A leaked draft of the Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) Commission reports that the commission will not regulate the agriculture industry’s use of pesticides. The MAHA report, released in May of this year, criticized the safety of pesticides that are used by farmers across the country. Marshall County Farmer and National Corn Growers Board member Bill Leigh shares that these pesticides have been tested by science to ensure safety.
“They were calling out two products, glyphosate and atrazine in particular, and those products are quite important to our row crop farmers or corn farmers in Illinois and across the Midwest. And in some ways, we’re trying to ensure and as an organization in the state and nationally, that we use sound science and scientific means of determining, instead of emotional stuff that people are throwing out,” says Leigh. “If it’s harmful, we don’t want to use them because we have much higher contact with these products than anybody else, and I don’t want to do something that’s harmful to me, my kids, the neighbors’ kids, or anybody else. And so we just want good science on this, in this topic.”
A report from Reuters explains the leaked draft recommends the current administration promote healthier diets and examine vaccines and prescription drugs. White House officials have warned that the language of the released draft could still be changed before the release to the public.
