RFK Jr. on chemicals, sick kids and that swim in contaminated water

Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. told NBC News that the Trump administration is simplifying the dietary guidelines meant to advise Americans on healthy eating.

As the Trump administration pushes for deep cuts in federal health agencies, Robert F Kennedy Jr. has produced a 72-page summary on the environmental toxins, chemicals and ultraprocessed foods he said are causing an “existential crisis” in the United States.

In an interview Thursday afternoon with Tom Llamas, senior national correspondent for NBC News and upcoming anchor of “Nightly News,” Kennedy, the secretary of health and human services, said the “Make America Healthy Again” report, which blamed sedentary, technology-driven lifestyles and the overprescribing of medications, represented “the first time in history” that the federal government has recognized the “negative impact of these environmental exposures on the American people.”

The lengthy report went into great detail about what’s wrong with kids in the United States but didn’t offer much depth about what the federal health agencies would do to “make them healthy again.”

Llamas asked Kennedy why, “in the spirit of government efficiency,” the report didn’t offer more solutions, “because you could have written this on Day 1.”

Kennedy promised that “we’re going to do something about it” within 60 days. “We’re going to deliver the prescription of the initiatives that we need to do.”