Donald Trump’s plans to drastically shake up the nation’s public scientific and health apparatus have been met with enthusiasm from certain corners even as scientific and medical experts warn they could prove highly dangerous to the federal government’s public health work and scientific credibility.
Among the agencies on the Trump chopping block could be the National Institutes of Health, which oversees biomedical research.
“I do think you probably will see changes in NIH, as well as other public health agencies like CDC and maybe even FDA,” Dr. Joel Zinberg, a senior fellow at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, a libertarian thinktank, recently told NPR. “And that’s primarily I think because there was a real erosion in trust in those agencies during the pandemic.”
During the height of the Covid pandemic, Donald Trump himself regularly spread distrust of those agencies. He clashed with Dr Anthony Fauci, head of the NIH agency the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, declined to follow advice around wearing masks, and didn’t publicly admit he got the Covid vaccine while he was in office. Trump also advocated for the use of drugs like hydroxychloroquine as a Covid treatment, despite it lacking medical evidence.
Others, like Dr Tom Frieden, former director of the CDC, have praised Trump for adopting independent presidential candidate Robert F Kennedy, Jr’s, focus on combating chronic disease and calls to “Make American Healthy Again,” calling the bipartisan interest an “unexpected and encouraging development.”
Still, many, including Frieden, have deep concerns about Trump associating with Kennedy, a prominent vaccine skeptic who has advocated massive cuts to federal health agencies, compared Covid lockdowns to Nazi Germany, and said he’ll work with Trump to remove bedrock public health tools like fluoridated water.
“After decades of research and billions of vaccines administered, we know vaccines save lives, do not cause chronic diseases, and can prevent cancers of the liver, cervix, and mouth,” Frieden recently wrote in STAT. “His unfounded claims don’t just prey on personal tragedies, mislead people, and undermine confidence in safe and effective vaccines; they also divert energy and attention from figuring out what really causes — and how to prevent — the chronic diseases we don’t yet understand.”
Kennedy, who doesn’t have a medical background, has also suggested that ”entire departments” will have to be cut out of the FDA. Trump has said he’ll discuss the possibility of attempting to ban certain vaccines with the former candidate, though Kennedy has said he doesn’t support taking away vaccines but rather providing more information about them.
Trump has said he will let Kennedy “go wild on health” and on “the food and the medicines,” leading to speculation he could serve as a health czar or an appointed position leading an agency like the CDC or FDA.
Public health experts have called Kennedy a “science denialist” and compared turning over influence to him to “asking a flat-earther to pilot our next mission to space.”
Georgetown University public health expert Lawrence Gostin has warned that Trump’s victory and alliance with Kennedy represent “the darkest day for public health and science in my lifetime,” though he notes there are plenty of roadblocks in the pair’s way.
Trump won’t immediately be able to undo the work of the thousands of career scientists and civil servants at these agencies, and state and local agencies are the entities that ultimately decide when to offer solutions like vaccines and fluoridated water. Courts are also generally reluctant to support the undoing of decisions made by agencies on a scientific basis.
Still, the incoming president could use political appointees to key posts like the CDC’s vaccine advisory committee to sow distrust of widely accepted and effective public health solutions.
“That would really disrupt state public health departments and others in knowing what to trust and what not to trust,” Gostin toldScience.
Even former Trump officials have voiced their concerns, like Dr. Jerome Adams, who served as surgeon general.
“If R.F.K. has a significant influence on the next administration, that could further erode people’s willingness to get up to date with recommended vaccines,” Dr. Adams told a recent meeting of the American Public Health Association. “I am worried about the impact that could have on our nation’s health, on our nation’s economy, on our global security.”
As The Independent has reported, vaccine rates among children are dropping and preventable diseases like measles are surging in the U.S. amid growing distrust of established and evidence-based public health strategies like vaccines.
Some, however, have suggested Kennedy’s strident skepticism of the public health system could be a plus.
“Every single large pharma company, large biotech company is beating a path to his door — they’re trying to figure him out,” Dr Steven Brozak, president of WBB Securities, a Wall Street firm investing in health care companies, told The New York Times. “In this time of uncertainty, he can actually go out there and achieve more in challenging the system than anyone else has ever done in health care.”
