On the first day of committee meetings, Thursday, one peptide, BPC-157, drew eight votes in favor with six against and one abstention. Two others – KPV and TB-500 – split the same way each time. MOTS-c, reviewed for obesity and osteoporosis, passed 7-5 with two abstentions. The panel evaluated BPC-157 for ulcerative colitis, KPV for wound healing and inflammatory conditions, and TB-500 for tissue repair.

All four peptides are familiar names to athletes and longevity clinics, where they have been used for years through wellness practices, medical spas and online retailers operating under research-use-only labels.

“I voted yes because it’s time to put this decision back in the hands of the patient, the physician and the pharmacist,” committee member David Pope said Thursday, moments after the first vote.

Reporters in the room described an audible gasp when the first tally was read – eight in favor, six against, one abstention, for BPC 157. A compounding advisory panel almost never votes against the FDA staff’s written recommendation, and by Friday afternoon this one had done so six times.

Pope, chief pharmacy officer at Xifin Pharmacy Solutions, was among eight committee members who spent two days overruling the agency’s own scientists, clearing six of seven peptides for pharmacy compounding and handing Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. the win he has pushed for since February.

Friday’s voting brought a split. Epitalon, for insomnia, cleared 7-4, and Semax, for migraine, cerebral ischemia and trigeminal neuralgia, passed 8-5. Emideltide, better known as DSIP, failed 6-7 with one abstention. It’s used as a treatment for insomnia, narcotic dependence and opioid withdrawal.

Pope had voted with the majority all week and broke on DSIP, citing “potentially dangerous downstream consequences.” The FDA had flagged a theoretical concern that the compound stimulates endorphin release, a mechanism carrying addictive potential. Emideltide has the deepest human-study history of the group, with trials dating back to 1981, though the agency called them small, poorly controlled and inconsistent.

This week’s votes moved six compounds a step closer to licensed pharmacies, and to the standard Kennedy set for the agency: Do the science, publish it, and then respect the intelligence of the American people enough to let them choose.

Staff says ‘no’ and panel says ‘yes’

The agency’s scientists cited thin clinical evidence and inconsistent chemical naming that left unclear which version of a compound a pharmacy would actually prepare. They also noted that approved drugs already exist to treat the conditions for which these peptides were proposed.

The disagreements percolating beneath the votes had less to do with data than with questions about what happens to people who intend to use these compounds regardless of whether they are FDA approved. Days before the meeting, the FDA added members to the 20-member panel, including at least seven doctors and pharmacists with financial ties to the peptide industry — owners of wellness clinics that sell the compounds, pharmacies that produce them, and consulting businesses that promote them. Those members voted ‘yes.’ The academics mostly voted ‘no.’

Supporters kept returning to an argument Kennedy has made for two years, telling podcaster Joe Rogan in February that he is a “big fan” of peptides and has taken them himself, and that the 2023 restriction drove Americans into a black market.

Brigham Buhler, a wellness clinic owner whose clients include Rogan, put the case to the committee directly.

“It’s crucial to allow patients to have safe and effective access to these treatment options,” Buhler said. “Individuals who have gotten these resources are going to continue to utilize these products.”

A pharmacy operating under a prescription and a state board offers something a website or an unmarked vial from overseas cannot, and that comparison carried the day.

What actually changes, and when?

The committee votes are recommendations, and none of the compounds became an FDA-approved drug this week. The agency will make the final call, and while it usually follows the advisory committee vote, it has gone the other way before. Any change requires formal notice-and-comment rulemaking, and the agency has completed that process for only about ten substances since Congress created the list in 1997.

The agency can also issue a policy statement declining to act against pharmacies while rulemaking proceeds, and FDA watchers expect that faster route rather than formal listing. Even then, a patient would need a physician’s prescription and to pay out of pocket, since most insurance excludes compounded drugs. Providers currently charge roughly $150 to $400 for an initial consultation, and monthly compounded prescriptions in the $80 to $350 range, depending on the peptide.

A regulated pathway would not come with full visibility. Compounders face no requirement to report serious adverse events to the FDA, and agency officials said they lack the authority to impose one here.

Scott Brunner runs the Alliance for Pharmacy Compounding, the industry trade group. He testified in support of the peptides — and then said adverse-event reporting should be required.

In 2023, the FDA placed 19 popular peptides on its Category 2 restricted list, barring pharmacies from preparing them and directing consumers toward online sellers and overseas suppliers. Kennedy announced in February that roughly 14 would be reclassified. The formal removal took effect April 23, and this meeting decided whether a regulated pharmacy channel would reopen behind it. Five more compounds will go before the committee by the end of February 2027, including LL-37, GHK-Cu, Dihexa, Melanotan II and PEG-MGF.

Kennedy has described what he wants from the agency in the meantime.

“The FDA has a job: Just do the science on these kinds of issues and then tell the public what they’ve learned from the science,” he said on the Ultimate Human podcast, hosted by Gary Brecka, who has regularly appeared on the MAHA Media Hub, “but don’t tell physicians what they can and cannot prescribe.”

Kennedy added, “We don’t want to have the Wild West. We want to make sure that information is out there. But we also want to respect the intelligence of the American people.”

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Now, with the support of the MAHA movement, the chiropractic profession has entered a new chapter.

On Monday, July 20, in Washington, D.C., the MAHA Chiropractic Hub Roundtable marked a significant moment for the profession: bringing together organizations that have historically had separate initiatives and approaches.

The event, held at the MAHA Center, featured panels on topics including Medicare; chiropractic care in schools and outcomes data; research, pediatric and pregnancy care; VA and DOD access; reimbursement parity; and building a united front for chiropractic through MAHA.

Key speakers included Leigh Merinoff, Arvin Singh, Brandon Hoffman, Dr. Joe Betz, Dr. Kris Anderson, Dr. Lona Cook, Dr. Amanda Blonigen, Dr. Vickie Dubin-Master, Dr. Steve Tullius, Dr. Joel Bohemier, Dr. Tony Ebel, Dr. Steve Kraus, Dr. Fab Mancini, and former Delaware Governor Bethany Hall-Long.

“Chiropractors have been improving the health of people for 130 years, and they should be the first line of defense,” said Leigh Merinoff, senior vice president of The MAHA Center.

She explained that the goal is to activate the nearly 60,000 chiropractors across the United States who are already serving their communities and to build a model that brings together leaders from different health sectors.

Historically, there has not been a major legislative opportunity that required the profession’s leading associations to align. Organizations like the International Chiropractors Association (ICA) and the American Chiropractic Association (ACA) often pursued their policy efforts independently.

The groups are aligning around the following:

• expanding access to care

• increasing funding for research

• raising public awareness

• advancing a preventative model of health

The Chiropractic Medicare Coverage Modernization Act

The Chiropractic Medicare Coverage Modernization Act (H.R. 539 in the House and S. 106 in the Senate) has become one of the profession’s top legislative priorities. The bill seeks to expand Medicare coverage for chiropractic services, and supporters argue that seniors should have access to the same level of chiropractic care already available through other federal programs, including the Department of Veterans Affairs and the Department of Defense.

The chiropractic profession strongly supports advancing H.R. 539 while improving the bill in three key areas: defining covered services according to each state’s authorized scope of practice, including clear boundaries excluding drugs, surgery, and obstetrics; extending Medicare opt-out and private-contracting rights to doctors of chiropractic; and establishing a reasonable timeline for the regulations necessary to implement the law.

For Brandon Hoffman, executive director of the MAHA Chiropractic Hub, the Medicare effort represents something larger than a single policy change.

“The momentum behind this bill has accelerated because organizations across the profession are activating their members around a shared objective,” Hoffman said. “That coordinated action is exactly what the Hub was built to support.”

Hoffman emphasized that the Hub’s role is not to replace existing chiropractic organizations, but to bring together leaders and advocates across the profession while supporting grassroots engagement and aligned advocacy efforts.

The roots of chiropractic care stretch back to 1895, when Daniel David Palmer developed a system of care based on the idea that spinal health plays an important role in overall wellness. In its earliest years, chiropractic faced significant opposition and spent much of the 20th century fighting for legal recognition and professional legitimacy. Today, all 50 states recognize chiropractic as a licensed profession, and Medicare has covered certain chiropractic services since 1972.

Beyond the policy discussions and legislative goals, one thing was clear inside the MAHA Center on Monday: the passion among chiropractors attending the Roundtable. Many described chiropractic as their calling, something they plan on fighting for everyone to have the chance to get. They regularly care for their own families, adjust their children, and volunteer their time to expand access to care in their communities; now they want to help everyone.

One of the strongest examples of chiropractic’s expanding vision is the effort to bring such care into schools. Dr. Lona Cook, co-founder of Well Adjusted Students, a Wisconsin-based nonprofit, described a model in which chiropractic becomes part of a broader support system for children alongside services such as occupational therapy, physical therapy, and dental care.

“The pharmaceutical industry doesn’t have a hard time thinking so big for our country and our families… Why do we?” said Dr. Lona Cook, challenging the chiropractic profession to think beyond its current boundaries and envision a larger role in the future of health care.

“Instead of asking about vaccination records before they enter a school, how about asking if they’ve had a chiropractic check up?” She continued.

Advocates believe wellness-focused chiropractic care could become another valuable preventative resource for students, just as we would view a school nurse, particularly in underserved communities.

Dr. Amanda Blonigen, also a co-founder of Well Adjusted Students, highlighted growing interest in addressing challenges such as nervous system dysregulation and behavioral struggles. The organization’s school-based programs support both students and staff while collecting data to better understand outcomes.

Another major theme of the Roundtable was the profession’s push for greater recognition and investment in chiropractic research. Dr. Vickie Dubin-Master, who leads the MAHA Chiropractic Working Group, described this moment as a turning point.

“MAHA is chiropractic’s moment to shine,” said Dr. Dubin-Master, arguing that chiropractic has long emphasized many of the same principles now highlighted by the MAHA movement: family wellness, maternal health, pediatric care, metabolic health, and prevention.

“We are the OG MAHA,” she said. “We’ve been doing this for 130 years. We’ve always had the answers.”

Yet as the MAHA movement gains momentum in Washington, D.C., and around the country, Dubin-Master noticed that chiropractic was not consistently represented at many of its events. She believes the profession needs a stronger presence and that chiropractors have a role to play in the broader conversation around preventative health. That’s why, with the help of Merinoff and Dr. Steve Tullius, Dubin-Master started the MAHA Chiropractic Working Group.

Former Delaware Governor Bethany Hall-Long brought a public health perspective to the discussion, emphasizing the importance of preventative care and policies that improve outcomes while reducing costs.

The Roundtable also addressed mainstream medicine’s frequent attacks on chiropractors, alleging the unfounded view that chiropractic care can cause strokes. Legal experts John Salvucci and Kyle Allen discussed the research: There is NO causal link between spinal manipulation and stroke.

For chiropractic advocates, the Medicare bill is only one piece of a much larger movement. The future they envision includes chiropractic access parallel to that of the current medical system; funding for research; innovative practice models; and a healthcare system that places greater emphasis on prevention.

On a personal note: In my senior year of high school, I took a hard fall during a soccer game. For days afterward, I could barely walk. The pain in my hip was intense, and it felt like my body was “out of place.”

I went to the doctor, where I was referred for physical therapy and pain medication. Instead, I decided to visit a chiropractor. After taking scans of my leg and evaluating the injury, he performed an adjustment.

I still remember the sound: “POP.”

Within moments, I felt a noticeable release. The pain that caused me to limp for days was gone, and I could walk as I could before the injury. That experience shaped my personal view of chiropractic care and showed me why so many people seek it out.

On Monday, leaders acknowledged that while the profession has come a long way, it still faces challenges, particularly surrounding research funding and institutional acceptance. They argue that greater investment in chiropractic research is necessary to better understand where chiropractic care can play a role in improving health outcomes.

After more than 130 years of development, chiropractic is entering what may be its most influential chapter. Through legislative advocacy, research initiatives, school-based programs, and partnerships within the MAHA movement, the MAHA Chiropractic Hub Roundtable showed that chiropractic is a powerful voice in the future of American health care.

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So said HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. regarding the seven peptides millions of Americans are already using for healing, recovery, and aging – therapies the Biden administration pushed into a regulatory dead zone.

But the battle over peptides is not over. On July 23, a federal advisory committee, in Washington, D.C., will begin debating whether Kennedy and supporters will get their wish.

The Food and Drug Administration’s Pharmacy Compounding Advisory Committee (PCAC) will weigh whether seven peptides can be added to the list of products that compounding pharmacies are allowed to prepare for customers.

Peptides are short chains of amino acids, often referred to as microproteins. According to WebMD, “peptides act as critical signaling messengers in the body, directing cells to perform specific tasks such as regulating blood sugar, building muscle, and healing tissue.”

On the first day of its two-day meeting, the committee will discuss BPC-157, KPV, TB-500, and MOTS-c, tissue-repair and recovery compounds. The second day will cover Emideltide, known as DSIP, along with Semax and Epitalon, used for sleep, focus, and longevity. A favorable vote would open a legal, prescription-based pathway through regulated pharmacies for the first time since 2023.

How Americans lost access

In 2023, the FDA moved 19 widely used peptides into a restricted category that barred compounding pharmacies from making them, citing concerns about impurities, immune reactions, and thin human safety data. Therapies that patients and physicians had relied on for years suddenly became difficult to obtain through legitimate channels.

However, the restriction did not end demand for peptides; it just rerouted it. Cut off from regulated pharmacies, Americans turned to a growing gray market, ranging from credible U.S. suppliers with certificates of analysis and third-party testing, to overseas sellers, many from China, shipping vials with no purity testing, sterility guarantees, or oversight of what was inside.

The 2023 decision did not make peptides safer. It left Americans taking their health into their own hands, sorting through good suppliers and bad, some making careful, informed choices, and some simply gambling on the cheapest vial they could find.

Kennedy has called the reclassification “illegal,” describing himself as a “big fan” of peptides, and said he has used peptides himself. In his framing, the government did not protect patients in 2023. It caused them to turn to the gray or black market.

The reversal underway

On February 27, in an appearance on Joe Rogan’s podcast, Kennedy signaled a change, promising action within weeks. In April, the FDA removed 12 peptides from the restricted Category 2 list, the first concrete reversal of the 2023 policy. The July vote goes further, deciding whether these compounds get a legal home in compounding pharmacies, rather than a temporary reprieve.

The April removal from the restricted list is not the same as clearance for compounding, which is what the July vote will also address. Nor does removal from the restricted list amount to full FDA drug approval, which none of these peptides has. The committee only recommends. The binding decision rests with the FDA, which answers to Kennedy.

The objection from inside the agency

On June 30, the FDA’s own scientists concluded that there is insufficient evidence to support allowing compounding pharmacies to make any of the seven contested peptides, citing a lack of rigorous human trials proving they work or are safe at the doses people use. BPC-157, a peptide used for over 10 years by serious athletes, has only three published human studies, none with proper control groups.

But that objection, like the committee’s vote, is only advice. The decision belongs to the FDA’s leadership, appointed by Kennedy, who can accept that advice or overrule it. The secretary RFK Jr. has made expanding access a priority, which would appear to bode well for peptides and those supporting them.

Critics of peptides note that several members of the advisory panel have ties to the peptide industry. Supporters counter that the demand for full clinical-trial data misses the real-world picture. These compounds have been safely prepared by pharmacies for decades, and millions of people have been using them, as they have been using vitamins and supplements the FDA never approved through drug trials either.

What the public wants

A national survey taken in June found broad support for restoring access to peptides. Americans favor it 65% to 9%, with the remaining 26% undecided. The poll of 1,000 registered voters, conducted by Fabrizio Ward for the American Academy of Peptide Medicine, found support even higher – at 80% – among the one in four voters who have used or considered using peptides. Backing peptides crosses party lines and runs strongest among MAHA voters, at 72%.

The same survey showed 70% of respondents believe public health officials should be concerned that the 2023 restrictions caused Americans to buy from unregulated foreign and domestic suppliers. The poll was industry-funded and framed to favor access, but regardless, the results clearly show that Americans see the unregulated market as the danger and regulated access as the fix.

The July vote won’t be the final word, but it will show which way the government is leaning: toward the caution of FDA scientists, or toward the access Kennedy has promised, and voters on both sides say they want.

For the millions of Americans already using peptides, the debate was never whether they should be allowed at all. It is how people will have access to them, through a regulated pharmacy with a doctor and tested product, or through the open gray or black market that lets them decide for themselves.

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As the World Cup comes to a close, Norwegian striker Erling Haaland is one breakout star few global soccer fans will forget. With long-flowing hair and a six-foot-five frame, Norway’s giant is known for his combination of raw power and speed, and his many world records – including his first, at age five, in long jump.

Less known, however, is the 25-year-old’s commitment to cow hearts and raw milk.

Haaland does not fuel like a modern professional athlete. No neon sports drinks, no lab-designed powders, no ‘energy’ bars with 40 ingredients you cannot pronounce. He eats what he calls real food: fatty cuts of red meat, eggs, wild fish, grass fed butter, honey, and the organ meats most Americans have forgotten how to cook. Heart and liver, the ancient superfoods, land on his plate for a reason.

His rule is simple: Eat quality, eat local, and eat as few ingredients as possible.

Sound familiar? It should.

In January, as he was rolling out the new dietary guidelines, HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. delivered the same message in three words: eat real food. The Updated Dietary Guidelines flipped the old food pyramid on its head, moving protein, full fat dairy, and healthy fats to the top and pushing refined carbohydrates and added sugar to the bottom, where they belong. For the first time in decades, Americans were told that they should build their plates around whole, nutrient dense foods and to walk away from the ultra-processed junk that has made 1 in 5 U.S. children over six-years-old obese.

In other words, one of the most dynamic athletes the world has ever seen has been, without knowing it, living the new dietary guidelines for years. Today, he’s a MAHA exemplar, a paragon, a man whose food choices show the world what can happen when you commit to doing MAHA.

Erling Haaland’s record-setting jump hitting the ball at an astonishing 7 foot 6 inches meters in the air.

Forty years ago, we were told to fear red meat, trim every gram of fat, and treat a bowl of sugary cereal as a balanced breakfast. We all watched from the sidelines as we quietly became the most overfed and undernourished country in the developed world.

Nourishment comes from real food. Secretary Kennedy knows that. So does Haaland.

Organ meats are essentially a pure, lean muscle that is exceptionally rich in specific and bioavailable compounds, such as vitamins and minerals, designed to power the body. Yet the average American consumes only about 1 pound per year, and most of what is consumed comes hidden in hot dogs and sausages.

More importantly, raw milk is one of the best sources for bioavailable protein, calcium, enzymes associated with mineral metabolism, and naturally occurring microbes. The Weston A. Price Foundation argues that raw milk is a foundational, living food that supports optimal human growth, resilience, and vitality.
For a body that breaks itself down every match, the Foundation finds a natural advantage in raw milk, which supports tissue repair, immune function, and enhanced nutrient absorption.

For elite athletes, these kinds of foods improve mental wellbeing, brain function, recovery rate, metabolic health and, crucially, fast-twitch muscle fibers. That’s probably why the best athletes in the world, like Novak Djokovic and Aaron Rodgers, eat like card-carrying members of the MAHA movement.

What Haaland chooses to put on his plate, and drink, tells a story millions of us are starting to recognize: real food builds real strength and resilience. The science behind the new guidelines is not a fad, and the world’s elite athletes are proving it on the world’s biggest stage.

For decades, official advice and physical performance pointed in opposite directions. Now they finally point in the same direction: a plate full of real food.

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The Chiropractic Hub will advance federal policy, expand patient access, and build broad public support for chiropractic care across America.

The initiative focuses on supporting children, military personnel, veterans, seniors, and all families seeking non-drug, non-surgical healthcare options. Chiropractic is an essential, evidence-informed, prevention-based component of a sustainable American healthcare system, not an “alternative service.”

“The Chiropractic profession is exactly the kind of drug-free, whole-person, prevention-first care that the Make America Healthy Again movement was built to champion,” said Tony Lyons, President of MAHA Center. “The Chiropractic Hub brings both practitioners and patients into the fight against chronic disease and gives Americans a real alternative to a system that too often treats symptoms rather than root causes.”

Appearing Wednesday on the MAHA Media Hub, Leigh Merinoff, director of the Chiropractic Hub, said, “Chiropractic represents a fundamentally different approach to healthcare. One that focuses on prevention, structure, function, nervous system health, and supporting the body rather than immediately medicating symptoms.”

Merinoff added, “I truly believe that through chiropractic’s sincere desire to help people, and through the perseverance shown despite professional struggles and challenges, we have an opportunity to help create something much larger than we once imagined.”

For Brandon Hoffman, the new Executive Director for the Chiropractic Hub (who also spoke at Wednesday’s Media Hub), the creation of a centralized entity focused on chiropractic care is deeply personal.

“As a kid, when I said my dad was a chiropractor, I’d sometimes hear, ‘Oh, but he’s not a real doctor,’ Hoffman recalled. “It confused me, because I’d seen what he did to help thousands of patients. I learned early on that when someone has lived with chronic pain and finally finds relief, they don’t care about the title on the wall. They care that they got their life back.”

Hoffman continued, “That conviction has driven my career across insurance, media, education, and policy — the belief that every American deserves comprehensive care where drugs and surgery are options, not the automatic first line standard of care.”

The Chiropractic Hub’s priorities were established after chiropractic care leaders met in Washington, D.C. in March. That discussion focused on the need for a coordinated national strategy to expand access to chiropractic care; strengthen federal recognition of the profession; and agree on the need to modernize Medicare while better integrating chiropractic care into military, veteran affairs, and broader public health systems.

The Chiropractic Hub will operate across four pillars: education and media; research and access expansion; coalition building; and through MAHA Action’s 501(c)(4) arm – federal advocacy.

In 2026, the Chiropractic Hub will pursue the four coordinated workstreams below:

1. National PR and education campaign: An emphasis on building public, policy, and professional support for chiropractic care as a credible, accessible and prevention-focused modality that aligns with MAHA priorities.

2. Medicare and federal recognition: A goal to advance the Chiropractic Medicare Coverage Modernization Act in the 119th Congress and advocate for the full implementation of Section 2706 of the Affordable Care Act, ensuring that Medicare and privately insured patients have greater access to chiropractic care.

3. Military integration: Engage with the Defense Health Agency and Army Medical Research to embed chiropractic care across military health systems and within active-duty personnel, reducing early exits from service and offering a non-surgical alternative to musculoskeletal injuries.

4. Department of Veterans Affairs: The Hub will engage the VA Secretary to issue a nationwide directive expanding chiropractic access for veterans and their dependents. The goal is to eliminate excessive wait times, minimize restrictions and open the Community Care Program network to more providers.

There is ample evidence that chiropractic care plays a key role in the American healthcare system. Such care takes a whole-body approach to health: the nervous system controls every aspect of the body; spinal adjustments address subluxations to support the body’s natural ability to heal; and care focuses on root causes rather than treating symptoms alone.

In spine and pain outcomes, where the evidence base is deepest, for example, patients who see a chiropractor for back pain are significantly less likely to fill an opioid prescription; chiropractic care means dramatically lower treatment costs.

In workers’ compensation cases, surgery rates stand at just 1.5 percent when care begins with a chiropractor, compared to 42.7 percent when it begins with a surgeon. Despite this, federal investment in chiropractic care remains a fraction of comparable disciplines, and barriers to access persist across Medicare, the VA, military health systems, and private insurance.

The MAHA Chiropractic Hub is a national initiative of MAHA Center and MAHA Action that convenes national and state chiropractic organizations, practitioners, educators, researchers, and patient advocates to advance federal policy, expand patient access, and build broad public support for chiropractic care across America.

MAHA Center is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization dedicated to advancing the health and well-being of Americans through education, critical examination, and innovation. MAHA Action is its affiliated 501(c)(4) advocacy organization.

Yes, you lose an hour of sleep in March. It’s more difficult to wake up. Your commute is darker. Your body feels off. And then, in October or November, you gain back that hour and a little more sunlight, and sometimes forget and are early or late to a meeting? Who needs the hassle?

But Jay Pea, founder and president of Save Standard Time, says the country has been asking the wrong questions.

The real issue is not just whether America should stop changing the clocks. It is: Which clock should we choose to live by?

There are two current options: Standard Time or Daylight Saving Time. Standard Time is built around the sun, with noon close to when the sun is at its highest point in the sky. Currently, we set our clocks to Standard Time from November 1 to March 14.

In the United States, Standard Time was designed to organize modern life around the solar day. Daylight Saving Time came later as a political and economic experiment, shifting the clock one hour forward to create more evening light.

Standard Time keeps us more closely aligned with the natural light-dark cycle. It gives the body more of what it needs most in the morning: natural light to wake up, regulate cortisol, anchor circadian rhythm, support alertness, and help set the stage for better sleep at night.

“People hear ‘stop changing the clocks,’ and they think that sounds good,” Pea said. But ending the clock change by choosing permanent Daylight Saving Time is very different from ending it by choosing permanent Standard Time.

Standard Time preserves the morning light people need to wake up and feel alert. Daylight Saving Time, by contrast, pushes light later into the evening, delaying melatonin, making it harder to fall asleep, and leaving many Americans short on sleep before the day even begins.

Under Daylight Saving Time, Pea said, people can lose sleep “at both ends of the day.” Evening light keeps people awake later, while alarms still force them up before they are biologically ready.

This message is especially important as Congress again considers the Sunshine Protection Act, a bill often sold to the public as a way to end the hassle of changing clocks, and who does not like sunshine, right?

But the fine print matters.

The bill would not make Standard Time permanent. It would make Daylight Saving Time permanent nationwide. After the House Energy and Commerce Committee advanced the Sunshine Protection Act as part of a broader transportation bill, the American Academy of Sleep Medicine warned that the proposal was moving forward with little time for review or debate, though it still requires approval from the full House and Senate.

Support for Saving Standard Time

The National Sleep Foundation has stated that seasonal time changes are disruptive to sleep health and that evidence supports permanent Standard Time “because of its alignment with our circadian biology and relevance to sleep health and safety.” The foundation calls permanent Standard Time “the appropriate option for public health.”

The American Medical Association has also backed Standard Time. “For far too long, we’ve changed our clocks in pursuit of daylight, while incurring public health and safety risks in the process,” AMA Trustee Dr. Alexander Ding said. “Committing to standard time has health benefits and allows us to end the biannual tug of war between our biological and alarm clocks.”

Federal health leaders already recognize sleep as a public health priority. Healthy People 2030, an initiative of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, states that its sleep goal is to “improve health, productivity, well-being, quality of life, and safety by helping people get enough sleep.” The same federal initiative notes that about one in three adults and even more adolescents do not get enough sleep, and that about 100,000 motor vehicle crashes every year are related to drowsy driving.

Recent Health and Human Services messaging under Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has also emphasized the importance of protecting children’s sleep. In the Surgeon General’s advisory on screen use, HHS warned that children’s screen exposure can disrupt healthy sleep, calling sleep “fundamental to learning, mood, behavior, physical health, and overall development.”

For Standard Time advocates, that same principle applies to the national clock: The Sunshine Protection Act would delay sleep, darken school mornings, and push families further from natural light rhythms, thereby misaligning it with the preventive health policy HHS is working hard to advance.

The CDC also warns that about one-third of U.S. adults and children under 14, and three-quarters of high school students, do not get enough sleep. Insufficient sleep, the agency says, is linked to anxiety, depression, obesity, heart disease, injury, and other serious conditions.

For anyone who has struggled to get a child out the door on a dark winter morning, dragged through a workday after poor sleep, or felt their mood suffer after the clocks changed, Pea’s argument is simple: the clock is not separate from health. It helps shape it.

“We know health rests on a three-legged stool: physical activity, nutrition, and sleep,” Pea said. “If you’re not getting good sleep every night, it’s wear and tear on your body.”

A Policy Created for Commerce, Not Health

For years, Daylight Saving Time has been promoted as an energy and commerce policy, with supporters arguing that later evening light would save electricity, keep people shopping longer, increase recreation, and benefit industries such as retail, tourism, restaurants, convenience stores, sports, and golf.

But the energy case is far less convincing than many Americans have been led to believe.

Congress extended Daylight Saving Time in 1986, moving the start date from the last Sunday in April to the first Sunday in April. It was extended again by the 2005 Energy Policy Act, beginning in 2007, so Daylight Saving Time now runs from the second Sunday in March to the first Sunday in November, roughly eight months of the year.

When the Department of Energy studied that 2007 extension, it found average electricity savings of only about 0.4 percent per day during the added weeks of Daylight Saving Time. The report also found “insufficient statistical evidence” that the change reduced gasoline consumption or traffic volume.

In other words, the strongest federal energy evidence supporting the extension of Daylight Saving Time does not demonstrate a sweeping national gain. It was a small reduction in electricity use during a limited part of the year, with no clear, measurable benefit for gasoline use or traffic.

That matters because the health costs are not small.

For lawmakers, the choice is becoming clearer: Should the nation prioritize a modest and contested energy argument, or a clock that better supports sleep, morning alertness, child safety, metabolic health, and circadian biology?

The clock is often debated in committees focused on commerce, energy, and transportation. But Pea believes it should be addressed instead as a public health priority.

The American Medical Association has made a similar point. “Eliminating the time changes in March and November would be a welcome change,” Ding said. “But research shows permanent daylight saving time overlooks potential health risks that can be avoided by establishing permanent standard time instead.”

“Sleep experts are alarmed,” Ding added. “Issues other than patient health are driving this debate. It’s time that we wake up to the health implications of clock setting.”

Children’s Health as a National Priority

One of the strongest arguments against permanent Daylight Saving Time is what it would mean for children.

If the U.S. stayed on Daylight Saving Time through winter, many parts of the country would see sunrise after 8:30 a.m., 9 a.m., or even later. Children would wait for buses, walk to school, and arrive at classrooms in the dark for long stretches of the year.

The U.S. has already tried year-round Daylight Saving Time once, during the 1970s energy crisis. The emergency measure quickly became unpopular, as dark winter mornings quickly became a national flashpoint. In February 1974, TIME reported in an article titled “Daylight Disaster Time” that eight children in Florida had died in early morning traffic accidents after the January time change, compared with two during the same period the year before. A federal review also found that school-age child fatalities increased during the 6 to 9 a.m. morning window in February 1974 compared with February 1973. The historical record does not prove that permanent Daylight Saving Time alone caused every crash. But it does show that dark winter mornings became a national safety concern almost immediately, forcing school districts in 18 states to adjust schedules before Congress reversed the policy.

In addition to the safety concerns, Sue E. Peters, PhD, a developmental cognitive sleep neuroscientist, connected the clock debate directly to children’s brain development and chronic disease prevention.

“Stabilizing our clocks to a standard schedule that supports sunlight during natural waking hours will have a national health impact,” Peters said.

Peters argues that permanent Standard Time supports children’s sleep and circadian rhythms, while permanent Daylight Saving Time can undermine broader MAHA goals by worsening sleep debt and fragmentation during critical windows of development.

A Low-Cost Preventive Health Reform

For Jay Pea, permanent Standard Time is not only the healthier choice. It is also the simpler one.

Permanent Daylight Saving Time does not actually give children more morning rest. It just arbitrarily changes the clock while pushing it further away from sunrise. Permanent Standard Time, by contrast, ends the disruptive clock changes while preserving the morning light that children, workers, drivers, and families depend on to safely and biologically begin the day.

In a country with many people already dealing with sleep deprivation, metabolic disease, and mental health concerns, the clock is not a small issue. It is a national rhythm. And Pea argues that if America is serious about health, safety, and prevention, the country should choose the time that works with the sun, not against it.

Under current federal law, states already have a pathway to stop observing Daylight Saving Time and remain on Standard Time year-round. Arizona, Hawaii, Puerto Rico, Guam, American Samoa, the Northern Mariana Islands, and the U.S. Virgin Islands already do it. Permanent Daylight Saving Time is different. States cannot adopt it on their own. That would require Congress to change federal law.

The practical difference is significant. A state choosing permanent Standard Time is working within the existing framework of the Uniform Time Act. A national shift to permanent Daylight Saving Time would require federal legislation, regulatory coordination, and technical updates across transportation, schools, health care, banking, broadcasting, electronic calendars, payroll systems, phones, computers, airlines, hospitals, pharmacies, and the time-zone databases that modern life depends on.

In technical terms, permanent Standard Time removes a seasonal clock change. Permanent Daylight Saving Time requires the country to redefine civil time in a way that federal law does not currently allow states to do on their own.

That is why Pea sees permanent Standard Time as a rare kind of reform: low-cost, legally available, technologically easier, and rooted in prevention.

Lawmakers do not need to repeat past mistakes to end the clock change. The path already exists.

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On May 20, Health & Human Services and the Office of the Surgeon General released the Surgeon General’s Warning on the Harms of Screen Use, pointing out that children who look at screens excessively are at increased risk for mental, physical, emotional, and developmental health problems.

(Photo courtesy Iowa governor’s office)

“Children today spend more time on screens than sleeping, exercising, or engaging face-to-face with family and friends — and we are seeing the consequences in rising rates of anxiety, depression, obesity, and developmental challenges,” HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said in announcing the government’s new advisory and toolkit.

Dr. Stephanie Haridopolos, chief of staff and senior advisor in the Office of the U.S. Surgeon General, put the message even more simply, saying, “There is nothing more important than the health of our children. We want them to get off the screens and live real life.”

Under Kennedy’s HHS, screen time is now considered part of the country’s childhood health crisis. The advisory warns that excessive screen use, especially through social media, is not only linked to developmental, mental, and physical challenges, but also to poor educational outcomes, sleep disruption, anxiety, depression, low self-esteem, body-image concerns, physical inactivity, and poor language development in young children.

Haridopulous agrees, “As a mother, physician, and chief of staff & senior advisor in the Office of the U.S. Surgeon General, I’ve seen firsthand how excessive screen time and heavy social media use in teens can impact brain development, vision, academic performance, mental health, and more.”

Signs of excessive screen time show up in kids as: emotional withdrawal when screens are not accessible, not engaging in in-person interactions or activities and hiding or lying about overall screen use.

Teens are spending an average of 7.5 to 9 hours daily on screens for entertainment alone. Over 50% of teenagers log 4 or more hours per day, and social media accounts for the biggest portion of this, with teens averaging almost 5 hours a day across platforms like TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube. The teens spending four or more hours a day on screens were twice as likely to report anxiety, depression, low self-esteem, and social comparison. Cyberbullying has also been associated with depression, anxiety, and social withdrawal among children and adolescents. The advisory notes that some screen use has been associated with increased risk of self-harm and suicidal behaviors, especially among adolescents.

For very young children, the concern is more about what screen time actually replaces. Infants and toddlers build language, attention, social development, and emotional regulation through human face-to-face interaction, touch, and hands-on play. Recent research published in JAMA Pediatrics has linked higher screen exposure in infancy with later developmental delays, including communication and problem-solving delays.

Brain development may be affected as well. Some research has found that children with very heavy screen use showed thinning in the brain’s cortex, the region involved in reasoning and higher-order thinking. These findings do not prove causation, but they add to the concern that screens may be replacing the real-life experiences young brains need most.

Children’s language development is part of the same concern. The JAMA study also found more time on screens has been linked to fewer adult words, fewer child vocalizations, and fewer back-and-forth conversations between parents and children. And the pattern extends beyond learning and language. Higher screen use has also been linked to more snacking, more junk food intake, less physical activity, obesity, and a greater risk of overeating during meals.

Today’s screen use is no longer limited to television or video games. Children and adolescents now move between TVs, tablets, computers, gaming devices, and smartphones, often carrying screens with them for most of the day. Through those devices, they can watch shows, movies, and short-form videos, play games, text, shop, scroll social media, and interact with AI chatbots.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) adds yet another danger because it not only occupies attention, but it can also replace thought processes altogether. When students use AI to write, summarize, solve, and make decisions for them, they lose precious time to practice the very skills childhood is supposed to build: creativity, attention, memory, writing ability, reasoning, and problem-solving.

This is where MAHA’s message matters. Screen time is no longer just a parenting issue. It is shaping how children sleep, move, eat, learn, think, and connect. Children are spending more time with algorithms and less time moving their bodies, playing outside, sleeping deeply, talking face-to-face, and interacting with parents, teachers, siblings, and friends.

The solution is not to shame families or pretend technology is going away. HHS acknowledges that screens can have benefits and that the evidence is still evolving.

But the advisory also says there is now enough evidence of potential harm to justify action from families, schools, communities, technology companies, and policymakers.

The advisory also lays out practical steps that can be taken. Families can create media plans, keep devices out of bedrooms overnight, enforce screen-free meals, and replace screen time with real-life activities such as walking outside, cooking healthy meals together, reading, and connecting without distraction. Schools can reduce classroom screen exposure, consider bell-to-bell phone restrictions, use books and paper when possible, and build in more movement, recess, games, and build in more opportunities for social connection.

The message is also growing outside the government. Parent advocacy groups such as Mothers Against Media Addiction (MAMA) and Wait Until 8th are pushing back against media addiction and the pressure to give children smartphones before they’re ready. MAMA says “real-life experiences and interactions belong at the heart of a healthy childhood.”

Under Kennedy’s HHS, screen time is no longer being treated as an isolated family problem. It is now recognized as part of the childhood chronic disease and mental health crisis. Iowa’s new MAHA legislation, which Kennedy celebrated on May 21, includes efforts to reduce excessive classroom screen exposure, increase physical activity, strengthen student engagement, and promote healthier habits for children.

“We want children to spend less time scrolling and more time living . . . less time isolated online and more time connected to a family member, to their community, to nature or to real life,” said Kennedy during his Iowa visit.

Over the last two weeks, The MAHA Report has reached out to some of these veterans, and to two organizations – Americans for Ibogaine (AFI) and Veterans Exploring Treatment Solutions (VETS) – both of which advocate for use of psychedelics to treat post-traumatic stress disorder and other serious ailments, to learn about how it works, and find out whether it’s really helping people.

Trump’s executive order, signed at the April 18 event in the Oval Office, allocates $50 million in federal funds for the Department of Health and Human Services to partner with states to develop programs to advance psychedelic drugs for serious mental illness.

Ibogaine and other psychedelics are now in clinical trials, and the Attorney General is directed, in Trump’s executive order, to review and quickly reschedule any of the drugs that are approved by the FDA – essentially legalizing them, for specific uses.

“Researchers at Johns Hopkins, Stanford, and Harvard and other leading institutions have reported meaningful and in some cases extraordinary clinical improvements,” Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said at the White House on April 18. “If these results continue, these therapies could offer longer lasting relief, not just symptom management, and reduce [the] economic burden of mental illness, which costs this country hundreds of billions of dollars every year.”

For veterans still suffering from PTSD and other conditions, the help could not come too soon.

Glenn Curtis, a retired major general in the Louisiana National Guard, said that upon returning from a deployment to Iraq in 2005, his life was not the same.

“I could go to sleep, but during the night I would wake up and relive some of the things that happened when I was in Iraq,” he said in a phone interview. “If I went into a restaurant or [was] in a public setting, I was always scanning, watching, you know, so someone didn’t come up behind me.”

Curtis also said he experienced “trust issues” and “harsh headaches,” noting he tried to treat the headaches with over-the-counter pain relievers and found himself eating “Advils like they were candy.”

He declined to describe in any detail what he experienced in Iraq, saying only: “It was a mad place over there. You didn’t have to go very far to find trouble you didn’t want to be in.”

Curtis was diagnosed with two traumatic brain injuries and developed PTSD. He said he believes these problems were exacerbated by being in New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina, both when the storm made landfall and for months afterwards, as part of his duties with the Louisiana National Guard.

“What came out of that was, you know, probably more PTSD,” he said.

In 2025 Curtis traveled to an ibogaine clinic in Tijuana, Mexico, with his son, who had suffered a non-combat-related Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI).

The course of treatment was not easy.

“Physically, it’s demanding,” said Curtis of the ibogaine. “Your body is just under stress...I was terribly sick...In my head it literally sounded like a construction dome.”

The treatment with ibogaine was followed by treatment with something called 5-MeO-DMT, which was shorter in duration and reported to be far more pleasant.

“I don’t know what heaven looks like, but if it’s anything like what I experienced, you’re really going to want to go there,” said Curtis.

“It’s such a drastic change,” he said of life after the treatment in Mexico. “It’s like flipping a light switch on and going from dark to light. I don’t have headaches or any concerns anymore from the TBIs [or] PTSD. All the memories are still there; they just don’t affect me like they used to.”

Curtis is now an ambassador with AFI, helping to educate others about the benefits of ibogaine treatment for veterans suffering from serious mental health issues.

John Clifton, MD, the director of research and education for the group Veterans Exploring Treatment Solutions, said in an interview that many veterans are let down by standard clinical treatments and prescription psychopharmaceuticals.

SSRIs and SNRIs, he said, tend not to work for many people and may leave them still feeling miserable or suffering from serious side effects. The proof of this is in the number of veterans who take their lives – more than 6,000 every year, according to the Department of Veterans Affairs.

“The suicide statistics do not lie,” said Clifton.

Desperate to find something that really works, an increasing number of veterans are turning to psychedelic treatment options such as ayahuasca, psilocybin, 5-MeO-DMT, and ibogaine, which are derived from plants, mushrooms, and, in the case of 5-MeO-DMT, a substance produced by certain toads.

Scientific investigations suggest psychedelics act, by varying degrees, through the same neurotransmitter systems as common antidepressants while also yielding anti-inflammatory and neuroprotective results. .

Ibogaine, for example, works through multiple mechanisms, said Stanford University School of Medicine professor Maheen Mausoof Adamson, adding it does “a lot of work with serotonin and it does change the way serotonin uptake happens.”

One observational study on which she worked, Adamson said, also showed “reduced brain age in traumatic brain injury patients [treated with ibogaine].” Usually, she said, the brains of TBI patients appear older than they are, but the brain age of patients who underwent ibogaine treatment appeared younger.

Adamson said research also shows ibogaine is non-addictive and a single treatment can yield results lasting roughly one year.

Although she warned against taking such findings out of context, Adamson said “at the same time, it is hope.”

Research on these drugs has long been impeded in the United States by government regulation and lack of funding while their use, even for medicinal purposes, is prohibited by law. The drugs, however, are available at clinics in several foreign countries, including Mexico.

William “Trey” Warren, PhD, a former Navy pilot who now works as a professor of political science at Lindenwood University and serves as an AFI ambassador, went to Mexico in 2025 for ibogaine treatment after years of living with PTSD stemming from the stress of doing four combat deployments and the cumulative effects of numerous minor TBIs (mTBIs) he believes he suffered as a routine part of flying military aircraft.

Warren said he experienced problems with alcohol abuse as well.

“I was drinking anywhere from 10-12 alcoholic drinks per day just to cope,” he said. “I was a functioning alcoholic, basically for years.”

Over time, Warren said, his neurocognitive problems grew worse. “I’d get confused at an intersection...” he recalled. “I got lost driving to the grocery store once.”

Following his PTSD diagnosis, Warren said he spent more than two years taking SSRIs and other prescription drugs, which he noted came with side effects, including thoughts of suicide. Warren said he experienced one period of suicidality while on the drugs and a second while being taken off of them too quickly.

Later, Warren said he saw a therapist trained in psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy and tried ayahuasca and psilocybin treatments, noting he felt they worked better than SSRIs, but that he started experiencing issues with depression and anxiety again after stopping therapy for a period. Upon returning to therapy, Warren said his therapist recommended he go to Mexico for ibogaine treatment.

“After the treatment, it’s really like starting over again like a five-year-old child,” he said. “You’re really looking at the world with this blank slate.”

Warren said he stopped drinking and is trying to live a healthier life. He said psychedelics, including ibogaine, are not a “magic bullet” and that he believes he may need occasional “tune-ups.”

“But,” Warren said, “I’m able to live again.”

Protocols at ibogaine clinics are relatively similar. Patients speak with a counselor, take ibogaine in pill form on their second day there, smoke 5-MeO-DMT on the fourth, and then receive additional counseling afterwards.

Patient experiences while on ibogaine and 5-MeO-DMT vary, although ibogaine is generally considered more challenging.

“Ibogaine, as far as psychedelics go, it’s the most strenuous of them because the psychedelic period is the longest,” said Warren.

Elias Kfoury, a former Navy medic who retired in 2016, also made the decision to seek ibogaine treatment in Mexico as part of a group from VETS after preparing to end his life in 2021 on December 27, his birthday.

Kfoury told The MAHA Report that over the course of his service, he had multiple deployments and numerous injuries. After retiring, Kfoury said he focused on getting through surgeries and rehab for orthopedic injuries, but also experienced headaches, hypervigilance, anxiety, and a sense of hopelessness.

“I was so lost...” said Kfoury. “A connection that I felt really early on as a child with nature and God and everyone else and everything else was completely gone and just replaced with so much anger.”

The ibogaine treatment was difficult.

“It was like a menagerie of the most gruesome war injuries you would ever see,” said Kfoury, although when recounting his experience he tended to focus on more positive aspects like relief from his injuries and headaches and how ibogaine helped him process his emotions.

“I started to see how I was affecting my wife and kids,” Kfoury said. “I was sitting across from an angel that showed me. It was my life review.”

Describing his 5-MeO-DMT treatment that followed, Kfoury said: “I felt like I had a face-to-face conversation with God.”

Despite having the occasional headache and having had to undergo a second ibogaine treatment for a recurrence of physical pain from his injuries, Kfoury said he is currently feeling pretty good and finds fulfillment in his work coaching people seeking psychedelic treatment.

As with Curtis and Warren, such a result suggests that President Trump’s recent Executive Order has tremendous potential. Access to Ibogaine and other psychedelics, for the first time in the U.S., could become a game changer for tens of thousands of vets still quietly suffering – following tours overseas, defending their country.

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