The Attack on Public Health
Fascism
As with the first Trump administration, attacks against our scientific and healthcare institutions have ramped up once again. This time, through executive actions, the administration has succeeded in stymieing the flow of information from the public health agencies to healthcare facilities and to the public.
As directed by the Department of Health and Human Services, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) has been directed to freeze all public communications which includes their regular reporting of disease surveillance, vaccine statistics, and mortality and morbidity data. This data is used by state, local, and private healthcare entities to adjust guidelines and policies to help prevent the spread of disease and to more appropriately respond to outbreaks and other public health concerns. This communications freeze comes amidst the avian influenza epidemic responsible for the much-reported egg price increases and a major outbreak of tuberculosis (TB) in Kansas.
According to Kansas Department of Health and Environment, as of 01/31/25 there have been 67 active, and 79 latent TB infections reported. Despite these alarming numbers, the CDC Current Outbreak web page has not been updated since November of 2024, and makes no mention of the TB outbreak. If this outbreak were to affect other states, there would be no federal agency coordination to track and prepare a combined front.
As of the end of 2024, there were 67 confirmed human cases of, and one confirmed death from avian influenza (H5) according to the CDC’s H5 site. Despite this clear spillover from a zoonotic virus to humans, the figures appear to not have been updated since the Trump administration’s communication freeze. What has been updated though, is the USDA’s tracking of confirmed cases in livestock herds, and the CDC’s tracking of affected poultry (through the USDA) which currently shows livestock affected in one state, California, and poultry being affected in 623 counties across the US from southern California to Maine.
Although these are only two examples of major public health threats being actively ignored by the Trump administration, there is the potential for much greater threats with president Trump’s order to withdraw from the World Health Organization (WHO). No longer will we have the coordination and early warning systems in place to prevent the spread of global scale diseases, no longer will we take part in the containment of diseases like Ebola on foreign land before it spreads to our shores. And, potentially much more importantly, we will not even have the monitoring in place to know such a pathogen has made its way into our communities until it is much too late.
What can you do? Stay informed, follow your state and local health department’s surveillance and guidelines, and advocate for an end to this administration’s attack on public health and science.
Further reading:
Directory of state health departments
https://www.usa.gov/state-health
Follow fellow Substacker and epidemiologist “Your Local Epidemiologist” Katelyn Jetelina
