The Trump-Kennedy War on Our Public Health

The attack on our health-care system playing out now is just one example of the kaleidoscope of shortsightedness and political malice Trump is spewing out. The effects could hurt families for years.

Who do you trust more with your health: A doctor or these guys?

Who would’ve thought that the “Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report” would — or even could — end up being part of an Orwellian political reconditioning?

Fo the uninitiated, the MMWR is the CDC's chief way to report timely, reliable, authoritative, accurate, objective and useful health information to physicians, nurses like my wife, public epidemiologists and researchers, smart folks who aren’t easily fooled by the nonsense health information online. Its information is cited precisely, and its sourcing is clearly identified.

As a health & science editor at Bloomberg News and Long Island’s Newsday, I’d regularly review it for news important, or at least interesting, to readers. Yesterday, though, the new administration refused to let the MMWR and other health information be sent out by federal health agencies in yet another sad example of the weird kaleidoscope of quick-hit shortsightedness and political malice being displayed this week by Trump and his MAGA minions.

The last MMWR to hit the public told of two TB cases in patients who underwent tissue graft from another person, reminding physicians of a 2021 incident affecting 113 graft patients and calling for improved donor screening and culture-based testing to prevent TB transmission. Reports were set to go out this week on the H5N1 avian influenza outbreak, which I wrote about recently. Click here to check it out.

Horrible, politically-tinged stuff, right?

On the same day that our health agencies were told not to do their jobs, Trump rolled back an order lowering drug costs for older Americans on Medicare, a quarter of whom have no retirement savings, and Medicaid, hurting poor folks and those with disabilities. He also ended a Joe Biden order that lengthened enrollment periods for the Affordable Care Act, lowered premiums, extended postpartum Medicaid coverage and protected folks with pre-existing conditions.

This is the “populist” hero for everyday Americans, right?

Hopefully, none of the folks who voted for Trump gets TB from a tissue graft, or needs expensive drugs, or has a kid who curiously picks up a dead bird, or hopes for easily available insurance coverage for the family’s medical needs, or simply wants a knowledgeable doctor to review their health.

The goal of holding up health-care communications? Who knows for sure, but my bet is the administration wants to be able to reshape them using a form of “newspeak” that reflects the twisted, junk science views of public health held by the anti-vaxxer Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Trump’s choice to lead all of our federal health agencies.

I outlined those views, the troubles with them and his myriad personal issues in a mid-November column. Click here to check it out.

“Newspeak,” of course, is a reference to the language used by the authoritarian government in George Orwell's dystopian novel 1984. It was designed to limit freedom of thought and allow “big brother” control the populace. You think this general idea isn’t on the mind of Kennedy Jr., who is looking to puff up his own self-view after long being an outcast from his family and often ridiculed for his weird ideas? Or Trump, who clearly aspires to reach “Big Brother” status in the U.S.?

RFK Jr. has promised to gut the 18,000-employee FDA, which ensures the safety of food, drugs and medical devices, and to replace hundreds of employees at the National Institutes of Health, stripping away years of scientific and medical expertise in the process. Even though his nomination hasn’t yet been approved by the Senate, this is the first shot across that bow, I’d guess.

It’s not yet clear whether the directive will affect more urgent communications, such as foodborne disease outbreaks or drug approvals. Stefanie Spear, who was press secretary on Kennedy’s failed 2024 presidential campaign, instructed agency staff Tuesday simply to pause all public communications, the Washington Post and other media reported, citing people familiar with the discussions.

Spear — who like Kennedy isn’t a doctor or a scientist, and has no training in the health field — was Kennedy’s press chief during his aborted president campaign. She’s slated to be his deputy chief of staff at the department of Health and Human Services (HHS), sources told the Post. In mid-December, I noted how it’s not only Trump’s nominations that may be dangerous, it’s also the secondary people loyal to his picks. Spear is a sad example of this.

In that column, I reviewed how a person working with Kennedy to fill key health-care posts was a lawyer who has moved against the FDA’s long-held support of the polio vaccine. The POLIO vaccine, for heaven’s sake (I can’t write that sentence often enough).

Spear did not immediately respond to a request for comment, according to the Washington Post story by Lena H. Sun, Dan Diamond and Rachel Roubein. Spokespeople for the FDA and CDC referred questions to HHS, which also didn’t respond to requests for comment.

Want to hear Trump’s “newspeak” explanation for all this mishegas, the Yiddish word for insanity, craziness, or silliness. “The previous administration has embedded deeply unpopular, inflationary, illegal and radical practices within every agency and office of the federal government," he said, while signing presidential orders rolling back clear public health advances.

Illegal, radical? Right, Trump loves painting others with labels that more truthfully reflect his own actions. What do you think?