What to Expect From Trump’s Next Term: More E. Coli and Fewer Vaccines
Over the next two months, health officials are racing to “Trump-proof” their work, said Gregg Gonsalves, associate professor of epidemiology at Yale School of Public Health. Federal officials are scrambling to disburse funding and move up the timelines of some projects, while local and state health departments are trying to beef up any potential weaknesses in their systems.
Without quick, coordinated responses to outbreaks of deadly pathogens like E. coli, “you’ll see more of them,” Gonsalves told me. Lindsay Wiley, professor and director of the Health Law and Policy Program at UCLA Law, agreed: “Conducting investigations really requires work across state lines—we really are pretty dependent on federal agencies to perform those kinds of epidemiological investigations to track it to the source,” she said. “State and local health departments should be scanning to identify: what are the things that we would lose?” That could include funding as well as resources and leadership on epidemiological investigations and health campaigns. It’s not unusual for states to share resources and information among themselves, but multi-state efforts are usually coordinated by federal officials. Now states are rushing to fill in those gaps.
The national public health apparatus won’t be dismantled overnight—it’s too complicated for that, Gonsalves said. “This is where federalism is a blessing.” Instead, it’ll be a war of attrition, he said, and while larger local and state health departments with more resources may be better able to weather the coming storm, everyone will face significant challenges. Public health, always operating on a shoestring budget, is in worse shape than it was before Covid hit, with fewer resources and less trust alongside more pathogens, pervasive burnout, and threats to personal safety.
