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The commission’s approach imitates some of the broader goals outlined in the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 plan. This was a conservative policy agenda prepared for the presidential transition.

Both the commission and Project 2025 emphasize increased transparency in health data, redirected research funding to focus on root causes of illness, and skepticism towards the current medical system’s reliance on pharmaceuticals to treat chronic and mental health conditions.

Scientists and professors across America wrote an open letter to the public about how the Trump administration’s cuts have already impacted scientific research as a whole. But many fear exposure and repercussion, with several health care and political experts in Virginia expressing hesitancy and turning down interviews.

“The administration is slashing funding for scientific agencies, terminating grants to scientists, defunding their laboratories and hampering international scientific collaboration, which is forcing institutions to pause research, including studies of new disease treatments,” the letter stated.

Steven H. Woolf, director emeritus and senior adviser at VCU Center on Society and Health, was one of the estimated 2,000 individuals who signed the letter.

“There’s going to be a damaging effect from this that will harm the health of Americans, which is a bit ironic given the fact that the administration is pushing this slogan about making America healthy again,” Woolf said.

The long term impact will be the cost of lives through limited health care access, and America will not remain the world leader in research, according to Woolf.

“The most important policies to address chronic disease are not in the health space,” Woolf said.

Virginia should address chronic disease by dealing with poverty gaps, education and affordable housing, according to Woolf.

“Dealing with those social conditions that so many Virginians are struggling with would do more to reduce the burden of chronic disease than adding another wing onto the hospital,” Woolf said.

The potential impact of the MAHA commission remains unclear. By late May, the commission will submit an assessment of childhood chronic diseases to the president, and by August it will construct a strategy to improve the health of American children.

SEE: Trump administration's plan to ‘reverse’ chronic disease leaves experts skeptical 

https://www.virginiascope.com/trump-administrations-plan-to-reverse-chronic-disease-leaves-experts-skeptical/