In the US, an assault on science, global health and human rights: Part 1 - The challenges confronting government-led science and health
In the first of this three part series special on the critical challenges to science, health and human rights in the US under the Trump administration, we explore the cascading effects of the closing down of major government projects
Renslow Sherer
Published on: 22 April 2025, 10:19 am
IN ITS FIRST MONTH, the new Trump administration has shocked the world with a daily stream of actions and plans that fundamentally alter US national values and our role in the world. The results will be catastrophic for global food insecurity, treatments for HIV, TB, and malaria, US leadership in research and science, and all aspects of global health and human rights. With these actions, half a century of commitment to humanitarian aid and global health affecting millions of children and adults around the world has been abandoned. The actions include executive orders and agency directives that are summarised in Table I, and program terminations in Table II. At this fragile moment in US and world history, we cannot look away. It is essential to review these actions and take stock of their potential impact on science, global health, and human rights.
The extraordinary actions include a challenge to the birthright citizenship that is a constitutional right in the US, a purge of language and a freeze on all funding that supports efforts to address diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility (‘DEIA’), an assault on the rights and the very existence of transgender individuals, and a ban on language and programs that support gender diversity and non-binary individuals in the US and around the world.
At this fragile moment in US and world history, we cannot look away.
The new directives deploy mass deportation with expanded governmental powers for search and seizure, freeze budgets and fire federal employees in agencies and programs that provide humanitarian aid, development, disease surveillance and scientific research. These agencies include but are not limited to the US Agency for International Development (‘USAID’), the National Academies of Science, Engineering and Medicine, NASA, the National Science Foundation, the National Forestry Service, the National Institutes of Health (‘NIH’), the Food and Drug Administration (‘FDA’) and the Centers for Disease Control (‘CDC’). The Trump administration’s choices for new scientific leadership at NIH, CDC, FDA and the Department of Health and Human Services (‘HHS’)have been widely criticized for being unqualified, and openly hostile to many accepted public health care standards like childhood vaccines and global health diplomacy, exemplified through the magnificent program for global HIV – the President Emergency Program for AIDS Relief (‘PEPFAR’).
