A report detailing major health challenges in the United States – and calling for the removal of Robert F Kennedy Jr from the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) – has been released by an organisation of about 300 American health professionals and scientists, reports The Guardian.
The report from Defend Public Health is an attempt to get ahead of misinformation and lack of information from health officials, with its release slated to coincide with that of the anticipated second US report to “Make America Healthy Again” (MAHA).
The first MAHA report was released in May, and a second was expected this week – but amid turmoil at the health agencies, it has reportedly been delayed for several weeks.
“The MAHA report is essentially a distraction from the real causes of poor health,” said Elizabeth Jacobs, Professor Emerita at the University of Arizona and a founding member of Defend Public Health.
“This administration does not want to address things like poverty and education and access to healthcare. Instead, they’re distracting the public with information on solutions to problems that don’t actually exist. When the foundation of your policy is not evidence-based, it will collapse.”
The Defend Public Health report diverges from the previous MAHA focus on issues such as processed foods and environmental chemicals, but it covers familiar ground in public health.
It also seeks to ensure equitable access to vaccines; expand access to healthcare, including comprehensive sexual and reproductive healthcare access; and build strategies for clean air.
The report recommends fully funding scientific research and public health systems; combatting scientific misinformation, including from the government; and strengthening pandemic preparedness. The members have also called for reductions in gun violence, now the number one cause of death for children.
Its last recommendation is to remove Kennedy from office, calling his removal “the single most important step toward improving the health of Americans”.
Scientific misinformation is an “existential threat” to Americans, and the US Government is a “major source” of misinformation and disinformation now, Jacobs said.
The first MAHA report “contains misinformation and uses references that don’t even exist”, she noted.
Jacobs recommended working with social media companies, “one of the biggest amplifiers of misinformation”, to address the spread of harmful information. Educating children on how to evaluate the quality and accuracy of information is also important, she said.
But one of the biggest purveyors of health misinformation is Kennedy himself.
“Everything that he is doing is horrifying,” Jacobs said. “There is a saying in public health, ‘saving lives a million at a time’, and he is doing the opposite of that.”
She called him a “genuine threat” who is “devastating” public health.
“He has no knowledge, training or experience in any type of science. He’s never done an experiment, he’s never written a paper, he’s never received a grant to study anything. He has no understanding of the underlying causes of poor health in the United States.”
Defend Public Health launched in November, after Trump’s re-election because, as Jacobs said, “it was very clear to us that public health specifically was going to be under attack”.
“We knew that it was going to be a tough fight. I don’t think that any of us knew how bad this was going to get, how quickly. But we are doing everything in our power to support our fellow researchers, public health workers…. to also continue to get accurate information out to the public,” she said.
The group joins other established health organisations as well as newcomers like the Vaccine Integrity Project to serve as reliable sources of information.
There’s a long history of groups like these providing outside perspectives on official recommendations, said Georges Benjamin, executive director of the American Public Health Association (APHA).
But the federal government is uniquely positioned to speak to the health of all Americans.
“We have to be careful that each of these private sector organisations align our recommendations, so that we don’t further confuse the public,” he said.
Meanwhile, as the federal government withdraws in its responsibility to protect the public, these groups would become more influential in filling that void “until we can get the federal government again to step up into that place as a trusted advisor”.
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