Former Trump administration health official Rick Bright published an op-ed in The New York Times warning of the nightmarish public health scenarios likely to unfold if Donald Trump is elected president again.
Bright ought to know. He was head of the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Agency in the Health and Human Services Department but became a whistleblower in 2020 to sound the alarm on the Trump administration’s mismanagement of the Covid pandemic.
In light of new and disturbing reporting about Trump giving Covid test machines to Russian President Vladimir Putin that year, Bright’s warnings about the potential destruction of health institutions in a second Trump term deserve attention. As he writes, Trump would be empowered to undermine public health measures even more than he did the first time if he retakes the White House. And he has a playbook to do just that.
Now Mr. Trump seeks to return to power with a potentially more aggressive agenda to reshape our health institutions. Proposals supported by conservative initiatives like Project 2025 aim to split the C.D.C., stripping it of its ability to issue critical vaccine guidance, weaken the F.D.A.’s approval processes for key medical products and further slash N.I.H. funding. Some of these proposed changes, should Mr. Trump decide to embrace them, would require congressional approval. Yet a determined president could do a great deal of damage to our public health infrastructure through the installation of loyalists in key positions, redirection of funds and agency restructuring via executive actions.
Bright explains what that could look like in practice:
A weakened C.D.C. would struggle to provide unified guidance during health crises. N.I.H. cuts would impede crucial medical breakthroughs, jeopardizing advancements in cancer treatments, vaccines for diseases like Ebola and vital research on heart disease. A compromised F.D.A. could lead to hasty approvals of unproven treatments, eroding public trust in medical interventions. Furthermore, undermining these institutions would diminish America’s role in global health initiatives, leaving us more susceptible to international health threats.
This topic — about what public health would look like under a second Trump term — has been on my mind since the height of the pandemic, when thousands of Americans died monthly amid Trump’s arrogance and willful ignorance. And, as Bright mentioned, the threat of Trump implementing Project 2025, the far-right plan to pack the government with MAGA stooges, looms large over the health world with weeks to go until Election Day.
That’s why I recently chatted with Drs. Chris Pernell and Regina Davis Moss, two public health professionals who discussed what’s at stake in this election regarding Americans’ health and well-being. Pernell is the director of the NAACP’s Center for Health Equity, while Moss is the president and CEO of “In Our Own Voice,” an organization that prides itself on leading the “National Black Women’s Reproductive Justice Agenda.”
Together, as part of ongoing coverage of Project 2025 from “The ReidOut,” we discussed abortion surveillance, anti-trans crackdowns, the health impact of hypermasculinity, the war on health equity, and the various ways conservatives’ far-right agenda for a second Trump term could make Americans sick … in more ways than one.
Stay tuned for a video of our conversation on The ReidOut Blog next week!