Robert F. Kennedy Jr, the new US health secretary, has promised to address an epidemic of chronic illness with President Donald Trump’s backing, but his broad agenda from making food healthier to studying vaccines may clash with government spending cuts.

Trump on Thursday ordered the creation of a ‘Make America Healthy Again’ Commission made up of Kennedy and other secretaries to look at everything from the high rates of autism and asthma in children to how much medicine is being prescribed to them for ADHD or other conditions. Kennedy, a 71-year-old environmental lawyer, has said the government should open up its data, conduct new scientific studies on vaccines and tackle gaps in rural healthcare with artificial intelligence and telemedicine. He has plans to go after food additives, an area regulated by the US Food and Drug Administration, one of about a dozen agencies within the $3 trillion US Department of Health and Human Services, according to a Reuters........

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