Trump HHS Chaos Is The Health Crisis: Public Health Project Newsletter

The Ebola situation in Central and East Africa is grave, ‘rapidly escalating’, and “could last months”.

How did the virus ‘rage for weeks in the Congo before anyone raised the alarm’? The NYT reports: ‘Public health experts around the world and health workers on the ground say that the response has been significantly hindered by the near-absence so far of the United States, historically the leader in any major outbreak.’

Why? Because Donald Trump and his health secretary RFK Jr. dispensed with all common sense and made a series of deeply short-sighted decisions that have now left them ill-prepared to deal with this global health threat and keep the rest of us safe. Decisions including: letting U.S. Ebola spending plummet 99% since the last outbreak. Ousting 80% of top officials at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. Leaving the CDC without a permanent director for nearly 9 months and counting. And shuttering USAID and cutting themselves off from W.H.O.’s eyes, ears and resources – decimating our disease surveillance and response capability just so billionaires could have another tax break.

Trump’s former CDC director Robert Redfield now sees very scary writing on the wall: “I suspect this is going to become a very significant pandemic … This is an outbreak right now that is really a significant outbreak that’s of significant public health international concern, partially because what you said, it wasn’t recognized very quickly. Normally when we have these Ebola outbreaks, and I had three of them when I was CDC director, all of which were in the DRC, normally we recognize them when we have five, 10 cases, you know, at most. This one really wasn’t picked up until there was over 100 cases.”

Meanwhile, the Trump administration is scrambling to close the barn door weeks after the horses fled, begging for credit for throwing money at U.N. Ebola clinics amounting to band-aids for bullet holes. Also, for some reason they thought now of all times was ideal for worsening the leadership crisis at HHS. The head of NIH’s Infectious Disease Institute left (fired?) this week, widening the leadership vacuum at NIH “where 16 of the 27 institutes have acting directors.” The Trump health department leadership and incompetence crisis is a constant public health crisis in and of itself.

Never Ending Chaos: But wait, there’s more. While health care affordability remains Americans’ #1 economic worry, RFK Jr. thought it was also a perfect time to fire two leaders of the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force – an independent panel of experts tasked with reviewing evidence and making recommendations for what screenings, counseling, and preventive medications should come at no cost to patients under most insurance plans. The task force Kennedy has kept from meeting for a year will now likely stay in limbo even longer, which means insured Americans will likely suffer even higher health costs and worse health outcomes.

For $5M, Trump Is Even Game to Poison Kids: The NYT revealed this week that a $5 million check from big tobacco likely spurred Donald Trump to force his FDA head out the door for not fast-tracking addictive, flavored vapes despite the immense health harms to American teens and children. As Protect Our Care’s Kayla Hancock notes, there’s clearly no limit to Trump’s appetite for corruption even if it means poisoning American kids with addictive flavored vapes.

Trump’s Corruption Flows Down Hill: This week, Senators Alsobrooks and Wyden released a major update to their report chronicling RFK Jr.’s costly, chaotic, and corrupt reign as Secretary. And yet, RFK Jr. continues to add more grist for the corruption mill. In yet more highly dubious activity from Trump’s extraordinarily conflicted administration, a Kansas City Star columnist is raising good questions about why the Trump DOJ dismissed its case against Feel Free maker Botanic Tonics in December 2025, just 12 days after winning a key court ruling … and why “Ten weeks later, the company donated $500,000 to a political group aligned with HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.”

How Much Betrayal Can MAHA Take? This week, RFK Jr. proudly joined the EPA Administrator to roll out the Trump administration’s latest FU to MAHA : a major rollback of Biden-era restrictions on ‘forever chemicals’ in drinking water that “have been linked to cancer, immune system problems and infertility.” Protect Our Care looked back at the many times RFK Jr. has put the profits of Trump’s big polluting corporate donors over promises made to MAHA, a trend that doesn’t seem to be slowing down.

RFK Jr. Pats Self On Back Over Paltry Food Initiative As Trump’s Big Ugly Cuts Starve Millions of American Families. This week, Sec. Kennedy fished for kudos by announcing the HHS is investing a joke-level $7.5 million to “help deliver high-quality protein to families in need.” What an insult to struggling families after the CBO found the Trump-GOP Big Ugly Law gutted SNAP by nearly $187 billion through 2034, the largest cut to the program in history that cut 2.4 million people off in a typical month from food aid.

In The News

Infectious Disease Outbreaks and Public Health Threats

Ebola