MAHA must keep holding the administration accountable

OPINION:

As Make America Healthy Again works to advance its policy agenda in a new Washington, it should ensure that it continues to hold the administration accountable for the safety of medications that parents use to treat their children.

Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has been blunt about the stakes. When the MAHA Commission released its Make Our Children Healthy Again report in September 2025, Mr. Kennedy called childhood chronic disease “an existential crisis for our country.”

The report points to ultra-processed foods, chemical exposures, lack of exercise and stress as the culprits, but it also proposes supporting new pediatric safety research.

Mr. Kennedy’s recommendation should be especially important to the parents of young children. Parents need the confidence that the right people have rigorously tested whatever they are giving their children.

Americans believe the systems around them have weighed the risks and benefits, studied the side effects and made sure that any treatment that could have long-term harm to children’s growing bodies never reaches the pharmacy counter.

The Food and Drug Administration is central to this effort, and its leadership has been clear about its approach. The agency has framed its pediatric work around speed while maintaining standards.

Earlier this year, FDA Commissioner Robert Califf asked Congress to permanently reauthorize the Rare Pediatric Disease Priority Review Voucher Program so that families facing rare diseases can access therapies sooner.

That is the right balance. Patients and their loved ones managing rare diseases deserve urgency, and every American deserves confidence that urgency never comes at the expense of due diligence.

The FDA’s reputation as the world’s gold standard for safety rests on keeping both promises. Right now, that balance is being tested.

The FDA is reviewing a new treatment for achondroplasia, the most common form of skeletal dysplasia, or dwarfism, in children. Families in this community want options for their children that enable them to begin treatment and keep up with busy school schedules and extracurricular activities without compromises on quality of life.

Yet a recent citizen petition filed by Ascendis Pharma raises a question that people living with achondroplasia want answered. The petition argues that publicly available studies have not adequately addressed the possible neurological consequences of prolonged exposure to the treatment now used in young children.

The petitioner calls on the FDA to apply scientific scrutiny and, if necessary, require additional testing.

American and European regulators already agree on a scientific framework established by the International Council for Harmonization of Technical Requirements for Pharmaceuticals for Human Use, known as ICH S11, for assessing potential risks of medicines to children’s development. Families deserve to see the FDA put that shared framework into practice, seeking additional studies when the evidence warrants them.

The achondroplasia treatment, infigratinib, has also received fast-track designation, an important pathway to facilitate the delivery of new treatments to patients who need them. Although this designation can help avoid unnecessary bureaucratic delays, a speedy review should not override safety, especially when the patients are children.

There is also a practical concern. The Department of Government Efficiency accomplished a great deal in rooting out waste across the federal government, but it also left some agencies short-staffed. As reviewers study the existing information about this drug, there is a greater risk of missing something if the agency is stretched thin.

Nobody should be surprised if a few important questions slip through the cracks, which is exactly why a petition like this is worth taking seriously. Parents making decisions for young children should have the whole story, including the parts still being studied.

For a MAHA movement entering a new chapter in Washington, this is a chance to show that its commitment to pediatric safety applies to every child.

The FDA has a strong process, and its leadership has been right to say that it can move quickly without lowering its standards. This is an opportunity to show it.

The FDA should carefully consider the petition, review the full body of evidence and respond clearly so that families and clinicians can trust the results. If the agency takes these steps, Americans will have one more reason to believe that the gold standard of safety lives on.

• Jared Whitley is a longtime politico who has worked in the U.S. Senate, the White House and the defense industry. He has an MBA from Hult International Business School in Dubai. This year, the Society of Professional Journalists named him among the best columnists in the Intermountain West.