with a bachelor’s degree or higher in fields
where jobs are deemed hard to fill, especially science, technology,
engineering and math. Critics say the visa allows companies to pay lower
wages with fewer labor protections.
Controversy over the program has been especially pronounced in the
Republican Party. Wealthy members of the tech world have supported the
visas, while many people in Trump’s base are suspicious.
The White House is believed to be weighing new rules for the program.
Edlow said his concern with H1-B visas is the “displacement of American workers.”
“These companies can more easily and cheaply bring in very experienced
foreign workers at the lower wage level, as opposed to having US
employees that you might need to pay at a different level,” he said.
- The Supreme Court agreed to hear a separate challenge to Trump’s tariffs brought by a family-owned toy company, Learning Resources
WASHINGTON: The US Supreme Court agreed on Tuesday to decide the
legality of Donald Trump’s sweeping global tariffs, setting up a major
test of one of the Republican president’s boldest assertions of
executive power that has been central to his economic and trade agenda.
The justices took up the Justice Department’s appeal of a lower court’s
ruling that Trump overstepped his authority in imposing most of his
tariffs under a federal law meant for emergencies. The court swiftly
acted after the administration last week asked it to review the case,
which implicates trillions of dollars in customs duties over the next
decade.
The court, which begins its next nine-month term on October 6, placed
the case on a fast track, scheduling oral arguments for the first week
of November.
The US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in Washington ruled on
August 29 that Trump overreached in invoking a 1977 law known as the
International Emergency Economic Powers Act, or IEEPA, to impose the
tariffs, undercutting a major priority for the president in his second
term. The tariffs, however, remain in effect during the appeal to the
Supreme Court.
HIGHLIGHTS
• Trade court said Trump exceeded powers with tariffs
• Administration called decision judicial overreach
• Trump cited longstanding trade deficit as an emergency
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