Do you trust the CDC?

Do you trust the CDC?

Now that President Trump is back in office and RFK, jr is head of HHS, people are being asked if they trust the CDC (Centers for Disease Control). I think the relevant question is to ask if people have ever trusted the CDC. I know that the CDC lost credibility during Covid. Did that distrust lessen with the arrival of Kennedy? Apparently not. There are ones that are dismayed over some of the new directives from the administration to the CDC regarding immunizations and research. One in particular that I find disfavor in is the directive that explicitly forbids CDC scientists from working on “identifying and documenting worse health outcomes for minority populations.” I have stated before that this is a wrong direction to take. 

One of the contradictions of this administration is the acknowledgement that on the one hand there are differences between males and females and on the other hand differences do not exist – either by sex or by race. So males should not be allowed to share intimate spaces with females. There are only two genders – regardless of what gender they say they possess. So defund research focused on gender. Also defund research into racial differences. So we are different but we are not different? Is the administration in denial that minorities have worse health outcomes in cardiac disease, diabetes, kidney disease and others and we are not to find out why and remedy those differences? This is a disservice to millions of Americans who happen not to be white males.

Sure Kennedy has gotten awful press, some of which is deserved. The CDC is a mess as he is cleaning house and redirecting its priorities. Not a bad thing either. What does the public think? There is a partisan divide.  For instance with regard to the warning about Tylenol, 60 percent of democrats polled thought the statements were false while 56 percent of the republicans thought they were true. This is more likely a “hate Trump – like Trump” divide. Physicians continue to reiterate that it is the safest medicine to take in pregnancy, when untreated fever or pain can cause other problems. Does this means that a large segment of the population does not trust physicians either?

I know of plenty of people who have always distrusted the CDC, physicians and the AMA well before the advent of Trump and Kennedy. The agency has in the past made recommendations and then withdrew them. The CDC has had a precipitous decline in public trust under Kennedy who has been called by former surgeon generals as a threat to the nation’s health. One said “They’ve dismantled the agencies that had real scientists who provided information and instead replaced it with ideology. We’re already seeing diseases that we usually don’t see coming back, like measles. People will die and the ramifications are significant.” 

Moreover, given Kennedy’s track record on vaccines, the legions of antivaxxers are growing. The president has even chimed in on vaccinations. People may be motivated to make decisions based on whether they like or dislike the president, rather than any rational thought.

Former CDC leaders Rochelle Walensky and Dan Jernigan have stopped short of saying that do not trust their old agency. But they did say it has been harder to trust CDC guidance under the Trump administration and that physician groups should step up to fill the void. Really? Who do you trust for health advice? I discount virtually every pronouncement from the AMA. I firmly believe that its obsession with wokeness in medical schools endangers the nation’s health. Where do you go get information about medications and medical advice? I know that I have challenged some of the advice given to me by my own physician. She expects that given my penchant for researching almost everything dealing with my own health issues. But what do “normal” people do? How do you make decisions regarding your own healthcare?

Right now the CDC is in turmoil. More than 1,300 employees have been terminated, some permanently. The fact is that the firing of vaccine experts and cutting off research funding does not engender trust and it has served to erode my trust ever farther. Of course, Kennedy does not see it that way. In an editorial in the Wall Steet Journal, he said that his actions were restoring trust in the CDC. He contends that the CDC lost the public’s trust with its unscientific mandates during Covid. He wrote “Bureaucratic inertia, politicized science and mission creep have corroded that purpose and squandered public trust. That dysfunction produced irrational policy during Covid: cloth masks on toddlers, arbitrary 6-foot distancing, boosters for healthy children, prolonged school closings, economy-crushing lockdowns, and the suppression of low-cost therapeutics in favor of experimental and ineffective drugs. The toll was devastating. America is home to 4.2% of the world’s population but suffered 19% of Covid deaths.” Whoa! Excuse me, but wasn’t all this on the president’s first watch with Fauci who first said no masks and then one mask and then two masks? Fauci later admitted that there was no scientific basis for many of the restrictions taken during Covid certainly played a role in a lack of trust in the CDC. Now critics of Kennedy are saying that the recommendations from the CDC are not evidence based. Are we now to believe the critics? What a mess.

Kennedy writes that the CDC has wandered away from its mission and only “half of the CDC’s budget supports its infectious-disease mission. Fewer than 1 in 10 employees are epidemiologists. That drift explains much of the agency’s disastrous pandemic response.” So Kennedy says that the president wants him to restore the CDC to its original mission and restore its focus on infectious disease. Will this restoration bring with it a credible CDC? Whether his actions are doing this will be the subject for continuing debate. The president is fond of saying “wait until next year” to see the benefits from his policies. Well lets wait until next year to see if Kennedy has indeed restored the public trust in the CDC.