Words to Know 

Artificial intelligence - When a computer program does things that normally need to be done by humans. We call artificial intelligence “AI” for short.

Centers for Independent Living (CILs) - Places that help people with disabilities make our own choices about our lives. 

Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) - A part of the United States government that works on health care.

De-identified data - Information that has personal information like your name or address taken out. 

Federal legislators - People who make choices about laws for the whole United States.

Food insecurity - When someone can not get enough food. Food insecurity can also mean when someone can’t get food that is good for their body.

Immune System - The parts of your body that help you get better when you get sick. Immune systems fight infections like COVID-19.

Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) Strategy - A new plan put out by HHS. It says what some people in the U.S. government think needs to happen for children in America to get healthier.

Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) Report - An old statement put out by HHS. The report is about health problems in America. It talks about HHS’s ideas to fix them. 

Prescription - When a doctor tells a pharmacy to give a specific medication to a patient. Writing that paper is called prescribing a medication.

Mask bloc - A group that gives masks to people in their community. Mask blocs help people stay safe from getting COVID-19.

Mutual aid group - Local groups that help people in a community get food, clothing, and other things they need to survive.

Remove from office - When someone who works for the government is forced to leave their job.

Resign - When someone chooses to leave their job.

SNAP - A program that helps people buy food. SNAP is for people who do not have a lot of money. SNAP stands for Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program.

What is this explainer about?

The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) put out a plan called the Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) Strategy last week. The MAHA Strategy says what some people in the U.S. government think needs to happen for children in America to get healthier.

This explainer talks about what is in the MAHA Strategy. It explains the problems in the plan, and why they matter.

What does the MAHA Strategy say?

The MAHA Strategy is a plan based on the MAHA Report. The MAHA Report is something that HHS wrote before. The report is about childhood health problems in America. It talks about HHS’s ideas to fix them. ASAN disagrees with a lot of these ideas. You can read our thoughts about the report here.

The way the MAHA strategy talks about sick kids shows that HHS doesn’t understand the problems sick kids have. The MAHA Strategy will:

• Spread wrong health information
• Make rules that make it harder to get vaccines
• Make it harder to get medications for people with ADHD and mental health disabilities
• Give money to badly-made studies that spread wrong health information

The MAHA strategy ignores a lot of public health problems happening now. These are problems like:

• Food insecurity
• Gun violence
• Long COVID
• Medicaid cuts
• Less access to dental care

Instead, some people in government choose to hurt people for how they are born. 

The way society treats us changes our health. This means our health is changed by things like our race, being rich or poor, and gender. The MAHA Strategy does not talk about this. The government leaders working on health policies have not shown that they are good at their jobs. It makes us think they cannot make health policies that will work well. 

ASAN thinks the leader of HHS, Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. (RFK Jr.), should not get to lead HHS. He is bad at his job, and his ideas hurt people. ASAN will keep saying that RFK Jr. should not be the Secretary of HHS. We will also keep talking to people in the government who make decisions. We will explain what real science can tell us about autism. We will explain what real science cannot tell us about autism. We will keep working on making health care, services, and supports accessible to everyone.

Vaccines

The MAHA Strategy wants to change the way people report when vaccines hurt them. Vaccines do not hurt people very often. Vaccines are safe. But some people might have other health problems that make vaccines hurt them. That is why there is a way to report when a problem happens. 

The changes the MAHA Strategy wants to make could change how vaccine companies work. Companies that make vaccines may see these changes and decide to make less vaccines. The MAHA Strategy also wants to change when and how often children get vaccines. They want to change the way we test new vaccines. Vaccines already have to go through lots of testing before they are used on anyone. The way we give vaccines to children is already safe. The changes in the MAHA Strategy would put more people at risk of getting sick. 

HHS has acted strangely about the vaccine reporting system before. They fired the person at HHS in charge of making decisions about vaccines. HHS also fired a group of experts about vaccines. They hired a group of people who are not experts. Many of the people they hired have spread wrong information about the safety of some vaccines.

We are worried because of the way HHS has acted about vaccines this year. They do not follow scientific or medical advice. They do not follow proof from experts. We think any changes to vaccines should happen because experts have given a good reason. The people who HHS have put in power are not experts and do not listen to experts. They should not get to change the vaccine reporting system for no good reason. They should not get to change when or how often kids get vaccines for no good reason.

We are worried HHS will use these changes to vaccine policies to say vaccines and autism are connected. Because of that, we wanted to remind people that vaccines do not cause autism. Lots of studies prove that vaccines and autism are not connected.

Autism

The MAHA Report talked about how more and more people are getting diagnosed with autism. The Strategy says that it’s important to figure out why people are autistic. The people who wrote the MAHA Strategy think autism is a problem. They want to stop people from being autistic.

These ideas hurt autistic people. We are not bad just for being autistic. Living as an autistic person is okay. Autistic people can be alive and happy.

One of the ways HHS plans to study the cause of autism is with something called the Real World Data Platform (RWDP). The RWDP will have health data of many people that HHS will study in new ways. We want to know more about the ways this data will be studied.. We also want to know how this health data will be kept safe and private.

Research

HHS wants to use new ways to do research studies about health. ASAN says these new ways need to follow normal research rules. For example, one important research rule is making sure everyone’s private information is protected. If new health studies follow these rules, they could be a good thing. These new ways could help scientists understand what they are studying better. This information could be used to make better services and supports. But HHS’s history makes us worry about if they will follow normal research rules.

RFK Jr’s actions and thoughts on vaccines, autism, racist fake science, and more worry us. It makes us worry that HHS will not listen to scientists and experts. When RFK Jr. was trying to connect autism to vaccines, he showed a study that had already been proven wrong. This also makes us worry about if RFK Jr. knows what good science is. 

Kennedy and his coworkers have made choices without scientific proof to back them up. Some of these choices are:

• Making it harder for people to get COVID-19 vaccines, 
• Stopping some new vaccines from being made, 
• Changing a part of some flu vaccines. 

We are worried these new types of studies could be used to make up bad science that says they are right.

The MAHA Strategy also says we should change some rules about information people get from health research. The MAHA Strategy wants to make it easier for the government to share de-identified data with researchers. De-identified data is information that has personal information like your name or address taken out. 

We worry about how the government will do this. ASAN has more questions about what these rule changes could be. We question how HHS will de-identify the  data. We want to know how they plan to protect this data. We want to know who will get to see the data. 

ASAN does not like the idea that new research projects could be used to make rules without scientific proof. We hope this does not happen. We hope HHS follows research rules.

Artificial Intelligence

Another new problem the plan brings up is using AI to diagnose people with health problems. Artificial intelligence is when a computer program does things that normally need to be done by humans. We call artificial intelligence “AI” for short. There are many kinds of AI.

We do not think AI should take the place of a doctor diagnosing a patient. Doctors have lots of rules they follow to make sure they don’t hurt patients. Those rules say doctors will be punished if they hurt patients. AI does not have those rules. No one can punish AI if it hurts patients.

Doctors can use AI as a tool if they are careful. But AI should not replace doctors for diagnosing patients.

Medicaid

Another new part of the MAHA Strategy is about changes to Medicaid. One of these changes would apply to a part of Medicaid called managed care plans. This change would push people on managed care plans to see specific coaches to work on their diet and exercise. This is not fair to people on managed care plans.

This is a problem because managed care companies care about saving money. Taking away people’s choices will help managed care companies save money. But medical care is supposed to focus on what is best for the patient. These goals do not work together.

This change also means that managed care companies would collect new health information about people. We are worried about how the health information will be used. We do not want anyone to sell this data. We do not want anyone to use this data unfairly against people with health problems.

Prescriptions 

The MAHA Strategy also wants to make it harder for people on Medicaid to get certain prescription medications. A prescription is when a doctor tells a pharmacy to give a specific medication to a patient. Writing that paper is called prescribing a medication. The MAHA Strategy thinks it should be harder for people to get medication for mental health disabilities and ADHD.

Making it harder for patients to get their prescribed medication is not okay. Medications for ADHD & mental health disabilities take a long time to make and test out. All these medications get okayed by the Federal Drug Administration (FDA). The law says medications have to be tested many times by experts before they can be prescribed. These medications were made and tested to help people with these disabilities. These medications should be easy to get for people who need them. HHS should not make it harder for patients to get medicine from their doctors.

Water Quality

The MAHA Strategy also wants to study fluoride in tap water. Fluoride is a chemical. It is added to tap water in small amounts. Fluoride helps people’s teeth stay strong. There are lots of studies showing that fluoride is safe. But the MAHA Strategy is still worried that fluoride hurts kids. 

This is very strange because of how the government acted around lead in drinking water. Lead pipes can put lead in our water. First, Congress tried to take away a policy that would get rid of lead pipes in the U.S. Then, HHS fired the team at the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) that worked on getting rid of lead. 

There are studies to show that lead in pipes hurts everyone. It is strange that HHS talks about fluoride in this plan, but not lead.

What should a HHS Strategy focus on instead? 

RFK Jr. says that the MAHA Strategy is about helping people be healthier. But the MAHA Strategy does not say anything about a lot of problems that are hurting children. HHS needs to focus on solving problems that are actually hurting and killing people. 

One big problem that is hurting and killing people is gun violence. Gun violence is the biggest cause of death for children in the US. That means that a lot of kids in the US are being killed by guns. HHS says that the MAHA Strategy is about protecting children. But the MAHA Strategy does not talk about gun violence. HHS should focus on stopping kids from being hurt and killed with guns. 

Another problem the plan ignores is Long COVID. Scientists are studying Long COVID to understand what it looks like in children. Long COVID causes many kinds of health problems. COVID-19 can hurt people’s hearts, intestines, and brains. We know a lot more children have Long COVID than we thought two years ago. We need new research to better understand and stop people from getting Long COVID. We also should research how to treat Long COVID in children. But instead of focusing on that, RFK is making it harder for people to get COVID vaccines. You can read more about Long COVID here.

Another problem the MAHA Strategy does not talk about is food insecurity. Food insecurity is when someone can not get enough food. Food insecurity can also mean when someone can’t get food that is good for their body. A lot of people in the US deal with food insecurity because they can not afford food. In some places, people can not get to a grocery store because the grocery store is very far away. In some places, people can not get to a grocery store because they do not have a way to get there. 

HHS should focus on making sure everyone can get enough good food in their communities. One way the government can make sure everyone can get enough good food is to give more money to SNAP. SNAP is a program that helps lots of people afford food. But the government passed a law that takes away money from SNAP. Cutting money for SNAP does not help food insecurity. Cutting money for SNAP does not help people be healthier. 

The MAHA Strategy shows that HHS is not listening to disabled people. People in the disability community have been trying to talk to HHS about the policy problems we have. HHS is making choices that affect disabled people without listening to us.

What is ASAN doing to fight against the bad ideas in the MAHA Strategy?

ASAN does not agree with many of the ideas in the MAHA Strategy. Here is what ASAN is doing to fight against the bad ideas in the MAHA Strategy:

• ASAN is working together with scientists to share information that is true. A lot of the ideas in the MAHA Strategy are based on information that is not true. A lot of the ideas in the MAHA Strategy are not based on good science. ASAN is working with scientists we trust. We will share true information about public health problems that affect the autistic community.
• ASAN is talking to people who make decisions in the government. ASAN is talking to people who make laws to work on getting RFK Jr. out of HHS.
• ASAN will keep fighting for disabled people to make our own choices about the care we need. We will keep fighting for a world where all disabled people get good health care. We will fight for people to get support in our homes and communities.

What can I do to fight against the bad ideas in the MAHA Strategy? 

We can fight against the bad ideas in the MAHA Strategy at the state level. State governments can make choices that will help protect people who live in their state. For example, state government leaders in Massachusetts, New York, and New Mexico made changes to how they give vaccines. These changes make it easier for people in those states to get vaccines. Other states are working together to share true information about vaccines. You can help out with this work in your state. 

Jules Good is ASAN’s State Advocacy Manager. Jules can help you connect with people in your state who are fighting against the bad ideas in the MAHA Strategy. You can email Jules at [email protected].

We can also keep fighting to get RFK Jr out of HHS. RFK Jr needs to resign or be removed from office. Resign means RFK Jr would choose to leave his job at HHS. Removed from office means RFK Jr would be forced to leave his job at HHS.

Federal legislators can work together to get RFK Jr out of HHS. Federal legislators are people who make choices about laws for the whole United States. You can learn how to contact your federal legislators here. 

You can also support projects that help people in your community stay safe. Here are some ideas:

• You can support your local mask bloc. A mask bloc gives masks and respirators to people in their community. Mask blocs help people stay safe from getting COVID-19. You can see if there is a mask bloc in your area here.
• You can connect with a mutual aid group in your area. Mutual aid groups help people get food, clothing, and other things people need to survive. You can find a mutual aid group in your area here.
• You can connect with an ASAN Affiliate Group in your state. ASAN Affiliate Groups are groups led by and for autistic people. Affiliate Groups do advocacy about problems that impact the autistic community. You can see if there is an ASAN Affiliate Group in your area here.
• You can talk to your local Center for Independent Living. Centers for Independent Living are places that help people with disabilities make our own choices about our lives. Centers for Independent Living are called CILs for short. There is usually a CIL in big cities. Sometimes one CIL helps a group of small cities. You can find the CIL for your area here.

Autistic Self Advocacy Network

PO Box 66122
Washington, DC 20035

 

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