By Nandini Sharma ’29
According to the Texas Department of State Health Services, “in early 2025, Texas recorded over 760 measles cases and two child deaths, marking the state’s worst outbreak in 30 years”. Yes, measles, a disease that was declared eliminated from the United States in 2000, has become a cataclysmic presence 25 years later. Simultaneously, in April, the CDC, once America’s health watchdog, announced $2.9 billion in cuts – nearly a third of its funding. Neither of these events are isolated incidents. The nation’s public health framework is being eroded by budget cuts, misinformation, and political division, leaving Americans at impending risk.
January 20, 2025 marked a turning point in American society’s approach to public health. With President Donald Trump taking office for his second term, the political schematics of our nation shifted. According to KFF, “as expected, President Trump signed a ‘day one’ executive order…announcing his intention to withdraw the U.S. from the World Health Organization (WHO),” a specialized agency under the United Nations tasked with the purpose of protecting and promoting global health. Leaving the WHO weakens our global safety net by a large margin. Without early warnings and international coordination, the U.S. is more likely to be defenseless against future health threats, whether they be global pandemics or local outbreaks like the one in Texas.
Trump is also requiring the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) – the umbrella organization for the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the National Institutes of Health (NIH), and Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services – to cut staff by 25%. Subsequently, thousands of people were fired during the first week of Trump’s term in one week alone; another round of cuts began in October. 3,500 FDA employees, 2,400 CDC employees, and 1,200 NIH employees are yet to be cut as part of the agenda. Furthermore, contract expenditure is to be diminished by 35% across all divisions. While spending on contracts can include arbitrary things such as cleaning services and specialized equipment, according to NPR, “contracts often cover functions that are specialized or not large enough to require full-time staff”. These drastic measures are supposedly intended to eliminate what HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. terms “bureaucratic sprawl.”
In reality, according to many qualified experts, these cuts are doing just the opposite. Robert Steinbrook, Health Research Group Director at the advocacy organization Public Citizen, noted to NPR that “‘amid the disorganized mass layoffs of HHS staff and the reorganization of the agency, the rushed cuts are more likely to cause problems than to accomplish anything constructive’”. George Benjamin, director of the American Public Health Association, further noted that administrators are “looking to cut the parts of our health system that give the best value for prevention and wellness”. Ashish Jha, dean of Brown University School of Public Health elaborated on the specific, wide-ranging impacts of the cuts, explaining that “it’s uncertain that these new agencies will be able to continue tracking disease outbreaks, developing new treatments and other work critical for protecting Americans’ health’”. The systems responsible for fundamentals such as tracking diseases, approving treatments, and supporting local health departments are being stripped of substance. Such programs may be delayed, defunded, or disappear altogether; when we need these systems most, they may be too impotent to lean on.
Importantly, not only are budgets being cut, but widely accepted facts about safe medicines are also being called into question. Kennedy has consistently cast doubt upon vaccine safety and even linked common drugs like Tylenol to autism without scientific evidence. This dangerous and false narrative has large impacts on public opinion. A recent KFF/Washington Post survey showed that nearly 40% of parents of young children said they were unsure or believed misinformation about vaccines. When government leaders promote conspiracy theories and unproven medical claims to an impressionable public, trust in science collapses.
Subsequently, as public health messaging gets replaced by social media influencers, YouTubers, and political motives, it becomes harder for the average American to know what’s real and what’s not. As a result, fewer people are vaccinating their children, more are turning to “natural” remedies, and preventable diseases are surging. This is exactly what happened in Texas’s 2025 measles outbreak. Experts say it’s a direct result of declining vaccination rates caused by years of misinformation.
The sad truth is that America’s public health system is declining in real time, due to intentional policy decisions and widespread misinformation. These trends – budget cuts, staff and program eliminations, and the spread of scientific falsehoods – will manifest in slower emergency response times, higher rates of preventable diseases, and worse outcomes for already highly susceptible populations.
On the other hand, I want to underscore a quote from the WHO: “Public Health depends on collective action; no one is safe until everyone is safe.” It is an unfortunate reality of our circumstances that for some communities, reliable care will become impossible to attain. For those who have access to great healthcare it falls on us to help both ourselves and others in need. Whether it be trusting and spreading accurate and science-based healthcare information, getting vaccinated, or helping out a neighbor in need, every action will define our future. The time is now to pitch in and contribute to the public health infrastructure, because recovery doesn’t just depend on the government, but rather on every individual.
