It’s not normal for public health to be so partisan.
The current administration has slashed Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) programs that protect Americans from cancer, heart disease, stroke, birth defects and workplace harms. It has derailed lifesaving programs created by President George W. Bush that protect children from malaria and prevent the spread of HIV, tuberculosis, and other infectious diseases. The scientist selected by this administration to lead the CDC was fired after less than a month. Most of CDC’s top leaders have been fired or resigned, as have more than one-quarter of CDC staff. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., replaced the advisory group that issues vaccine guidance with people who know little about vaccines and have made recommendations that don’t reflect evidence. This partisanship is unhealthy, and it’s poisoning our societal immune system.
When public health succeeds, we don’t notice—water, air, and food don’t make us sick, and our kids don’t get hit by cars, start smoking or get preventable infections. But when public health fails, we suffer.
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Fewer people are getting COVID shots and other lifesaving vaccines, government is slower to respond to outbreaks, and smokers have a harder time quitting because of cuts to the quit-smoking hotlines and antismoking campaigns. More dangerous damage will be less visible: ending systems that track risks to mothers and infants and other systems that track and stop health risks. When we can’t find threats as fast or respond as rapidly, the next health disaster is likely to be more deadly than it would otherwise be.
Scientists, health professionals, community leaders and all who care about facts and fairness must protect what keeps us safe, patch what’s broken and lay the groundwork for faster, more effective health and public health systems.
To do this, we must first stop the bleeding, starting with the disease of disinformation. Distrust drives avoidable illness and death; a real-time “health beacon” could counter today’s firehose of falsehoods. Artificial intelligence can detect emerging rumors and draft initial responses for specialist review; experts can curate evidence-based, nonpartisan, verifiable responses that pre-bunk predictable myths and debunk new viral claims. Fact-based messages—shared through short, engaging videos and trusted channels—can help truth move as fast as falsehood.
One particularly urgent area is vaccines. Misinformation profiteers spread the false claim that vaccines cause autism, sell unproven “detox” therapies and undermine trust. Secretary Kennedy’s team seeks to make autism compensable under vaccine-injury rules, turning diagnoses into groundless lawsuits while draining resources from real causes and care. Scientists, clinicians and informed citizens should challenge false claims publicly, support credible sources of evidence and press policy makers to base decisions on facts.
Only the national government can coordinate disease surveillance across borders, fund specialized laboratories, safeguard vaccine safety, manage stockpiles and emergency response, and support health departments nationwide. All of us should demand that Congress—and hope that the courts—halt staff and program cuts that Congress didn’t approve and restore essential protections that keep people safe. Congress must also require HHS to spend and account for the funds it has authorized.
But when the federal system falters, others must protect people from avoidable harm. States, cities and professional societies can’t replace national capacity, but they can keep essential protections from collapsing. The newly launched Northeast Health Collaborative, linking 10 states and cities, shares data, laboratory resources and outbreak expertise to preserve core functions and test practical innovations. Northwestern states are also organizing, and a nationwide 15-state network now coordinates responses to emerging threats.
Professional societies can also fill gaps. When official COVID-19 vaccine guidance weakened, the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists and the American Academy of Family Physicians issued clear, evidence-based recommendations for children, pregnant women and adults. Other organizations must follow.
Universities and state governments must step up to preserve and gather data. CDC and other health datasets should be preserved; ongoing data collection should continue through states, universities and researchers. Without data, we can’t see risks and progress, fix failures and defend successes.
We must build a system that works faster and operates transparently. The 7-1-7 target—find disease outbreaks within seven days, report them within one and mount essential control measures within seven more—is one such system and shows what faster response can achieve. Developed by my organization and used in nearly 50 countries, the approach sets measurable goals that accelerate progress and strengthen accountability. In Uganda, during a recent cholera outbreak near a border area, disease detectives met 7-1-7 targets, showing that faster action can stop outbreaks. In the U.S., few jurisdictions measure response speed—and those that do often find they fall short but improve once they track results. When every outbreak becomes a way to improve, systems improve more quickly, and the openness of results builds confidence—both among the public and among those who decide how to fund health protection systems.
Results build trust. When air quality improves and asthma attacks drop, people notice. When contaminated water is cleaned, communities feel safer. When outbreaks are stopped early, confidence grows.
We must stop partisanship from interfering with the basic systems that keep us safe. Every year we fail to strengthen our health defenses, lives are lost and costs rise. Every month we allow distrust to spread, the next outbreak gets harder to stop.
Public health should not be partisan. We can get back on track by doing what public health does best: see threats clearly, build belief in the possibility of progress, and work together to build a healthier future. That’s the See/Believe/Create approach I describe in my book, The Formula for Better Health: How to Save Millions of Lives—Including Your Own. This formula has saved millions of lives and holds the key to protect, rebuild and strengthen our society’s immune system before the next crisis strikes.
This is an opinion and analysis article, and the views expressed by the author or authors are not necessarily those of Scientific American.
