OPINION: Dismantling health systems puts all of us at risk

We are witnessing the systematic dismantling of the American public health system. Under the leadership of Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr., programs that have long protected the public — often quietly and efficiently — are being eliminated, defunded or quietly disbanded. These decisions are not just administrative. They carry real and measurable risks to public safety.

Secretary Kennedy has canceled over 230 National Institutes of Health research grants related to HIV, including a $19 million project aimed at preventing HIV transmission among young people. This comes at a time when 1.2 million Americans live with HIV, and over 630,000 people globally died of AIDS-related illnesses just last year. But the impact of these cuts reaches far beyond HIV. No Vaccine exist for HIV and under his leadership none will ever be seen.

Funding is being slashed for labs working on viral surveillance, antiviral development and vaccine design — the same kinds of research efforts that enabled us to respond swiftly to COVID-19. That response was possible only because those laboratories already existed, staffed by experts, with the equipment and infrastructure in place. Laboratories like these take years to build and staff. Once closed, they cannot be reassembled overnight. If the next outbreak hits and we’re unprepared, the consequences will be far worse than what we faced in 2020.

Entire offices have already been eliminated, including at the Office of Infectious Disease and HIV/AIDS Policy, and thousands of trained professionals at the Centers for Disease Control, NIH, and Food and Drug Administration have been laid off or reassigned. Research on cancer, infertility, chronic disease and tobacco-related illness is also being curtailed.

The science being developed to combat HIV/AIDS doesn’t just benefit those at risk for the virus — it has far-reaching applications. Research into HIV has advanced our understanding of cancer, autoimmune disease, cardiovascular inflammation and the body’s immune response to infection. Techniques developed in HIV virology have contributed to breakthroughs in vaccine development, gene therapy and antiviral drug design. This is foundational science that supports medicine far beyond HIV. Dismantling these research programs will affect every one of us — because the consequences will be felt across every field of health.

Yet Secretary Kennedy publicly claimed that the CDC approved COVID-19 vaccines “without any scientific basis.” That statement is not only false — it is reckless. The COVID vaccines, developed through rigorous trials, are estimated to have saved over 3 million American lives. Undermining public confidence in vaccines and dismantling the research that supports them is not reform. It’s sabotage.

Public health, when it works, is quiet. You don’t notice it — because your child didn’t get sick, your infection was treatable, your community was protected. That silence is the sound of lives saved. But if this erosion continues, the quiet will be replaced by emergency rooms in crisis, preventable deaths and families asking why no one was ready.

We can’t wait until the next disaster to rebuild what’s being lost. The public must speak out. Scientists, clinicians, patients and citizens need to demand the restoration of this country’s scientific infrastructure before it’s too late.