Of all the things President Trump has done in his first few days back in office, I am most baffled—but not surprised—by his attacks on health.
His actions have shown a hostility toward science, openness, collaboration and, well, common sense. Consider:
• He withdrew the United States from the World Health Organization, which the U.S. helped establish in 1948. He claimed the organization mishandled the COVID-19 crisis, among other complaints, but his primary rationale: We’re paying an unfair share. As NPR reports: “(Trump) noted that the U.S. pays WHO $500 million annually compared to China’s $39 million contribution.” (However, those figures are inaccurate and exaggerated.)
That NPR piece also discussed the message that the United States’ withdrawal is sending: “‘It would signal an attack by the largest and most economically powerful country in the world on international health cooperation,’ says David McCoy, a public health researcher at the United Nations University International Institute for Global Health based in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. That cooperation, he argues, is essential for managing pandemics and other cross-border health threats.”
• He’s stopped the National Institutes of Health, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention from functioning, essentially, at least temporarily. The New York Times says: “The Trump administration, moving quickly to clamp down on health and science agencies, has canceled a string of scientific meetings and instructed federal health officials to refrain from all public communications, including upcoming reports focused on the nation’s escalating bird flu crisis. Experts who serve on outside advisory panels on a range of topics, from antibiotic resistance to deafness, received emails on Wednesday telling them their meetings had been canceled. The cancellations followed a directive issued on Tuesday by the acting director of the federal Department of Health and Human Services, who prohibited the release of any public communication until it had been reviewed by a presidential appointee or designee, according to federal officials and an internal memo reviewed by The New York Times.”
Why is he “clamping down” on science?
• Trump shut down an office intended to help the country prepare for the next pandemic. The Los Angeles Times reports: “He has … shuttered the Biden-era White House Office of Pandemic Preparedness, which was directed by Congress to streamline and coordinate the nation’s response to burgeoning pandemics, such as avian flu. Since the office’s formation in 2023, it has initiated multiagency coordinated efforts to ‘test’ the nation’s preparedness for novel disease outbreaks, and has provided advice and coordination regarding vaccine development and availability among various health agencies, such as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Food and Drug Administration. A visit to the office’s website Wednesday morning showed a ‘404 Page Not Found’ error message.”
I could go on—I haven’t even mentioned the anti-science stances of some of Trump’s appointees, like Robert F. Kennedy Jr.—but the message is clear: Under the leadership of Donald J. Trump, power, politics and ideology matter. The well-being of Americans does not.
Note: This is a slightly edited version of the editor’s note that appeared in the February 2025 print edition. Much of this was originally published online in the Jan. 23 Indy Digest.
Well said.