Public health leaders and researchers are beginning a meeting in Washington, D.C., to discuss how to counter what they say are dangerous ideas coming from the Make America Healthy Again movement.
SCOTT DETROW, HOST:
More than 12,000 public health leaders and researchers begin meeting in Washington, D.C., this weekend to confront what they see as a crisis in their field.
GEORGE BENJAMIN: I think public health is under attack from our own federal government more than anything else.
DETROW: They're getting together to talk about how to counter what they see as dangerous ideas coming from the Make America Healthy Again movement. NPR's Pien Huang has a report on what's at stake.
PIEN HUANG, BYLINE: Dr. Georges Benjamin has headed the American Public Health Association for nearly 25 years, and he's very concerned about how the Trump administration has cut staffing and cut public health funding.
BENJAMIN: They're undermining the basic systems that allow people to get good, reliable health care in our country.
HUAN: Benjamin says White House policies are also cutting off the flow of doctors and nurses and making it difficult to import drugs and new technologies.
BENJAMIN: They completely destroyed the modern healthcare system that we know today.
HUAN: So, the American Public Health Association will meet this coming week to defend its vision for America's health. They are up against forces like the Make America Healthy Again movement, led by Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Mark Gorton is co-president of the MAHA Institute, a think tank aimed at influencing federal policy that launched earlier this year. He says they are going…
MARK GORTON: Eradicating corruption in the health care system, restoring the integrity of the public health system and the medical system.
HUAN: And he wants some of the existing systems to go away.
GORTON: I'm not saying we should completely destroy public health, but we need to center it around truth.
HUAN: In his opinion, the US health care system is, quote, “a fear machine for marketing pharmaceutical products.”
Do you think that if we stopped fluoridating water, stopped vaccinating people, as two examples, then everyone would be better off?
GORTON: Yes. Without these things you would have a healthier population.
HUAN: Gorton is not a doctor. He is the founder of the technology company LimeWire. He also founded a hedge fund and has been a strong supporter of Secretary Kennedy—or Bobby, as he calls him—over the years. Dr. Benjamin, again a spokesman for the American Public Health Association, says Gorton's criticism of public health is misinformed.
BENJAMIN: And the reason most of us live long enough to be able to complain about public health is because of public health.
HUAN: He notes that public health has saved millions of people from early death through sanitation, vaccinations and curbing unhealthy behaviors like smoking. Dr. Carmen Nevares is a longtime public health leader. She sees the MAHA movement as a reaction.
CARMEN NEVAREZ: MAHA doesn't appear out of nowhere. You know, this comes from the realities of people's lives. This occurs due to circumstances where they felt that something was handled incorrectly.
HUAN: Health care costs in this country are high. The COVID pandemic has been difficult and isolating for many people here. She hears the criticism and hopes to find common ground, but she says it's not an easy task because there are key differences in public health approaches.
NEVAREZ: There are times when you have to say, “Sorry, but you're not only a danger to yourself.” You are a danger to others, and that is why we are going to limit your freedom.
HUAN: Like forcing a tuberculosis patient to get treatment so he doesn't infect others, or closing a restaurant because of an active rat problem.
NEVAREZ: If you live alone on an island, it's not your problem. If you live with neighbors and people in the city are with you, this is your problem.
HUAN: At the upcoming meeting, public health leaders will rally around their own vision for protecting America's health.
Pien Huang, NPR News.
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