Below are the citation, abstract and extracts from a new paper in J Health Polit Policy Law, and a comment from me.
CITATION: Science and Public Health in the Trump Era: The Dismantling of Evidence and Institutions and Proposals for Reconstruction Free
Sam Halabi et al.
J Health Polit Policy Law 2025
https://doi.org/10.1215/03616878-12262640
ABSTRACT
This contribution to the special issue addresses the unprecedented politicization of science and health institutions, which threatens the functional integrity of democratic governance itself. Regulatory measures have weakened the infrastructure for evidence generation, constrained the autonomy of scientific actors, and subordinated public health priorities to cultural grievance and political loyalty. False and misleading information about core scientific knowledge is amplified not only in social media but by government itself. NIH disinvestment, advisory body sidelining, and public rhetoric casting science as elite overreach have together eroded the credibility of United States health leadership both domestically and abroad. The targeting of DEI policies in research portfolios, moreover, jeopardizes not only representational justice but the innovation capacity of American science at large. In this contribution, we trace the historical and political structure of science-politics confrontations and detail the damage to the public health and research ecosystem. We offer proposals to reconstruct the scientific enterprise in the next presidential administration.
CONCLUSION
The second Trump administration is dismantling science and public health both domestically and abroad, and at a dizzying pace. The attacks on science will be hard to recover from and risks the United States losing its global primacy in scientific discovery. From the deconstruction of USAID and the withdrawal from the WHO to the slashing of funding and personnel from federal agencies, the damage to domestic progress and international diplomacy has been profound... In addition, the rapid spread of misinformation and disinformation across the country highlights the urgent need for comprehensive reform within the framework of the United States government...
The future of evidence-based governance in the United States depends largely on the steps taken to rebuild institutions and protect the integrity of science. Failing to rectify these attacks on science risks further erosion of public trust, weakens institutional frameworks, and undermines the principles of a democracy that are supported by free scientific inquiry...
COMMENT (NPW): It's interesting that artificial intelligence is not mentioned in the paper. I am optimistic that increasing use of AI by the general public will undermine attempts by governments and others to spread readily falsifiable misinformation and disinformation.
HIFA profile: Neil Pakenham-Walsh is coordinator of HIFA (Healthcare Information For All), a global health community that brings all stakeholders together around the shared goal of universal access to reliable healthcare information. HIFA has 20,000 members in 180 countries, interacting in four languages and representing all parts of the global evidence ecosystem. HIFA is administered by Global Healthcare Information Network, a UK-based nonprofit in official relations with the World Health Organization. Email: neil@hifa.org