https://www.thenation.com/article/society/undermining-public-health/
"In 2022, Georgetown University political scientist Donald Moynihan wrote a
piece on how to undermine the administrative state, with the Trump
administration as his case study. As Moynihan told us, “No country becomes a
world power without a capable public service.” Well, I’d like to offer a
corollary: No country becomes healthy without a capable public health system.
As I’ve mentioned before, despite having at our disposal the most sophisticated
medical tool kit, the United States trails its OECD peers in life expectancy
rankings, listed between Croatia and Argentina in the most recent figures.
While many factors may be responsible for this sorry showing, the lack of a
robust, well-funded public health system is surely one of them. The weaknesses
in American public health have been well-described elsewhere. To fix them, one
needs to commit to doing so.
But there are troubling signs that what little public health infrastructure we
already possess is under the same kind of threat as the broader administrative
state. The people attacking public health are following the template that
Moynihan raises more generally in his article, consisting of three basic
strategies: delegitimization, deconstruction, and control. While the GOP may be
the leaders of this political endeavor, the Democrats are at least accomplices,
which raises serious questions about whether we will ever raise American life
expectancy in this new century.
Efforts to delegitimize public health are widespread in the US, from governors,
led by Ron DeSantis in Florida, members of Congress like Rand Paul, and
conservative jurists, bankrolled by right-wing foundations and think tanks, who
seek to roll back key public health powers, authorities, and programs, and who
suggest that key scientists are part of conspiracies to hide the origins of
Covid.
But some American liberals have also consistently undermined public health in
the last few years, chiefly by setting themselves up as arbiters of the wisdom
of Covid policy and relentlessly working to get Covid-related health measures
rolled back. Others directly took on the collective nature of public health
approaches to Covid, suggesting that this kind of vision was outdated and that
individualized risk assessment and action should be paramount.
In a sad case of Stockholm Syndrome, many public health leaders, including CDC
Director Mandy Cohen, have identified a need to regain the trust of the
American people, while never admitting that that there is an active project to
undermine the agency and public health in general. By ignoring the political
machinations at work, public health plays into the hands of the right, by
suggesting all these wounds to public confidence are self-inflicted.
Deconstruction—which Moynihan defines as “undermining administrative capacity
and delivery of services, making it harder for institutions to deliver on
democratic promises”—is also at work in public health. For instance, we are
seeing a stark increase in sexually transmitted diseases in the US, yet the CDC
is about to cut millions from STI control."
Via Violet Blue’s
Pandemic Roundup: February 29, 2024
https://www.patreon.com/posts/pandemic-roundup-99442377
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
