It’s a summer of public health nightmares. There’s the cyclosporiasis outbreak throughout much of the United States, dense smoke pollution from Canadian and Minnesotan wildfires and skyrocketing measles cases, which are at a 35-year high
All of these issues are the result of multiple factors, yet a preventable one stands out among experts: the Trump administration’s recent cuts to public health programs and funding, along with numerous job reductions at institutions like the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
The day-to-day impact of these public health cuts is complicated ― but it’s hard to ignore the downstream effects they’re having on Americans. The sentiment among many is that this is making it harder for officials to address health issues and keep Americans safe from vaccine-preventable diseases and foodborne illnesses
When asked about the possibility of these changes impacting outbreaks like cyclospora, a spokesperson for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, told HuffPost that “the Trump Administration has mounted a robust response ― without interruption” and that they are “working closely with health departments in all 50 states and leading the public health response by promptly identifying knownprotect themselves.”
“The FDA and CDC continue to work together, using every available public health tool to identify additionale spokesperson said
HuffPost spoke with public health and policy experts to get their take on the Trump administration’s public health alterations. Here’s how they view it:
Trump’s cuts may have impacted some aspects of the cyclosporiasis outbreak
Jennifer Nuzzo, the director of the Pandemic Center at Brown University in Rhode Island, highlighted a 2025 change to the CDC food surveillance program, FoodNet, as a major issue. FoodNet is no longer required to monitor certain pathogens, including cyclospora
“So, what does that mean? It just means that we had less focus on cyclospora as one of those diseases that we’re trying to better understand, so that we can not only act early when it happens, but crucially figure out how to stop it in the first place,” Nuzzo added
Removing cyclospora from the list of pathogens to monitor sent a “signal to the entire rest of the system about how much time and effort to focus on something,” Nuzzo said, “and that was one of my worries.”
Public health has a lot to do with too few reioritizing that amidst all the other things they have to do? I am 100% convinced that one of the reasons why we even know about this outbreak … is because Michigan just leaned in. And not only did they lean in on cyclospora, but they have been repeatedly leaning in on other infections that some other states would just prefer to ignore,” Nuzzo continued
“Funding cuts didn’t cause the contamination, but they may have affected how quickly we understood the scope of this outbreak and communicated it to the public,” Jessica Steier, the founder and CEO of Unbiased Science, told HuffPost
Elisabeth Marnik, a science communicator and the executive director of The Evidence Collective, said “staffing and funding cuts likely have for sure negatively impacted the response to this.”
While state and local public health departments are primarily responsible for the health of their residents, “the states really rely on CDC for the signal, not just the financial rey, ‘Hey, we’re seeing something. Can you look and make sure you aren’t seeing something too?’” Nuzzo said
For instance, if the CDC notices a virus is increasing throughout New England, they may reach out to individual states to encourage them to take a closer look. But 80% of the leadership positions at the CDC are vacant, Nuzzo said. And with leadership gone throughout much of the organization, there are far fewer people to nudge states about potential issues
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Communication with the public hasn’t been as clear or quick as experts would hope
“I think a bigger issue is just how radio silent some of our federal agencies have been in helping guide patients and people,” Marnik said
In mid-July, the CDC issued a health alert noting that there were 1,645 confirmed cases of cyclosporiasis, with 5,100 cases awaiting analysis. By the time this federal alert was distributed, the state of Michigan alone was reporting thousands of cases, Steier said
“People saw federal and state numbers that couldn’t both be true, which understandably created confusion about the scale of the outbreak,” Steier said. “People are now terrified of eating lettuce, and we lack a strong federal health voice helping people understand that their risk is likely quite low at this time.”
Marnik said she expected “a little bit more transparency than what we’ve been getting.” She also believes there should be clearer messaging around issues like thefalse positivecyclospora lettuce sample from Taylor Farms, referring to a lettuce sample that first tested positive for cyclospora but then tested negative for the parasite upon a second FDA test
Communication has been confusing at best, which breeds more distrust in the CDC and government agencies during a time when apprehensionis already high, Marnik noted
This public perception concerns Marnik, who said “the fact that the trust is down from everyone makes it harder if, God forbid, another novel virus happened right now.”
“I don’t trust that the CDC would be able to respond just because of what has happened under RFK’s leadership,” Marnik continued. “But also, I don’t trust that people would trust them to actually follow their recommendation.”
Experts feel public health has been ‘weakened’ and we’re unprepared for future disease outbreaks
“The piece I’d emphasize most relates to the FDA, since it’s the agency that runs traceback and produce safety,” Steier said.According to Steier, Susan Mayne, who was in charge of the Food and Drug Administration’s Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition for decades, has said that there have been reblem rather than a new one ― but it has gotten worse.”
That said, during Trump’s second term, the“FDA has lost [roughly] 20% of its staff, the advisory committee on preventing microbial contamination in food was disbanded, and the team that coordinated produce safety with Mexican counterparts was eliminated,” Steier continued.This means there are fewer re
Steier also pointed to legislation known as the Food Traceability Rule, which was finalized in 2022 and was supposed to take effect in January
However, Steier explained, the FDA recently “proposed a 30-month extension and Congress then directed the agency not to enforce it before July 2028.”
“That rule would have required detailed supply chain records … We can’t say definitively how this would have played out without these cuts, but the public health workforce has certainly been weakened by this administration,” said Steier
Nuzzo is concerned that the state of public health in the U.S. is weakening
“I don’t want to say that if we didn’t have these cuts at the CDC this wouldn’t have happened,” Nuzzo said. “That’s not a fair thing to say. But the fact of the matter is the drivers that are creating the infectious disease risks are increasing and, at the same time, we are dismantling protections against those risks.”
“It’s not just cyclospora. Measles is a proxy for how weak our public health defenses have gotten,” Nuzzo said. “If we were good at preventing infectious diseases, we would not be having the highest measles rates we’ve seen in more than 30 years. And that tells me everything I need to know about how ready the United States is against infectious diseases.”
And that lack of focus may be by design:“I think the larger issue to flag is the shift in federal priorities away from infectious disease and toward chronic disease,” Steier said
“Chronic disease deserves the attention, and diet-related illness kills far more Americans every year than any outbreak will,” yet it appears that funding is being moved from infectious diseases to chronic diseases “rather than by adding new re
“Parasites on lettuce are both a food problem and an infectious disease problem,” she noted. “This administration talks about food more than any in recent memory, but they focus on things like additives and dyes, where the evidence is considerably weaker than the evidence behind the food safety work that prevents outbreaks like this one.”
Experts feel that advocacy at a personal level is necessary to fix this (although of course it’s not the only solution)
“Political leaders react to where they think people’s attentions are,” Nuzzo added, “And I think a lot of what we’re seeing has been based on a calculated decision that people don’t care or they won’t notice, and I think caring and noticing is the antidote.”
What might that look like? Talking to your neighbors and family about vaccines, voting for politicians who promise to stand up for public health and listening to the guidance that comes from your local health department instead of listening to talking heads online who may or may not have your best interests at heart
“There are all these wellness influencers who are like, ‘You don’t need vaccines. You just need to eat healthy,’” Nuzzo said. “Well, how do you do that in a summer where you’re afraid to eat a salad?”
