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Politics, Public Health, Research

Trump’s War on Measurement Means Losing Data on Drug Use, Maternal Mortality, Climate Change and More

More children ages 1 to 4 die of drowning than any other cause of death. Nearly a quarter of adults received mental health treatment in 2023, an increase of 3.4 million from the prior year. The number of migrants from Mexico and northern Central American countries stopped by the U.S. Border Patrol was surpassed in 2022 by the number of migrants from other nations. We know these things because the federal government collects, organizes and shares the data behind them. Every year, year after year, workers in agencies that many of us have never heard of have been amassing the statistics that undergird decision-making at all levels of government and inform the judgments of business leaders, school administrators and medical providers nationwide. The survival of that data is now in doubt, as a result of the Department of Government Efficiency’s comprehensive assault on the federal bureaucracy.

Vaccination shot vaccine injection child nurse
Child Health, Measles, Newborn and Infant Health, Public Health, Vaccines

Combatting the measles threat means examining the reasons for declining vaccination rates

The anti-vaccine literature is not anti-science. It is filled with statistics and references to scientific studies, although the facts are often wrong. Parents who read this literature need more than the simple reassurance of experts that vaccines are safe and effective. They need to be shown evidence and have confidence that their concerns are being taken seriously.

Vaccine egg candling 1
Health Policy, Infectious Disease, Politics, Public Health, Vaccines

CDC layoffs strike deeply at its ability to respond to the current flu, norovirus and measles outbreaks and other public health emergencies

The CDC began as a small branch of the U.S. Public Health Service in 1946 as an outgrowth of successes fighting malaria in southern states during World War II and before. Its founder, Dr. Joseph W. Mountin, envisioned that it would come to serve all states, addressing all communicable diseases. Since that time, the CDC has evolved into the nation’s premier public health organization, leveraging both clinical and population health sciences to prevent and mitigate challenges to the nation’s health.