Canada used to look to the United States as a source of medical and scientific information, but the federal health minister said that is no longer the case.
“I can’t trust them to be a reliable partner, no,” Health Minister Marjorie Michel said in a year-end interview.
Michel added that the U.S. “can be reliable on some issues” but pointed to vaccines as an area where Canada must forge its own path.
US President Donald Trump and his administration have made significant changes to healthcare institutions over the past year.
Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is an anti-vaccine activist. Under his leadership, the CDC website has recently been redesigned.
November to overturn the long-standing scientific conclusion that vaccines do not cause autism.
The change has prompted some former CDC officials to say the information the agency releases about vaccine safety cannot be trusted.
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An advisory group chosen by Kennedy also recently recommended ending routine newborn hepatitis B vaccinations and is considering changes to the rest of the childhood immunization schedule.
Problems with disinformation in the U.S. are a “big problem,” Michel said, and a reason Canada needs to reach out to other like-minded countries.
“The good news, I would say, in our case, is that at my last federal provincial (health ministers) meeting in October, all the provinces agreed to put vaccination at the center of our communiqué,” she said.
The statement, endorsed by all participating jurisdictions, noted that “vaccines save lives and health costs” and said ministers had agreed to coordinate efforts to build confidence and respond to the current measles outbreak.
Canadian researchers warn of consequences of politicization of health information in the US
An editorial published in the Canadian Medical Association Journal in July argued that the Trump administration is dismantling the country's public health and research infrastructure.
The administration has cut budgets for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the National Institutes of Health, including cutting research on the effects of misinformation.
The article, authored by Shannon Charlebois and Jasmine Pava, states that an “infectious disease crisis” is unfolding in North America. It said the Trump administration's “coordinated attacks” on health agencies have “drastically reduced their ability to collect, interpret and share public health data.”
The article notes an increase in the incidence of a number of infectious diseases in Canada, including measles.
This fall, the Pan American Health Organization revoked Canada's measles-free status, in place since 1998, after outbreaks of the virus persisted in several provinces for more than a year.
Experts cited several factors, including cuts to public health funding and a shortage of family doctors, as well as misinformation about vaccines. The highly contagious measles virus requires 95 percent vaccination coverage to maintain population immunity.
Mistrust of vaccines and public health authorities in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic has contributed to the outbreak, Michel said.
She said there is widespread “misunderstanding” about how vaccines work, coupled with the spread of misinformation on social media, but she believes trust in vaccine science is returning in Canada.
“We have to rebuild trust,” she said.
© 2025 The Canadian Press
