ANH-USA invites organizations, practitioners, researchers, and citizens to national sign-on campaign to support a bold prevention-first reform agenda.
ALEXANDRIA, VA., April 9, 2026
Now open for signatures, the Statement invites organizations, healthcare practitioners, researchers, policymakers, and citizens to unite behind a new health framework centered on prevention, informed choice, scientific integrity, and broader access to effective, lower-risk interventions.
Developed by a multidisciplinary group of leaders in healthcare, law, science, business, and public policy convened in Scottsdale, Arizona, the Arizona Statement sets out a practical framework for confronting one of the greatest threats to America’s health, economic stability, and national resilience: the unchecked rise of chronic disease.
“America will not reverse the chronic disease epidemic while truthful health information is suppressed and effective preventive interventions remain obstructed,” said Rob Verkerk, Ph.D., Executive and Scientific Director of ANH-USA. “The Arizona Statement lays out a clear path forward: remove the bureaucratic barriers that protect entrenched commercial interests, restore scientific integrity and informed choice, and create a regulatory framework that is genuinely fit for purpose.”
The Statement argues that the prevailing healthcare paradigm — heavily weighted toward late-stage pharmaceutical and procedural intervention — has failed to stem the growth of chronic illness. In its place, it calls for a decisive shift toward prevention, early intervention, and root-cause approaches grounded in nutrition, lifestyle, hygiene, and other lower-risk strategies.
Among its core priorities, the Arizona Statement calls for:
Protecting the free flow of truthful, non-misleading health information
Expanding access to preventive and personalized care
Modernizing outdated legal definitions of “food” and “drug”
Removing regulatory barriers that suppress innovation and fair competition
Ensuring fair reimbursement for non-drug, lower-risk interventions
Restoring public health fundamentals, including nutrition, sanitation, and lifestyle education
“The barriers that impede America’s efforts to reverse the chronic disease epidemic are imposed by government in service to special interests,” said Jonathan Emord, General Counsel to ANH-USA. “Remove censorship and the regulatory obstacles to innovation and care, and this country can undergo a profound transformation in health.”
Although chronic disease has received heightened national attention — including from leaders such as HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. — the structural reforms needed to reverse the crisis remain largely absent. Federal policy continues to lag behind the rhetoric, leaving intact a system that favors late-stage intervention over prevention, restricts informed choice, and limits access to safer, lower-risk options.
Recent policy battles, including efforts to shield pesticide manufacturers from liability, underscore the widening gap between public promises to “Make America Healthy Again” and the reforms required to make that goal real.
The Arizona Statement is intended to help close that gap by offering a concrete, actionable blueprint for reform grounded in prevention, transparency, open competition, and health freedom.
ANH-USA is calling on organizations, practitioners, innovators, and citizens from all backgrounds to review and co-sign the Statement. By doing so, signatories affirm support for a new health framework grounded in:
Individual liberty and informed choice
Scientific integrity and proportionate regulation
Prevention-first healthcare
Open competition and innovation
“This is the moment to move from rhetoric to action,” added Dr. Verkerk. “Reversing the chronic disease epidemic will require coordinated effort across science, medicine, law, policy, industry, and civil society. But it will not happen until government removes the accumulated obstacles that have too often served revolving-door interests rather than the health of the American people.”
Editors’ Notes