Donald Trump policies at odds with 'MAHA' push

In his March address to Congress, President Donald Trump honored a Texas boy diagnosed with brain cancer.

- Stephanie Armour, Tribune News Service

Amid bipartisan applause, he vowed to drive down childhood cancer rates through his “Make America Healthy Again” (MAHA) initiative. A few days later, the administration quietly dropped a lawsuit to cut emissions from a Louisiana chemical plant linked to cancer. At first glance, Trump appears to have fully embraced the MAHA movement championed by Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. From proclaiming in his congressional speech a goal to “get toxins out of our environment” to launching a new commission to study cancer and other ailments, Trump has vowed to end what he calls an epidemic of chronic disease. But even as he extols MAHA, Trump has unleashed a slew of policies likely to make Americans less healthy. He's slashing 20,000 full time positions from HHS and cutting more than $4 billion in indirect costs related to health research grants, including studies into treatment for Alzheimer's and cancer. He also supported a GOP plan likely to kneecap Medicaid, a joint federal-state program that covers about 72 million Americans.