In an era of rapid scientific development, it is easy to take medical advances for granted. We expect breakthroughs to occur regularly and to be achieved by 2025; For example, successful trials of gene therapy for diseases that cannot be cured have given hope to scientists and the public. But such bright spots have been overshadowed by a series of policy decisions in the United States that have already begun to set the public health system back rather than moving it forward.
The White House and the nation's leading health agency, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), have taken a number of unprecedented actions in fundamental areas of public health. They started the year by disbanding USAID, shutting down programs that vital global health measures including childhood vaccinations. Then the administration cut budgets and the staff of the National Institutes of Health, one of the world's leading centers for biomedical research and a springboard for innovations such as mRNA COVID-19 vaccines and cancer immunotherapies. Meanwhile, despite the lack of any new data to justify skepticism, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is now sow doubt about the long-established safety of vaccineswhich public health researchers say could lead to a surge in infectious diseases. The deep consequences of this year's cuts will be felt for years to come.
Vaccines at gunpoint
Many of the changes revolve around the Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) program and vaccine hesitancy led by HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a longtime vaccine skeptic. In the spring H.H.S. withdrew important investments in research on new mRNA vaccines, and Kennedy also announced on social networks that the CDC will no longer recommend annual COVID vaccinations for most Americans, leading to some states develop their own guidelines— Continue to recommend these vaccinations to residents and reimburse costs.
Read more: New CDC recommendation could mean big changes to childhood vaccines
In June Kennedy CDC Vaccine Advisory Committee Members Fired and replaced them with people who question the safety of vaccines, and in August, President Trump fired the newly appointed head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Susan Monares, when she clashed with Kennedy over his vaccination strategy.
The administration also re-established a previously disbanded task force to re-examine the safety of childhood vaccines even though data shows the shots are safe. Near the end of the year CDC website has changed state that “the claim that vaccines do not cause autism is not a valid claim.”
Threats to future progress
Public health experts are vocally opposed, citing decades of compelling scientific evidence showing vaccines are safe and do not cause autism. Much of the evidence that such experts rely on (not just for vaccines, but for all aspects of medicine) comes from NIH-funded research. As this foundation's resources dwindle and trust in science crumbles, the scientific knowledge that guides many medical decisions in the United States and the development of innovative treatments for all types of diseases are at stake. The immunotherapy that saves so many lives from cancer began with NIH funding, as did several gene therapies that reported positive results for the first time this year Huntington's disease treatmentA rare genetic disease in newbornsAnd high cholesterol. These and other treatments may one day cure people of their diseases.
Experts worry that without the basic research that makes such advances possible, the flow of innovative treatments that could save both lives and health care costs could dwindle to a trickle in coming years. And as people live longer, protection from treatments scientists have never even dreamed of may become more necessary than ever.
