from WNYC studios. I'm Brian Lehrer. This is my daily politics podcast. It's Tuesday,

September 16th. RFK Jr. is out with his promised analysis of children's health in the United

States, which he describes as a

chronic disease crisis. The report describes rising rates of asthma, diabetes, obesity, and

anxiety among children. Most of you know these things. It blames ultra-processed foods and what

it calls the overuse of prescription drugs.

The report is called Make Our Children Healthy Again, part of Kennedy's larger Make America

Healthy Again, Agenda, right?

It does zero in on food, chemicals, and medication as causes, but it leaves out some of the

biggest threats to kids' health that are also real,

gun violence, smoking, vaping, and access to health care itself. Now, taking together the

emissions and the focus on individual lifestyle changes reveal a lot about how this health

department is thinking about children's health and where it

wants to steer the conversation and steer policy. And we should say on the policy level that for all

its urgency of tone and for all RFK is associated with this in general before, now during his tenure,

the document is light on details. It gestures at big changes, but says almost nothing specific

about how to make them happen. So that's where the next round of public health politicking will

begin. So we'll pick it up there with Julie Robner, Chief Washington correspondent for KFF

Health News, and host of the What the Health

Podcast and former NPR Health Reporter, as some of you know, to break it down. Hey, Julie, welcome

back to WMIC. Hi, thanks for having me. So, Julie, the report is fairly short, but it makes sweeping

claims about why kids are getting sicker. How would you

...