Trump’s cuts to public health could spread infectious diseases here

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The Trump administration’s “chaotic” cuts to American public health agencies could lead to more infectious diseases crossing the border into Canada, a former top American health official is warning.

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U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced plans Thursday to slash 10,000 jobs across more than two dozen divisions, including the Food and Drug Administration and the U.S. Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

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The cuts are meant to streamline the HHS and make it “more efficient and effective,” Kennedy said in a post on X. “We will eliminate an entire alphabet soup of departments, while preserving their core functions by merging them into a new organization called the Administration for Healthy America or AHA.”

The cuts are in addition to thousands of employees who had already left through voluntary buyouts or been let go. Combined, the losses amount to 20,000 full-time employees eliminated from a workforce of 82,000.

On the day of his inauguration in January, U.S. President Donald Trump signed an executive order withdrawing his country from the World Health Organization (WHO). This week, American media reported Trump plans to cut aid to Gavi, a global vaccine alliance that provides vaccines for children in the poorest countries.

The impact of the exit from the WHO and “ill advised” cuts to its own health agencies “will be massive, both within the U.S. and globally,” Dr. Tom Frieden, a former director of the CDC, said in a virtual appearance at the Canadian Medical Association Health Summit in Ottawa.

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“It may take time to see all of the damage that’s being done, but the damage is really quite substantial.”

Trump’s decision to terminate WHO funding will affect immunizations globally, influenza tracking, “polio virus and TB and HIV and malaria and so much more,” Frieden said.

Rapidly shifting, “abrupt and chaotic” health policy changes in the U.S. could also have a direct impact on Canada, Frieden said.

The CDC’s mission “is to protect Americans from threats, whether those threats are natural or man-made, whether they come from the U.S. or anywhere in the world, whether they’re infectious or otherwise,” said Frieden, an infectious diseases physician who led the CDC during Barack Obama’s presidency.

What we’re seeing is really very concerning, because the risks to the world and the risks to the U.S. are enormous

“Moves just announced in the last 24 hours would undermine the ability of the CDC to protect Americans,” he said.

“Now, what does that mean for Canada? Well, you may be facing spread of infectious diseases — measles, pertussis (whooping cough), drug-resistant tuberculosis — from the U.S.,” Frieden told the audience.

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“You will also be facing spread of infectious diseases globally that will increase, predictably, as a result of these ill-considered changes.”

He appealed to Canada, a “strategic and generous partner” in global health initiatives, to do even more.

“I know that that’s difficult, and as an American, it’s hard for me to ask you to do that, given what our government is doing” to Canada, Frieden said.

“But the fact is, there are huge challenges around the world and there’s going to be a need to mitigate the damage that’s been done.”

Kennedy, who in the past has falsely blamed the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine for childhood autism, has encouraged people to get vaccinated amid rising measles cases, but also claimed, in a Fox News interview, that the vaccine causes “deaths every year” and “all the diseases that measles itself causes,” alarming health officials.

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Frieden described vaccines as “one of the greatest accomplishments of humanity and the implications of undermining trust in vaccines are massive.”

“What we’re seeing is really very concerning, because the risks to the world and the risks to the U.S. are enormous,” Frieden said. “Decreased vaccine research. Decreased vaccine uptake. Decreased support for global vaccines.”

He suggested the Trump government is taking a “post-truth” approach to public health. (The Oxford dictionary describes post-truth as an adjective “relating to or denoting circumstances in which objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion than appeals to emotion and personal belief.”)

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“There’s kind of a post-truth perspective to some of what we’re hearing from the administration, but facts are stubborn things,” Frieden said.

Canada isn’t immune to the push back against evidence-based medicine, Newfoundland and Labrador Premier Andrew Furey said in a follow-up Canadian panel.

“There has been an erosion of trust within the system,” said Furey, who is also an orthopedic surgeon. “And if we don’t reflect on that, if we don’t understand that, and if we can’t use the language to try to cure that, then that becomes a more problematic issue than the actual tariffs themselves.”

“That’s the contagion that I’m more concerned about when it comes to the health-care system.”

“Writing off the Joe Rogans of the world is not the way to do it,” he added.

“Trying to figure out how to speak to his audience is the way to do it and recognizing that citizens have questions, and how to answer those questions at their level, is going to be critically important in the next four years.”

National Post

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