Researchers this spring discovered in water in several coastal locations across New York’s Long Island, and town officials in the Hamptons vacation destination about the findings. in Florida have been infected this year, and in June urged people to take precautions.

About 1 in 5 people infected by the bacteria die, sometimes within a day or two of becoming ill, according to a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention . The bacteria, Vibrio vulnificus, can enter open wounds and cause tissue death and systemic sepsis.

“Many people with Vibrio vulnificus infection can get seriously ill and need intensive care or limb amputation,” the CDC says.

The risk of such public threats is mounting because climate change is expanding the territory of certain pathogens, but researchers say there’s another concern. The Trump administration has cut investments in programs and agencies that prevent, track, and respond to health hazards the federal government is now confronting.

Consider the , which can infest and kill livestock, in the U.S. in June. The U.S. Department of Agriculture lost in the first six months of 2025, according to a report from the USDA’s Office of Inspector General, and the agency’s winnowed-down inspection service is helping lead the response to the parasite.

Or malaria. A freeze on foreign aid disrupted international malaria prevention efforts, and warned that the U.S. is vulnerable to the reintroduction of the infectious disease.

And when it comes to Vibrio, the Trump administration began removing hundreds of deep-sea instruments that and yield data that helps that can allow the bacteria to flourish. the data to study Vibrio, which can when water temperatures and .

“It is important to track coastal temperatures, and that will relate to the distributions of Vibrio,” said Christopher Gobler, a professor in the School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences at New York’s Stony Brook University, though he added that there are also other sources of data for researchers.

The Trump administration to dismantle the ocean monitoring system following bipartisan opposition to the effort in Congress.

But it’s still curtailing Vibrio surveillance. The life-threatening species that’s found in water can also sicken or kill people who eat contaminated seafood, such as infected with the bacteria. And infections from Vibrio vulnificus linked to consuming raw or undercooked shellfish as the presence of other pathogens in food decrease.

Since 1995, 10 states have participated in a federal program called the Foodborne Disease Active Disease Surveillance Network, or FoodNet. The program, with the CDC, monitors and track cases of foodborne illness caused by eight specific pathogens, including Vibrio. But last year the Trump administration to report on all but two pathogens, which means states no longer must report cases to the CDC.

Federal officials deny the moves are putting Americans at risk, saying the CDC continues to monitor these pathogens through other national surveillance systems to ensure ongoing visibility into disease trends and outbreaks.

Meanwhile, some former health leaders say the ramifications of sweeping cuts to health agencies and global prevention programs are becoming more apparent, undermining U.S. response efforts and initiatives that aim to safeguard the country from diseases.

“We are letting down defenses that were necessary to protect against microbial threats,” said Tom Frieden, a former CDC director who is now president and chief executive of Resolve to Save Lives, which works to stop preventable disease. “Instead of protecting, we’re doing the opposite.”

Do Limited Resources Mean Higher Risks?

The administration defends its actions, including massive layoffs at government health agencies, as necessary to eliminate wasteful spending.

The Department of Health and Human Services “is advancing the most significant public health reforms in a generation focused on prevention, accountability, scientific transparency, and better health outcomes,” agency spokesperson Emily Hilliard said in an email. “The Department is putting American families at the center of public health decision-making.”

Evidence suggests health risks are rising even as the Trump administration pulls back on resources for research, detection, and response.

Early in his administration, President Donald Trump opted to freeze and review work on global health programs. Trump’s cost-reduction effort, led by billionaire Elon Musk, also dismantled the U.S. Agency for International Development.

As a result, work was disrupted on the President’s Malaria Initiative, a George W. Bush-era program aimed at combating malaria in hard-hit countries that is credited with saving more than . USAID had in the program since 2005.

In addition, for global malaria programs were targeted for termination, , an independent research group that includes ºÚÁϳԹÏÍø News. The report didn’t include data on the total value of those specific malaria grants.

And the spending freeze halted research for more effective . The administration dissolved the CDC’s , shuffling staffers to other divisions and on the disease. HHS didn’t respond to an email asking how many staff members had been moved.

The life-threatening infectious disease spread by mosquitos was in 1951. But the CDC’s updated guidance on investigating domestic cases that “the country remains susceptible to malaria reintroduction.”

resulted in 10 people in Arkansas, Florida, Maryland, and Texas becoming infected locally, and mosquitoes capable of transmitting malaria are found throughout most of the country.

“The majority of U.S. residents lack protective immunity against malaria, rendering persons susceptible to severe illness and death if infected,” the CDC said in the May report.

HHS declined to comment on any of the specific cuts but said the CDC works with domestic and international partners to reduce the burden of malaria and prevent its reestablishment in the U.S.

It’s not just cuts to funding that are raising health risks, say researchers and former health officials. Significant staffing cuts mean there are fewer people working on preventing or tracking diseases, they say.

“Yes, the programs have been cut in terms of reduction in staff, but I would say, equally important, you have reductions in expertise,” said Jeanne Marrazzo, CEO of the Infectious Diseases Society of America. “It’s irreplaceable.”

Screwworm is a species of parasitic blowfly producing larvae that can enter open wounds and devour tissue, infecting people and animals. Like malaria, it has long been eliminated in the U.S., and disease monitoring efforts have been key to keeping it out.

The cuts at USAID stripped from the United Nations’ , which focuses on global food security and the such as screwworm.

In the wake of the administration’s cost-cutting initiatives, more than 20,000 employees are gone from the USDA, which develops and implements agriculture policy and provides resources to producers of livestock vulnerable to the parasite.

On June 3, the first new case of screwworm in the U.S. was confirmed, and there have now been infected with parasite. An expanding outbreak could devastate the cattle industry.

Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins during the Trump administration have led to screwworm’s return. Instead, she has , saying it didn’t do enough to prevent reintroduction into the U.S. Rollins said on X that “” under the previous Biden administration was partly to blame, providing no evidence.

The USDA did not respond to an email seeking comment.

Ashish Jha, a doctor who served as the White House covid response coordinator during the Biden administration, said there’s no truth to the claim that immigrants lacking legal status have brought screwworm into the U.S.

Investments in tracking and combating diseases have suffered, he said, because HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is prioritizing the prevention of chronic disease at the expense of efforts to curtail infectious disease.

“Who doesn’t want a healthier country? It sounds great, but it’s kind of a bait and switch,” Jha said. “They’re doing the opposite. They’re letting down our defenses that are necessary to protect us against microbial threats.”

HHS’ Hilliard disagreed, saying Kennedy’s actions are making the agency more effective.

“Secretary Kennedy is delivering that reform by streamlining operations, reducing redundancies, and returning HHS to pre-pandemic staffing levels,” she said. “At the same time, he is dismantling policies and incentives that contributed to a nationwide chronic disease epidemic.”

Surveillance Gaps

Jha pointed to Trump’s decision to withdraw the U.S. from the World Health Organization, which coordinates global responses to public health issues and crises, and to the dismantling of USAID.

The pullback has had implications for the Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo, aid workers say.

Without the same amount of funding from USAID, the International Rescue Committee, which partners to deliver front-line health, surveillance, and outbreak preparedness activities in Congo, .

“Funding cuts have left the region dangerously exposed,” Heather Reoch Kerr, IRC’s country director for Congo, said .

The outbreak is roughly 7,000 miles away, but its spread has the , with stepped-up surveillance and entry restrictions on airline travelers. Federal officials have said that the dismantling of USAID hasn’t hampered detection or response.

“The U.S. government continues to move aggressively to contain the Ebola outbreak at its source in order to protect the American people and prevent further international spread,” the State Department said .

Trump’s decision to disengage with the WHO was criticized by following a hantavirus outbreak this spring on a cruise ship that had set sail from Argentina. the , and they questioned why the president suggested creating a costly new rather than sticking with the WHO — especially, they say, when the U.S. is cutting back on the surveillance programs it already has.

The federal government has tracked Vibrio cases as part of the FoodNet program, which aims in part to identify and curtail outbreaks. Reporting on cases of Vibrio is now optional.

Close to half of the cases of foodborne illness caused by Vibrio vulnificus have , and some within 24 hours after consumption of tainted shellfish such as raw oysters. The bacteria can multiply rapidly, leading to septic shock and blistering skin lesions. The pathogen is becoming to antibiotics.

The CDC estimates that of Vibrio infection occur annually, with infections from the most severe species, Vibrio vulnificus, steadily rising. , that species has led to 429 cases due to infections of open wounds and 135 cases from contaminated food.

“The more surveillance you get, you can connect the dots,” said Bill Marler, a Seattle-area food safety lawyer. “If a tree falls in the woods and you don’t hear it, did the tree fall? It’s easier not to report diseases. Then they can say, ‘Look at how safe our food supply is.’”

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Protesters’ chants could be heard from inside the Cleveland City Club, where Kennedy was speaking to a bipartisan group of citizens as part of his recent tour of northern Ohio. His calls for parents to have more “choice” on vaccinating their children was met with applause from half of the room. The other half released exasperated sighs and gasps. 

His travel schedule is about to get busier: Kennedy is expected to stump for GOP lawmakers, traveling to states with competitive races in the upcoming midterm elections.

The goal of Kennedy’s campaign appearances is to shore up support for Republican candidates. But his targeted presence underscores the increasingly intense push and pull Kennedy faces as he works to maintain enduring political viability with GOP voters — especially MAHA supporters.

His challenge is complicated by a widening schism between the White House and Kennedy’s anti-vaccine crusade. Some MAHA adherents feel betrayed by the Trump administration, which they say is thwarting the movement’s agenda by not doing more to limit pesticides, halt access to covid shots, or investigate conspiracy theories about airplane contrails poisoning the skies.

Meanwhile, some in the MAHA camp hope Kennedy will announce his own run for the White House in 2028.

But Kennedy says he has no such aspirations. Asked by ºÚÁϳԹÏÍø News on May 7 whether he sees a path to run for the presidency again as a Republican, he replied firmly: “No, I’m not going to run.”

Changing his position about running would put Kennedy on a collision course with President Donald Trump, who’s reportedly as possible successors. (Trump, too, has mused about running again in 2028, though the 22nd Amendment would prohibit it.) A Kennedy candidacy could also sap much of the Trump administration’s work on other MAHA causes, because the secretary would likely leave his role at the Department of Health and Human Services.

“If he isn’t secretary, then MAHA’s influence will severely diminish,” said David Mansdoerfer, who served as deputy assistant secretary for health at HHS in the first Trump administration.

“Running would be perfectly logical for Bobby,” said , a public policy and political science professor at Northeastern University. “Kennedy is being a good soldier, but to what extent? That is going to be a question.”

‘A Grave Misstep’

Recent Trump administration actions have riled up MAHA supporters. The president in April nominated , a doctor and vaccine supporter, to lead the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Kennedy fired Susan Monarez, the agency’s previous director; she testified for not preapproving vaccine recommendations.

Schwartz’s nomination and White House efforts to shift Kennedy’s focus away from vaccines stand in stark contrast with 2024, when Trump pledged to let Kennedy “” on health.

In an interview, Kennedy said “I think I have” gone wild on health. He shot down claims that the White House has limited his work.

“President Trump has let me do more than any HHS secretary in history,” Kennedy said.

Kennedy has said he supports Schwartz, though he last month that he did not discuss her nomination with Trump. MAHA adherents have criticized her backing of covid vaccines, holding it up as evidence that the White House is restricting the health secretary.

“Trump’s pick to head the CDC, Erica Schwartz, would likely be a disaster,” a lawyer and Kennedy ally, said on X, citing her work supporting the covid vaccine rollout.

Trump also withdrew the nomination of wellness influencer Casey Means, another Kennedy ally, for U.S. surgeon general. In May, the president nominated Nicole Saphier, a radiologist and former Fox News contributor. MAHA adherents have panned the selection, which reflects a more mainstream and traditional medical approach to the position. Means had faced pushback from some Republican senators for questioning contraception methods and refusing to reject the debunked link between vaccines and autism.

“DOGE the Surgeon General!!! We want medical freedom!!!! If not Casey – we take no one!” Vani Hari, a MAHA influencer, said May 1 on X.

Taken together, these actions threaten to weaken MAHA support for GOP candidates. But many Republicans in competitive races are already distancing themselves from the grassroots, vaccine-skeptical “medical freedom” movement led by Kennedy.

Many MAHA supporters also feel let down by Trump administration directives that rolled back environmental regulations and promoted pesticides. Some now see a Kennedy presidency as critical to attaining their policy goals.

Stephanie Weidle “100%” wants to see Kennedy run again. The 34-year-old Washington, D.C., resident was outside the Supreme Court last month during a rally to oppose protections for the weed-killing chemical glyphosate.

A reliable Republican voter, Weidle described the administration’s actions as disappointing. She wants to see Kennedy go further on examining the childhood vaccine schedule and limiting chemical use on crops.

“His hands have been tied,” Weidle said of Kennedy. She believes the White House has ordered him to back down from those controversial issues. “Republicans have made a grave misstep in not leading with MAHA.” 

Vaccines Are a Flash Point

In the midst of these dynamics, Kennedy is attempting to thread the needle between the White House, which wants him to back away from attacking vaccines, and MAHA supporters who want him to do more. He has sought to appease both sides, praising Saphier as the surgeon general pick and describing her on X as a “ for the MAHA movement.”

He’s also tempered his public focus on vaccines. His podcast, which he said would “” that lead to illness, has veered away from the topic and centered instead on food and nutrition.

During his recent congressional hearings, he also focused on initiatives that poll well with voters. Appearing before the Kennedy offered an opening statement focused on healthcare affordability and drug prices, issues he had shied away from during his first few months on the job.

While he mentioned his redesign of nutritional guidelines and pressing industry to cease its use of certain food dyes, he avoided more controversial topics that underscored his first few months in office, including his attempt to upend the childhood vaccine schedule and efforts to explore causes of autism.

Despite his pivot to more popular subjects, Kennedy’s draw weakens beyond MAHA circles. A March straw poll of more than 1,600 attendees at the annual found nearly zero support for him as a presidential candidate when participants were asked who they would vote for if the election were held today.

“He has a constituency that is very much attached to MAHA that may not vote in the Republican primaries or in a general election,” said Robert Blendon, professor emeritus of health policy and political analysis at Harvard University.

Kennedy ran for president in the 2024 race as a Democrat, then as an independent, before halting his campaign in August 2024 and throwing his support behind Trump.

Some of the president’s advisers credit Kennedy’s MAHA voters with tipping the scales just enough to help Trump secure his 2024 election win. About a third of U.S. adults now identify as MAHA supporters, according to a , and support is highest among Republicans who also back Trump’s Make America Great Again political movement.

Vaccine policy is galvanizing voters on both sides. Eighty-one percent of voters said vaccine policy, including decisions about what vaccines are recommended for children, will have an impact on their decision to vote in the 2026 midterm elections, according to a conducted in April. Voters said they trust Democrats more than Republicans on vaccine policy and other health issues, according to the poll.

But healthcare — especially its costs — looms larger as an issue. Sixty-four percent of voters said that they are very or somewhat worried about healthcare, including the cost of health insurance and out-of-pocket costs for things like office visits and prescription drugs, and 88% said such costs will have an impact on their vote. 

Many of the MAHA faithful question whether their political muscle really matters.

Republicans seem less convinced the constituency will make or break the midterm election results.

Republicans in Congress and the administration “have decided not to run on MAHA for the midterms,” Robert Malone, a scientist and Kennedy ally who stepped away in March from his position on the federal Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, said April 16 on X.

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It is urging the public to report hospitals and nursing homes that serve sugary drinks, nutrition shakes, or meals that it says don’t meet dietary guidelines established last year by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, with officials vowing to withhold millions of dollars in federal funding if violations occur.

The initiative from Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is spurring backlash from some doctors and medical providers who say it fails to account for patients’ unique dietary needs and is anathema to Republicans who have long embraced an anti-regulatory stance.

It’s also not clear that HHS has the regulatory authority to enforce its threat without going through a formal rulemaking process, lawyers and dietitians say.

“Most of this is political theater. HHS doesn’t have the power to do much,” said , a dietitian and research scientist who is an assistant professor at the University of Toronto. “Also, if it’s to the point that you’re trying to control people’s choices, well, you look a little fascist.”

The agency to hospitals asking them to align their food purchases with the administration’s 2025-30 dietary guidelines to ensure continued eligibility for Medicaid and Medicare payments, Kennedy said at a March 30 press event.

“We are going to bring all the hospitals in the country in line with good food,” he said, describing the instructions as “essentially a .”

“If a hospital is serving patients sugary drinks, they are out of compliance with government standards and are putting their reimbursements in jeopardy,” top Kennedy adviser Calley Means “If you see patients being served sugary drinks, please post information below or let CMS know.”

The comment included a link to an HHS webpage with a toll-free number for reporting complaints typically used for medical bills. Withholding federal funding from hospitals is one of the most extreme enforcement tools available to regulators, one the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services has seldom deployed.

Even serving liquid nutrition products like Ensure to patients could put hospitals in jeopardy, Means warned. “They need to change or lose reimbursement. Please report them if you see it,” he told an X user.

Medicare and Medicaid, combined, are the of hospital expenditures.

The notice came in the form of a “Conditions of Participation” update released by CMS to ensure hospital patients’ food adheres to the dietary guidelines, HHS spokesperson Andrew Nixon said. “We commend the many hospitals who have made commitments to improve their food offerings, and expect every hospital system to do so,” he said.

Means did not respond directly to requests for comment from ºÚÁϳԹÏÍø News, instead posting on X shortly after he was contacted: “‘Trump Derangement Syndrome’ has led Democrats to defend the medical importance of mass-serving soda and junk food to American patients.” In a text with ºÚÁϳԹÏÍø News, he said, “That’s to cite if you want. I don’t have a comment.”

Still, some administration officials have made it clear they will not shy away from halting federal funding, a rarely taken step that can imperil the ability of a hospital to remain open.

A Carrot and a Stick

HHS can withhold or threaten federal funding if hospitals violate mandatory minimum health and safety standards set by the agency. The standards stipulate that hospitals must protect patient privacy, for example, and uphold infection control.

The standards do address hospital food, but they don’t explicitly refer to the 2025-30 established by the USDA.

Rather, the standards require that “individual patient nutritional needs must be met in accordance with recognized dietary practices,” and list other requirements for hospitals, such as having access to a qualified dietitian.

“CMS has never before interpreted this requirement as mandating adherence to any set of dietary guidelines,” according to an from law firm .

The CMS memo shows the agency is taking the “notable step” to incorporate the dietary guidelines “into the hospital regulatory framework without new rulemaking,” according to the brief.

Hospitals are likely to comply because they are loath to cross the federal government and want to avoid a legal tussle or enforcement action by Kennedy, some lawyers say.

“He doesn’t have a legal basis to do this, but hospitals and nursing homes can’t afford to ignore it altogether because of what it signals about potential enforcement action,” said , a University of Michigan law professor.

If federal funding were withheld, hospitals could always sue to try and challenge HHS’ authority.

“When the agency goes to the hospital and says, We’re going to take away your money for this, the hospital can sue and say, Look, nothing requires us to fry our fries in beef tallow or whatever,” Bagley said.

For hospitals looking to comply, the agency’s memo provides examples of what should and shouldn’t be served to patients.

Food as Medicine

What the guidance calls “don’ts”: sugar-sweetened beverages or juice. And “do’s”: water, unsweetened tea, milk, or coffee. Meals suggested in the memo include grilled salmon with quinoa or bean-based entrees with leafy greens.

Some nutritionists welcomed the focus on hospital food for patients. Marion Nestle, a public health advocate and molecular biologist, lauded the initiative, saying, “These sound terrific!” in an on her blog, .

Other health leaders and doctors pushed back, noting hospitalized patients often have more individualized nutrition needs that may not conform to federal dietary recommendations.

For “a patient struggling to swallow from just having a stroke, salmon and quinoa is the worst thing for them. They’re going to risk aspirating on it,” said Klatt, the University of Toronto dietitian.

Hospitals that neglect to provide certain standards of care, such as protein shakes to treat malnutrition or an unhealthy weight loss, could open themselves up to possible legal liability. Eighty percent of malnourished elderly patients gained weight and improved muscle mass on nutritional supplements such as Ensure, according to the published in Nutrición Hospitalaria, a peer-reviewed scientific journal.

Abbott, which , makes a range of products including shakes for people who “could be malnourished due to medical treatments, such as chemotherapy, and not be getting the calories they need because they don’t have much of an appetite,” company spokesperson John Koval said in a statement.

“It’s always a struggle to get people to eat. Losing weight in the hospital raises the risk of mortality,” said Mary Talley Bowden, a , who has with Make America Healthy Again causes but on X, posting: “Give me a break Calley. A hospital snitch line for soda?”

“It’s a little tyrannical,” she said in an interview.

The focus on hospital food came in late March as part of Kennedy’s MAHA initiative, in which he has touted changes to federal dietary guidelines that emphasize protein and healthy fats while eschewing processed foods.

Kennedy has leaned heavily into his work on changing eating habits, which fits into the MAHA gestalt and polls well with both Democratic and Republican voters. Eighty-six percent of registered voters surveyed said it should be easier for every American family to access fresh fruits and vegetables, released in September by Navigator Research.

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Researchers say the children at about a mile away pay the price. They discovered the students there and at other elementary schools near major pollution sites in Pennsylvania had than other children in the state.

Residents and environmental advocates saw reason for hope and relief in the form of a designed to tamp down on coke oven plant pollution. But even before it took effect, President Donald Trump granted in the U.S. — including the one in Clairton — a from the standards.

Trump and Republicans have sought to align themselves with the Make America Healthy Again movement’s populist ideals, such as improving Americans’ food choices and reducing corporate harm to the environment. But the administration is ratcheting up its attacks on the very environmental protections that MAHA followers hold dear.

Taken together, these anti-environmental initiatives will lead to more pollution-related illnesses and higher health care spending, health researchers say. They could also have political ramifications, eroding MAHA’s support for GOP candidates in the November midterm elections if followers believe the party is more beholden to industry than to the movement’s agenda.

, including about a quarter of Republicans, support rolling back environmental regulations, according to a poll by the Energy Policy Institute at the University of Chicago and The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.

Some MAHA supporters believe voters will support Republicans because the Trump administration is delivering on other goals important to the movement.

“MAHA has a pretty diverse set of policy goals, ranging from medical freedom to food and the environment,” said David Mansdoerfer, who served in Health and Human Services leadership during Trump’s first term. “In totality, the Trump administration has strongly delivered on much of the MAHA agenda.”

While MAHA voters have been upset at some of the administration’s actions that promote industry, it’s hard to know how that may play out in the midterms, said Christopher Bosso, a professor of public policy and politics at Northeastern University. Many were disillusioned by a Trump they viewed as promoting glyphosate, which HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has .

“The glyphosate thing really ticks off a lot of them; they’re really upset,” Bosso said. “Kennedy said it was poison. If it is a poison, why aren’t we regulating it? That’s where the tension plays out.”

The situation with the Clairton coke plant and the others granted exemptions from regulations underscores the potential public health risks. Six of the 11 factories had “high priority” violations of the Clean Air Act as of last May, according to a ºÚÁϳԹÏÍø News analysis. Five coke oven plants logged major violations every quarter for at least three years straight.

“Poisoning continues to some of the most vulnerable residents of Allegheny County,” , who had lived in nearby Glassport, Pennsylvania, said at a about the coke plant.

Environmental Protection Agency spokesperson Brigit Hirsch said the president gave companies extra time because the technology needed to meet a new standard isn’t ready yet.

“Forcing plants to comply before the tools exist doesn’t make the air cleaner, it just shuts down facilities and kills jobs with nothing to show for it,” Hirsch said.

But environmental groups disagree that the plants were unable to comply at a reasonable cost, and they say the exemption from the EPA requirements shows the Trump administration is prioritizing the coal industry at the expense of public health.

“The Trump administration’s relentless actions to dismantle lifesaving environmental protections are a gut punch to the administration’s own promise to Make America Healthy Again,” said Cathleen Kelly, a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, a liberal think tank.

Hard Times in Clairton

Sprawled across , the Clairton plant operates ovens in which coal is heated to as much as 2,000 degrees Fahrenheit to make up to 4.3 million tons annually of the carbon-rich fuel known as coke. The product is used in blast furnaces to produce iron.

It’s a dirty operation. The process leads to hazardous emissions of that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says can lead to anemia and leukemia, as well as , which can trigger severe asthma.

The Clairton operation has had repeated problems with its emissions and operations, including and of toxic chemicals. The plant has received more than from the Allegheny County Health Department since 2022, stemming largely from a fire in 2018 that led to high emissions, and violated the Clean Air Act in each of the last , with the last compliance monitoring in July 2025, according to the EPA.

Nippon Steel Corp. last year acquired U.S. Steel, which now operates as a subsidiary. The company didn’t respond to an email seeking comment. U.S. Steel said it spends $100 million annually on environmental compliance at Clairton.

“Environmental stewardship is a core value at U. S. Steel, and we remain committed to the safety of our communities,” spokesperson Andrew Fulton said in a written statement.

Clairton was once bustling with movie theaters, a mix of grocery stores, and riverside parks, with a dance pavilion and . But the decline of steel hit hard. The town’s population dwindled from more than in the mid-20th century to as of 2024. until they were razed and replaced with signs saying to keep out. The 1978 movie , which depicts a hardscrabble industrial town, is partly set there. Today, about 33% of residents live in poverty.

While the plant brings jobs and revenue, residents of the town and the surrounding areas have long complained about health problems they attribute to its emissions.

“My parents are gone. My mom had cancer, my dad,” , a Clairton resident, said at a 2025 County Council meeting. “I lost a lot of loved ones and seen other ones pass because of this mill.”

Pediatric allergist looked into asthma rates among 1,200 children who attended school near major pollution sites in the area — including students at Clairton Elementary School. They had nearly triple the national rate of asthma, with the highest rate among African American youth, according to she led.

“We were shocked,” she said. “It was double or triple what we expected. The people are proud of their industrial background. We need steel, but they’re not running a good enough operation.”

A found children with asthma living near the coke plant had an 80% higher chance of missing school when sulfur dioxide pollution was elevated.

Allegheny County, which includes Clairton and Pittsburgh, is home to a number of industrial plants, and to increased deaths, chronic heart disease, and adverse birth outcomes. It was ranked in the top 1% of counties in the nation for cancer risk from stationary industrial air pollutants in a 2018 .

Clairton has an age-adjusted cancer death rate of 170 per 100,000 people, higher than the broader county’s rate of 150 deaths per 100,000 people, based on a ºÚÁϳԹÏÍø News analysis of .

The American Lung Association in 2025 gave the county an F rating for its particle pollution levels. PennEnvironment, an environmental group that was party to a settlement with U.S. Steel involving the Clairton plant, says the coke operation caused of toxic releases in 2021, which amounted to 60% of all such releases in the county that year.

From 2020 through 2025, the Clairton plant racked up more in fines from Clean Air Act penalties than any other coke oven facility nationwide, costing U.S. Steel over $10 million, according to EPA facility reports.

“We are deeply concerned with exemptions, which allow air toxics to affect public health,” Allegheny County Health Department spokesperson Ronnie Das said in a statement.

The Clairton plant provides and hundreds of millions of dollars in tax revenue to the area. The jobs help generate nearly $3 billion in annual economic output, according to estimates from the Pennsylvania Manufacturers’ Association.

Some community members and advocacy groups hoped air quality would improve after the coke plant was sold. has pledged to upgrade facilities in the Monongahela River Valley.

Politics, Waivers, and Environmental Concerns

Under the Biden-era rule, coke plants were supposed to start meeting from the lids and doors of ovens that heat coal. They would also have had to monitor for benzene at their property lines and take steps to lower emissions of the carcinogen if they exceeded certain levels. Compliance deadlines were set for July 2025.

The Trump administration, which has sought to revive the coal industry, intervened. Last year, it , including coke plants such as Clairton’s, to seek from issued in 2024 by the EPA.

Then Trump in November went further, granting all coke plants a two-year compliance break.

The reprieve was necessary, the EPA spokesperson Hirsch said, because the requirements would have meant extra costs for the industry when standards already in effect work “extremely well” at reducing pollution.

Hirsch also said the agency under Trump is protecting the environment, pointing to action the administration has taken to called PFAS, prevent lead poisoning, strengthen chemical safety, and protect Americans’ food and water supply.

“We are building a future where the next generation of Americans is the healthiest in our nation’s history, and they inherit the cleanest air, land and water in the world,” Hirsch said.

However, the administration has taken several steps that environmental advocates say weaken health protections.

The president’s executive order on glyphosate, an herbicide the World Health Organization has linked to cancer, which touched off a who said they felt betrayed. The EPA has decided to stop considering the of reducing pollution when making policy decisions, instead focusing on the cost to industry of complying with rules. The agency also rescinded the legal and scientific basis that had long established as dangerous to public health.

The actions have rankled some MAHA enthusiasts who counted on the administration to tackle chronic disease, especially among children. A petition to Trump on with more than 15,000 signatures called for the removal of EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin, it said supported corporations over MAHA goals.

Some MAHA enthusiasts have sounded off on social media.

“No one should believe that MAHA is being upheld at the EPA at this point,” , a leader of American Regeneration, which focuses on a conservation approach to farming, said Feb. 8 on X.

, host of a , also aired her concerns on X, saying “there is something really freaking spooky going on at the EPA and I refuse to let the American people be gaslit into thinking they’re upholding the MAHA agenda.”

“A significant number of people who supported Trump are worried these rollbacks are going to hurt their health,” said , a Democratic strategist and the founder of the communications firm Third Degree Strategies. “The MAHA voters, especially women, are very sensitive to this. Republicans have put themselves in a bind.”

MAHA supporters shouldn’t be surprised by a Trump administration that doesn’t prioritize environmental protections over industry, because the president has always championed fossil fuels, said Kyle Kondik, managing editor of Sabato’s Crystal Ball, a nonpartisan election forecasting newsletter published by the University of Virginia Center for Politics.

The coke plant exemptions have disappointed some community members, environmental groups, and regulators concerned about public health and emissions.

Nearly 300,000 people live within 3 miles of the 11 active coke plants across the U.S., according to EPA data compiled by the Environmental Defense Fund.

Weakening environmental rules has helped boost Trump with the U.S. coal industry. In February, mining industry executives and lobbyists gathered at the White House, .

Coal miners, including some in white hard hats bedecked with American flags, with a bronze-colored trophy emblazoned “The Undisputed Champion of Beautiful Clean Coal.”

At the event, Trump praised their work. “We love clean, beautiful coal,” he said.

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The tensions risk fraying Kennedy’s dynamic MAHA coalition, potentially driving away critical supporters who helped fuel President Donald Trump’s 2024 election win.

The movement’s grassroots membership includes suburbanites, women, and independents who are generally newer entrants to the GOP and laser-focused on achieving certain results around the nation’s food supply and vaccines.

Promoting healthy foods tops their list and will be at the center of the White House’s pitch to voters during the midterm election cycle.

“President Trump’s mass appeal partly lies in his willingness to question our country’s broken status quo,” White House spokesperson Kush Desai said in a statement. “That includes food standards and nutrition guidelines that have helped fuel America’s chronic disease epidemic. Overhauling our food supply and nutrition standards to deliver on the MAHA agenda remains a key priority for both the President and his administration.”

At the same time, with most Americans , the White House has cooled on Kennedy’s aggressive policies to curb vaccines and MAHA’s interest in tamping down environmental chemicals that are linked to disease.

The result: Republicans are realizing just how demanding the MAHA vote can be. Moms Across America leader Zen Honeycutt warned that Republicans are facing their biggest setback yet with the MAHA movement, after Trump signed an executive order to support production of glyphosate, a herbicide the World Health Organization has .

“It has caused the biggest uproar in MAHA,” Honeycutt said during a CNN interview in late February.

A White House Warning

Trump’s top pollster, Tony Fabrizio, cautioned in December that an embrace of Kennedy’s anti-vaccine policies could cost politicians their jobs this year.

Eight in 10 MAHA voters and 86% of all voters believe vaccines save lives, his poll of 1,000 voters in 35 competitive districts found.

“In the districts that will decide the control of the House of Representatives next year, Republican and Democratic candidates who support eliminating long standing vaccine requirements will pay a price in the election,” on the poll stated.

The White House has since shaken up senior staffing at HHS, including removing from the deputy secretary role and his job as acting director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, in which he curtailed the agency’s childhood vaccination recommendations. Ralph Abraham, a vaccine skeptic who as Louisiana’s surgeon general suspended its vaccination promotion program last year, stepped down as the CDC’s principal deputy director in late February.

, a doctor who said in congressional testimony that he doesn’t believe vaccines cause autism, is now running the CDC in addition to directing the National Institutes of Health.

Though Trump himself has frequently espoused doubts and mistruths about vaccines, polling around anti-vaccine policy has undoubtedly shaken the White House’s confidence during a tough midterm election year, said former , an Indiana Republican and retired doctor who left Congress last year.

Bucshon said Republicans can’t risk alienating voters, especially parents of young children who might be moved by Democratic attack ads on the topic at a time when hundreds of measles cases are popping up across the U.S.

“That’s the reason you’re seeing the White House get nervous about it,” Bucshon said. “This is just the political reality of it.”

Kennedy built some of his MAHA following with calls to end federal approval and recommendations for the covid vaccines during the pandemic. The Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, a federal panel of outside experts who were handpicked by Kennedy to develop national vaccine recommendations, is expected to review and possibly withdraw its recommendation for covid shots. Its February meeting was postponed and is now scheduled for March 18-19, when the panel plans to discuss injuries from covid vaccines, HHS spokesperson Andrew Nixon confirmed on March 11.

“I’m not deaf to the calls that we need to get the covid vaccine mRNA products off the market. All I can say is stay tuned and wait for the upcoming ACIP meeting,” ACIP Vice Chair Robert Malone , a conservative account on the social platform X, before the meeting was postponed. “If the FDA won’t act, there are other entities that will.”

No Fury Like Scorned MAHA Moms

Bipartisan support is also extremely high — above 80% — for another core tenet of the MAHA agenda: eliminating the use of certain pesticides on crops.

But MAHA leaders were incensed when Trump issued a Feb. 18 promoting the production of glyphosate, a chemical used in weed killers sprayed on U.S. crops and which Kennedy has railed against and sued over because of its reported links to cancer.

“There’s gonna be ups and downs, and there is zero question that this week was a down,” Calley Means, a senior adviser to the health secretary and a former White House employee, told a MAHA rally in Austin, Texas, on Feb. 26. “I am not going to gaslight or sugarcoat it: This glyphosate thing was extremely disappointing. Bobby’s disappointed.”

Despite deep unhappiness from MAHA followers, Kennedy endorsed Trump’s executive order defending access to such pesticides.

“I support President Trump’s Executive Order to bring agricultural chemical production back to the United States and end our near-total reliance on adversarial nations,” Kennedy .

Without offering policy changes, Kennedy promised a future agricultural system that “is less dependent on harmful chemicals.”

White House officials are now trying to downplay the executive order.

“The President’s executive order was not an endorsement of any product or practice,” Desai said in a statement.

But that’s done little to dampen criticism from leading MAHA influencers who had hoped, with Kennedy’s influence in the administration, that the chemical would be banned.

Some Democrats see an opening.

of Maine earned cheers from MAHA loyalists for co-sponsoring legislation with Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) to undo the executive order.

“The Trump Admin. cannot keep paying lip service to while propping up Big Chemical like this and choosing corporate profits over Americans’ health,” .

, a prominent MAHA influencer who promotes healthy eating, responded on X with a “HELL YES.”

‘Eat Real Food’

The White House and Kennedy are refocusing their messaging to emphasize one of the most popular elements of the MAHA platform: food.

At the start of the year, Kennedy unveiled new dietary guidelines that emphasize vegetables, fruits, and meats while urging Americans to avoid ultraprocessed foods.

Kennedy has leaned into his new “Eat Real Food” campaign, launching a nationwide tour in January. Ahead of the late-February MAHA rally, he stopped at a barbecue joint in Austin where he took photos with stacks of smoked ribs and grilled sausages. Large “Eat Real Food” signs have been provided for crowds of supporters to hold up during major announcements at HHS’ headquarters this year.

Focusing on nutrition will please MAHA moms, suburban swing voters, and conservatives alike, said , a physician and former Republican representative from Texas.

“They keep them happy by talking about the food pyramid,” Burgess said. “That’s an area where there is broad, bipartisan support.”

Indeed, Fabrizio’s poll shows equal support — 95% — among respondents who voted for former Vice President Kamala Harris and those who voted for Trump for requiring labeling of harmful ingredients in ultraprocessed foods.

Trump is keenly aware that Kennedy’s MAHA movement is key to his political survival. At a Cabinet meeting in January, Kennedy rattled off a list of his agency’s efforts researching autism and tackling high drug prices.

Trump leaned in at the table.

“I read an article today where they think Bobby is going to be really great for the Republican Party in the midterms,” , “so I have to be very careful that Bobby likes us.”

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There, he waited. Reyes, now 51, made repeated requests for the procedure, according to a against the federal government, but months went by even though there was blood in his urine — a potential sign of cancer that’s spread.

“It may have gone from very treatable to metastasized,” said , who, as a lawyer with the American Civil Liberties Union’s National Prison Project, is involved with the lawsuit.

“There are vulnerable populations; it’s crowded. The medical care isn’t there to handle the increased number of people who are sick,” Virgien said.

President Donald Trump’s mass deportation effort has led to a record number of immigrants being held in federal detention centers, local jails, and private prisons. The situation is putting detainees’ health at risk. Immigration and Customs Enforcement is violating standards that ensure immigrants receive initial medical screenings, routine health care, and timely responses to physical complaints, according to a review of more than 200 pages of , and reports, and recent by Democrats.

Complaints about inadequate medical care at detention facilities risk adding to the political backlash Trump faces over his aggressive deportation campaign, including the killing of in Minneapolis. Democratic members of Congress have insisted on reining in federal immigration agents as part of a 2026 spending bill for the Department of Homeland Security, an impasse that threatens to largely shut down the agency.

Spokespeople for ICE and ICE Health Services Corps, the Department of Homeland Security, and the White House didn’t respond to repeated requests for comment on this article. IHSC assesses health for deportation, oversees medical standards in contracted facilities, and reimburses for off-site medical care.

However, on the , assistant director Stewart Smith said the corps “upholds health care standards across ICE-owned and contracted facilities, and ensures the provision of required health care delivery for detained aliens.” For ICE’s part, its that “many aliens may not have received recent or reliable medical treatment for existing conditions prior to entering ICE custody. For some individuals, this may represent their first access to comprehensive medical care.”

Some Democratic lawmakers have demanded autopsy reports on detainees who died in custody and have publicly accused ICE of denying immigrants access to care. Rep. Kelly Morrison (D-Minn.) said that a she visited at the state’s historic Fort Snelling had no medical policy and “no real” on-site medical care.

“It raises alarm bells from a medical and public health perspective,” Morrison, who is a doctor, told ºÚÁϳԹÏÍø News. “There are no beds, no blankets, minimal food. It’s freezing in there. Everyone is in leg shackles. It’s chaotic, disorganized, and, frankly, dangerous.”

(D-Texas) recently denounced the health care given to detainees at a she held after visiting , a 5-year-old boy in Minneapolis who was sent to the Dilley Immigration Processing Center in South Texas. She went to the center following media reports that he’d developed a fever and was .

“The treatment these people are suffering under right now is worse than those who are accused and sometimes even convicted of crimes. That’s how bad it is,” she said.

DHS locked down Dilley this month after two detainees . The facility also houses children who are vulnerable to severe complications of the illness, such as brain swelling.

(D-Conn.) on Feb. 1 accused the administration of denying him entry to Dilley in late January in order to hide the .

And were recently in .

Public concern is mounting, with nearly 60% of voters of how Trump has handled immigration, according to a recent poll conducted by and The New York Times.

The type and scope of health care services that adult immigrants are supposed to receive depend in part on where they’re held. ICE detention standards apply to specific centers such as private prisons that house both inmates and detainees, while are required at facilities that generally house .

Despite the differences, are expected. Immigrants are supposed to receive a medical, dental, and mental health screening when they arrive, and they’re supposed to receive daily sick calls, round-the-clock emergency care, and other services, including preventive care, screening, diagnosis, and treatment.

The standards exist to “ensure that detainees are treated humanely; protected from harm; provided appropriate medical and mental health care; and receive the rights and protections to which they are entitled,” according to ICE’s , revised last year.

But the agency’s failure to adhere to its own standards is leaving immigrant detainees at risk of medical emergencies and death, complications from untreated chronic illnesses, and infection with communicable diseases, according to , , and .

DHS has criticized some of the investigations as false, including a report by Sen. Jon Ossoff (D-Ga.) on pregnant women and children in detention.

“ICE detention facilities have higher standards than most U.S. prisons that detain American citizens. All detainees are provided with comprehensive medical care, proper meals,” DHS spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin said in an . On Feb. 17, McLaughlin announced she would be from her DHS post.

Weakened Oversight, Less Infrastructure

Access to adequate health services has been imperiled because of the surge in detainees, a lack of oversight by the Trump administration, and a delay in processing medical claims that’s jeopardized care, say advocates, lawyers, and some doctors.

“The challenges have been exacerbated because the pace of removals hasn’t kept up with the pace of detentions. It adds to the problem,” said , an associate director at KFF, a health information nonprofit that includes ºÚÁϳԹÏÍø News. “There are more public health issues when facilities are crowded.”

The number of immigrants in detention swelled from about 40,000 in November 2023 under former President Joe Biden to a in mid-January, according to the American Immigration Council, an advocacy group that focuses on litigation and research.

At the same time, the Trump administration has weakened oversight of the conditions and health services at detention centers. It cut staff at the DHS Immigration Detention Ombudsman office, effectively , according to a KFF analysis and the Economic Policy Institute, a nonprofit that focuses on economic research.

The has been to “independently examine immigration detention to promote safe, humane conditions,” according to the agency. DHS is currently the target of a partial government shutdown because of Democrats’ opposition to a for the agency. As advanced by Republicans, that measure would zero out the ombudsman’s funding.

There are also lengthy delays to process detainee health payment claims from third-party doctors and hospitals — a holdup that advocates and the federal government have said jeopardizes care.

The Department of Veterans Affairs’ Financial Services Center long had a contract with ICE to process claims for care outside detention centers, such as oncology treatments or dialysis.

Congressional Republicans and claimed it diverted resources from veterans.

Veterans Affairs in October detainees’ claims. Documents ICE posted on a federal contracting website said the termination “created an emergency” by compromising the ability to reimburse providers and left the agency with no mechanism to provide services such as tuberculosis screening, nonemergency medical transportation, and medical equipment purchases.

“It is an absolute emergency for ICE to immediately procure claims processing support because lack of this support will delay critical medical care … such as dialysis, prenatal care, oncology, chemotherapy, etc.,” according to posted in late 2025 at , a federal system for contract data.

A new claims processor, , has been retained, but ICE has said on its website that no claims will be processed until April 30. Advocates say it’s unclear whether detainees are getting access to off-site care as needed and say the claims delays are also discouraging medical providers from providing services to the immigrants.

“DHS has signed a new contract to process these claims and is currently onboarding the vendor,” said Veterans Affairs spokesperson Pete Kasperowicz. “Meanwhile, VA is supporting this transition until May to ensure claims are processed appropriately.”

Deaths in Custody

that at least eight detainees have died in custody so far in 2026, with 33 detainee deaths in 2025 and 11 in 2024. Those figures are contested, however, by some advocates and lawmakers who say the totals exclude detainees who died while being apprehended or in the care of U.S. Customs and Border Protection.

House Democrats on the Homeland Security Committee say 53 people have died in ICE or CBP custody since Trump took office. They are from DHS, including autopsy reports for each death, staffing requirements for medical professionals, and video footage of one detainee who died in Texas.

“We are outraged” at the deaths, according to a Jan. 22 letter from the 13 lawmakers. “It is obvious yet tragic that ICE is unwilling or unable to provide basic care for detainees.”

The Democrats pointed to the death of , 55, who was born in Cuba. He died Jan. 3 at a detention center in Fort Bliss, Texas, after ICE said he experienced medical distress. He had been taken into custody almost six months earlier.

“At no time during detention is a detained alien denied emergency care,” ICE said in a Jan. 9 statement on the death.

The El Paso County Medical Examiner’s Office that occurred after Campos was restrained by law enforcement.

Meanwhile, other immigrants are still waiting for care. Reyes, who needed a biopsy for possible prostate cancer, eventually had the screening test, but as of early February had not received results. “He is in constant agonizing pain,” according to the lawsuit filed in the Northern District of California.

On Feb. 10, a federal judge ordered ICE and DHS to provide to detainees and to conduct external monitoring, including on-site inspections of the detention center.

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Federal officials in May 2023 declared an end to the . But more than two years later, a growing body of research continues to reveal information about the virus and its ability to cause harm long after initial infections resolve, even in some cases when symptoms were mild.

The discoveries raise fresh concerns about the Trump administration’s covid policies, researchers say. While some studies show covid vaccines offer protective benefits against longer-term health effects, the Department of Health and Human Services has drastically limited recommendations about who should get the shot. The administration also aimed at developing more protective covid vaccines.

The federal government is curtailing such efforts just as researchers call for more funding and, in some cases, long-term monitoring of people previously infected.

“People forget, but the legacy of covid is going to be long, and we are going to be learning about the chronic effects of the virus for some time to come,” said , an epidemiologist who directs the University of Minnesota’s Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy.

The Trump administration said that the covid vaccine remains available and that individuals are encouraged to talk with their health providers about what is best for them. The covid vaccine and others on the schedule of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention remain covered by insurance so that individuals don’t need to pay out-of-pocket, officials said.

“Updating CDC guidance and expanding shared clinical decision-making restores informed consent, centers parents and clinicians, and discourages ‘one size fits all’ policies,” said HHS spokesperson Emily Hilliard.

Although covid has become less deadly, because of population immunization and mutations making the virus less severe, researchers say the politicization around the infection is obscuring what science is increasingly confirming: covid’s potential to cause unexpected, possibly chronic health issues. That in turn, these scientists say, drives the need for more, rather than less, research, because over the long term, covid could have significant economic and societal implications, such as higher health care costs and more demands on social programs and caregivers.

The annual average burden of the disease’s long-term health effects is estimated at $1 trillion globally and $9,000 per patient in the U.S., according to a in November in the journal NPJ Primary Care Respiratory Medicine. In this country, the annual lost earnings are estimated to be about $170 billion.

One study estimates that the flu resulted in $16 billion in direct health costs and $13 billion in productivity losses in the 2023-2024 season, according to , an online platform that publishes work not yet certified by peer review.

Covid’s Growing Reach

Much has been learned about covid since the virus emerged in 2019, unleashing a pandemic that the World Health Organization reports has killed more than . By the spring of 2020, the term “long covid” had been coined to describe chronic health problems that can persist post-infection.

More recent studies show that infection by the virus that causes covid, SARS-CoV-2, can result in heightened health risks months to more than a year later.

For example, researchers following children born to mothers who contracted the virus while pregnant have discovered they may have an , delayed speech and motor development, or other neurodevelopmental challenges.

found babies exposed to covid in utero experienced accelerated weight gain in their first year, a possible harbinger of metabolic issues that could later carry an increased risk for cardiovascular disease.

These studies suggest avoiding severe covid in pregnancy may reduce risk not just during pregnancy but for future generations. That may be another good reason to get vaccinated when pregnant.

“There are other body symptoms apart from the developing fetal brain that also may be impacted,” said Andrea Edlow, an associate professor of obstetrics, gynecology, and reproductive biology at Harvard Medical School who was involved in both studies. “We definitely need more research.”

Epidemiologists point to some specific, emerging challenges.

A in the New England Journal of Medicine found people who from mild covid infections experienced a cognitive deficit equal to a three-point drop in IQ. Among the more than 100,000 participants, deficits were greater in people who had persistent symptoms and reached the equivalent of a nine-point IQ drop for individuals admitted to intensive care.

, a clinical epidemiologist who has studied longer-term health effects from covid, did the math. He estimated covid may have increased the number of adults in the U.S. with an IQ of less than 70 from 4.7 million to 7.5 million — dealing with “a level of cognitive impairment that requires significant societal support,” he wrote.

“People get covid-19, some people do fine and bounce back, but there are people who start experiencing problems with memory, cognition, and fuzzy brain,” he said. “Even people with mild symptoms. They might not even be aware.”

Diane Yormark, 67, of Boca Raton, Florida, can relate. She got covid in 2022 and 2023. The second infection left her with brain fog and fatigue.

“I felt like if you had a little bit too much wine the night before and you’re out of it,” said Yormark, a retired copywriter, who said the worst of her symptoms lasted for about three months after the infection. “Some of the fog has lifted. But do I feel like myself? Not like I was.”

Data from more than a suggests covid vaccines can help reduce risk of severe infection as well as longer-lasting health effects, although researchers say more study is needed.

But vaccination rates remain low in the U.S., with only about 17% of the adult population reporting that they got the updated 2025-2026 shot as of Jan. 16, based on .

Trump administration officials led by Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. have reduced access to covid vaccines despite the lack of any new, substantiated evidence of harm. Though the shots were a hallmark achievement of the first Trump administration, which led the effort for their development, Kennedy has said without evidence that they are “.”

In May he said on X that the CDC would for , citing a . The Food and Drug Administration has since issued new guidelines limiting the vaccine to people 65 or older and individuals 6 months or older with at least one risk factor, though many states continue to make them more widely available.

The Trump administration also halted for mRNA-based vaccines. Administration officials and a number of Republicans question the safety of the Nobel Prize-winning technology — heralded for the potential to treat many diseases beyond covid — even though clinical trials with tens of thousands of volunteers were performed before the covid mRNA vaccines were made available to the public.

And numerous studies, including new research in 2025, show covid vaccine benefits include a , although the protective effects wane over time.

Following the Findings

Researchers say more and broader support is important because much remains unknown about covid and its impact on the body.

The growing awareness that, even in mild covid cases, the possibility exists for longer-term, often undetected also warrants more examination, researchers say. A in eBioMedicine found people with neurocognitive issues such as changes in smell or headaches after infection had significant levels of a protein linked to Alzheimer’s in their blood plasma. EBioMedicine is a peer-reviewed, open-access journal published by .

In the brain, the virus leads to an immune response that triggers inflammation, can damage brain cells, and can even shrink brain volume, according to that was published in March 2022 in the journal Nature.

An of advanced brain images found significant alterations even among people who had already recovered from mild infections — a possible explanation for that may persist for years. Lead study author Kiran Thapaliya said the research suggests the virus “may leave a silent, lasting effect on brain health.”

Al-Alay agreed.

“We don’t know what will happen to people 10 years down the road,” he said. “Inflammation of the brain is not a good thing. It’s absolutely not a good thing.”

That inflammatory response has also been linked to blood clots, arrhythmias, and higher risk of cardiovascular issues, even following a mild infection.

A University of Southern California study published in October 2024 in the journal Arteriosclerosis, Thrombosis, and Vascular Biology found the risk for a remains elevated nearly three years after covid infection. The findings held even for people who were not hospitalized.

“We were surprised to see the effects that far out” regardless of individual heart disease history, said James R. Hilser, the study’s lead author and a postdoctoral fellow at the UCLA David Geffen School of Medicine.

Covid can also and trigger a relapse, according to research published in July in the journal Nature. Researchers found that the chance of dying from cancer among cancer survivors was higher among people who’d had covid, especially in the year after being infected. There was nearly a twofold increase in cancer mortality in those who tested positive compared with those who tested negative.

The potential of the covid virus to affect future generations is yielding new findings as well. Australian researchers looked at male mice and found that those who had been from covid experienced changes to their sperm that altered their offspring’s behavior, causing them to exhibit more anxiety.

Meanwhile, many people are now living — and struggling — with the virus’ after-effects.

Dee Farrand, 57, of Marana, Arizona, could once run five miles and was excelling at her job in sales. She recovered from a covid infection in May 2021.

Two months later, her heart began to beat irregularly. Farrand underwent a battery of tests at a hospital. Ultimately, the condition became so severe she had to go on supplemental oxygen for two years.

Her cognitive abilities declined so severely she couldn’t read, because she’d forget the first sentence after reading the second. She also had to leave herself reminders that she is allergic to shrimp or that she likes avocados. She said she lost her job and returned to her previous occupation as a social worker.

“I was the person who is like the Energizer bunny and all of a sudden I’d get so tired getting dressed that I had to go back to bed,” Farrand said.

While she is better, covid has left a mark. She said she’s not yet able to run the five miles she used to do without any problems.

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The daylong, invitation-only event in November featured a who’s who of MAHA luminaries. Vice President JD Vance attended, as did Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the leader of the ad hoc movement whose members rail against vaccines, Big Pharma, and ultraprocessed food.

During a that organizers broadcasted online, Vance extolled MAHA’s impact on the Trump administration, calling it “a critical part of our success in Washington.”

The summit underscored just how closely Republicans have hitched themselves to the MAHA campaign, banking on its popularity to give them an electoral bounce in the midterms. But the strategy carries risks, because is cratering and polls show about reducing health care costs than MAHA priorities such as ending vaccine mandates and promoting raw milk.

“Polls show clearly MAHA issues are not the top issues for people,” said , a professor emeritus of health policy and political analysis at Harvard University. “The top health care voting issue is cost, and costs are actually rising.”

The disconnect was on display Nov. 12, the day of the , where attendees picked up swag bags and mingled amid the hotel’s blue-velvet couches and crystal chandeliers.

A few blocks away at the White House, President Donald Trump that day to reopen the federal government. The centered on disagreement over expiring Affordable Care Act subsidies, which Democrats wanted to extend and GOP congressional leadership declined to take up. The government went back to business and, in the midst of a political and legislative , those subsidies expired at the end of 2025. That has fueled the national affordability debate, as many of the roughly 24 million people who buy coverage on the health law’s marketplaces are now facing premium payments more than double what they faced last year. In January, with what has emerged as a key kitchen table issue.

Said Blendon: “MAHA is not lowering the cost.”

MAHA was mainstreamed as part of the political platform embraced by Kennedy, an environmental lawyer and anti-vaccine activist who ran for president in 2023 and 2024. When he suspended his campaign and endorsed Trump, Kennedy united MAHA with conservatives, marrying the “health freedom” movement with MAGA.

But the movement took root before then, during the covid pandemic, grounded in the idea that the U.S. is in the throes of a chronic disease epidemic caused by corruption in the food, medical, and pharmaceutical industries, as well as federal agencies. Some adherents also are skeptical of or opposed to vaccines.

“Covid was really eye-opening for people,” said Andrea Nazarenko, a psychologist and MAHA supporter who co-authored a . “They realized, ‘Wait a minute — the systems I trusted may not be as trustworthy as I thought.’ At its core, people are noticing the systems they relied on are failing them.”

MAHA has since emerged as an influential force for the GOP, gaining significant clout in a short time. Case in point: Early this month, Kennedy announced and updated , which were both part of the movement’s wish list and departures from existing frameworks.

In addition, members of Congress have founded a MAHA caucus. Lawmakers in Republican-led states are introducing or passing legislation to advance the MAHA agenda, including laws to restrict mRNA vaccines or in food. And food manufacturers including Nestle, General Mills, and Kraft Heinz have pledged to remove artificial dyes or additives.

Republicans see the MAHA constituency as critical in the 2026 midterm elections and beyond. Its supporters include desirable voting demographics — independents and some Democrats, many of whom are women, younger voters, or suburbanites. About 21% of independent voters and 8% of Democratic voters held a favorable or somewhat favorable view of MAHA as of early fall, according to by Change Research.

“I think one reason I won reelection was that I advocated for the covid-vaccine-injured and was an ally of Bobby Kennedy back then when he was being vilified,” Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) said. “People appreciated that. It’s about basic health.”

Republicans are counting on a MAHA bounce, and political analysts say they may need it. The party took a drubbing in November’s statewide races, and from 47% in early 2025 to 36% by December, according to Gallup polls. Those are ominous trends for the GOP, since the party with the presidency has lost ground in midterm House elections.

Meanwhile, cracks are starting to threaten the Make America Great Again coalition and the lockstep support Trump has enjoyed from Capitol Hill Republicans. While MAGA shows signs of weakening, MAHA is flourishing.

“Kennedy has ratified the Republican agenda around health and food,” said David Mansdoerfer, who served in HHS leadership during the first Trump administration. “We sound very much like the issues Democrats were into in the 1990s and 2000s. We’ve almost done a 180 and co-opted a topic under a Republican agenda.”

Kennedy is expected to soon check another item off MAHA’s list by pressing states to remove fluoride from the water supply, according to a source who asked to remain anonymous because he isn’t authorized to speak to the media.

But Republicans’ embrace of MAHA in the run-up to the November midterm elections could also cost them, political strategists say.

Polling shows popular support for MAHA initiatives such as ridding food of synthetic dyes, but voters are far less enthusiastic about Kennedy and his denouncements of vaccines and efforts to limit access to them. Almost 60% of adults disapprove of his work as head of HHS, according to by KFF, a health information nonprofit that includes ºÚÁϳԹÏÍø News.

And only 26% of registered voters support defunding mRNA vaccine research, according to a by left-leaning pollster Navigator Research. In the same poll, 3 in 4 reported feeling positively toward the measles vaccine.

Still, the Trump administration has broadened and accelerated its attack on vaccines. The Food and Drug Administration’s top vaccine official in November that the agency would overhaul vaccine regulation, asserting without evidence that at least 10 children had died from covid shots.

In December, a federal vaccine advisory panel handpicked by Kennedy voted to stop recommending routine vaccination of newborns against hepatitis B. Medical groups denounced the panel’s actions, saying the vaccine is safe and that the recommendation would lead to more infections with the virus, which causes serious liver damage.

Democrats see an opening. The Democratic Doctors Caucus, a group of medical doctors in Congress, condemning the federal advisory panel’s changed recommendation on the hepatitis B vaccine, calling it an attack on basic science. And Democratic Reps. Frank Pallone of New Jersey, Diana DeGette of Colorado, and Yvette Clarke of New York demanding data from the agency on the covid death claims.

Highlighting the risks of the Trump administration’s anti-vaccine initiatives is only part of Democrats’ game plan to counter Republicans’ alliance with MAHA.

Strategists describe three aims: Expose GOP policies that run counter to MAHA priorities; trumpet Democrats’ efforts to tackle health care costs; and highlight their own party’s work on such MAHA goals as cracking down on pesticide-makers.

“If people want to be healthier, they need affordable health care, and Democrats are the only ones pushing for affordable health care,” said , communications director for the House Majority PAC, a fundraising group that works to elect more Democrats.

Most notably, the strategy so far hasn’t really involved attacks on Kennedy or MAHA itself.

“If Democrats focus on attacking Kennedy, saying he’s crazy and he has a brain worm, some voters hear that as reinforcing the notion that Democrats are wedded to Big Pharma and Big Ag,” said , a senior adviser at the Center for Economic and Policy Research, a progressive nonprofit focused on economic policy.

So Democrats will talk about their continuing fight to address health care costs, such as with a possible retroactive fix to the now-expired ACA subsidies, or by Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) to prevent pesticide manufacturers from getting legal immunity against health claims. And they plan to discuss Trump administration actions that seemingly run counter to the MAHA agenda, such as a decision by the Environmental Protection Agency to relax the of the carcinogen formaldehyde.

“Everything they’re doing actually makes people sicker with higher bills, dirtier air, and fewer people covered with insurance,” said , a Democratic strategist. “Democrats do need to take MAHA seriously and can’t brush it off. The core is to show Democrats are focused on health and health care and exposing what the Republican agenda means.”

For Republicans, the next batch of MAHA events and summits is already scheduled. After taking a political back seat in recent years, health care may dominate the 2026 election races.

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“Our country wants us to be birthing machines, but they’re cutting what resources there already are,” said Olcott, 20. “And a $1,000 baby bonus? It’s low-key like, what, bro? That wouldn’t even cover my month’s rent.”

The Trump administration wants Americans to have more babies, and the federal government is debuting policy initiatives to reverse the falling U.S. fertility rate. In mid-October, the White House unveiled a plan to to in vitro fertilization treatment. President Donald Trump has , calling himself “the .”

But reproductive rights groups and other advocacy organizations say these efforts to buttress the birth rate don’t make up for broader administration priorities aimed at cutting federal programs such as Medicaid, its related Children’s Health Insurance Program, and other initiatives that support women and children. The pro-family focus, they say, isn’t just about boosting procreation. Instead, they say, it’s being weaponized to push a conservative agenda that threatens women’s health, reproductive rights, and labor force participation.

Some predict these efforts could deter parenthood and lead to increases in maternal mortality.

“The religious right wants more white Christian babies and is trying to curtail women’s reproductive freedom in order to achieve that aim,” said , a spokesperson for Population Connection, a nonprofit that promotes population stabilization through increased access to birth control and abortion. “The real danger is the constant whittling down of reproductive rights.”

The White House did not respond to repeated interview requests.

A slate of federal programs that have long helped women and children are also being targeted by Trump and Cabinet members who say they champion pronatalist policies.

Medicaid work requirements, for instance, put in place by the Republicans’ One Big Beautiful Bill Act, a budget law enacted in July, will lead to extra paperwork and other requirements that, according to the , will cause to lose coverage. Medicaid covers more than in the U.S.

The measure also cuts federal funding for a national program that provides monthly food benefits. Almost in fiscal 2023 were children.

GOP spending cuts and staffing freezes have , a federal education program that provides day care and preschool for young, low-income children, even as U.S. adults implore the government to .

And the GOP halted Medicaid funding to Planned Parenthood of America for one year because it provides abortion services, forcing around the country to close since the beginning of 2025. Planned Parenthood provides a wide range of women’s health services, from wellness exams to breast cancer screenings and .

Groups that advocate for women’s health and reproductive rights say the actions by the administration and congressional Republicans to attack these programs are making it harder for families to get the support and medical care they need.

“There is a lot of rhetoric about who is worthy of public assistance, and to many policymakers, it’s not the single mother,” said , a public health law and policy analyst at the Milken Institute School of Public Health at George Washington University.

The pronatalist perspective generally supports government intervention to encourage procreation and is rooted in a belief that modern culture has failed to celebrate the nuclear family. The movement’s supporters also say policies to encourage childbearing are an economic necessity.

A Declining Birth Rate

The has largely been on a downward trajectory since 2007, with the number of births declining by an average 2% per year from 2015 through 2020, according to the , although the rate has fluctuated since.

The concepts that shape the movement can be found in Project 2025, a political initiative led by the conservative Heritage Foundation that has seen many of its proposals adopted by Trump. The document asserts that in a “heterosexual, intact marriage.”

“Married men and women are the ideal, natural family structure because all children have a right to be raised by the men and women who conceived them,” it says.

Project 2025 also includes many proposals that critics say aren’t friendly toward women’s health. For instance, it calls for eliminating access to mifepristone, a drug commonly used in abortions as well as in the management of miscarriages, and encourages states to block Planned Parenthood facilities from receiving Medicaid funding.

The “more babies” mantra is being embraced at the highest levels of the federal government.

“I can’t remember any other administration being so tied to the pronatalist movement,” said Brian Dixon, Population Connection’s senior vice president for government and political affairs.

Just days after he was sworn in, Vice President JD Vance declared, “I want in the United States of America.” He has also criticized of women and men who opt not to start families.

The White House in October did announce a discount on certain drugs used in through , a yet-to-debut government website that aims to connect consumers with lower-priced drugs. Mehmet Oz, who heads Medicare and Medicaid, heralded a possible future of “,” resulting from the lower-priced infertility drugs.

The administration also announced it would encourage employers to move to a new model for as a stand-alone option in which employees can enroll. But that is far from Trump’s earlier pledge to make infertility treatments free and may not be enough to overcome other long-term financial worries that often guide decisions about whether to have children.

Angel Albring, a mother of six, says her dream of having a big family always hinged on her ability to work and avoid child care costs. Her career as a freelance writer enabled her to do so while still contributing to the family’s income, working during nap times and at night, while the rest of her household slept.

“The whole thing of ‘sleep when the baby sleeps’ never applied to me,” Albring said.

Some of her friends, though, aren’t so fortunate. They fear they cannot afford children because of climbing costs for day care, groceries, and housing, she said.

Delivering on ‘Baby Bonuses’?

The Trump administration, meanwhile, has advanced another policy aimed at giving children a future financial boost.

The One Big Beautiful Bill Act establishes a tax-advantaged “” seeded with $1,000 in federal funds — often called a “baby bonus” — on behalf of every eligible American child. The initial deposits are scheduled to start in 2026 with the federal government automatically opening an account for children born after Dec. 31, 2024, and before Jan. 1, 2029.

Parents could contribute up to $5,000 a year initially to the account, with employers able to annually of that amount. The accounts reportedly would be vehicles for long-term savings. Details are still being ironed out, but funds could not be withdrawn before the child turns 18. After that, the accounts would likely become traditional IRAs.

On Tuesday, billionaires Michael and Susan Dell of Dell computer fame said they would give $250 to 25 million children age 10 and under in the U.S. The donations will be aimed at encouraging participation in the Trump accounts.

Pronatalism extends to other parts of the federal government, too.

Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, who has , instructed his department to prioritize federal funds for communities with , though it has not yet announced any projects directly related to the initiative. For a time, the administration considered bestowing on mothers with six or more children.

Except there’s one hitch: Data suggests the policies and programs the Trump administration has proposed won’t necessarily work.

Other countries have offered more robust programs to encourage childbearing and ease parenting but haven’t seen their birth rates go up, noted Michael Geruso, an economist for the University of Texas-Austin who hopes to see the global population increase. Israel, for example, has offered free IVF treatment for roughly three decades, yet its birth rates have stayed statistically stagnant, at just under three children for every woman, he said.

France and Sweden have extensive social safety-net programs to support families, including paid time off and paid paternity and maternity leave, and subsidized child care and health care, but their fertility rates are also falling, said Peggy O’Donnell Heffington, a University of Chicago assistant senior instructional professor in the history department who wrote a book on non-motherhood.

“Nobody yet knows how to avoid depopulation,” Geruso said.

Some point to a different solution to reverse the United States’ declining population: to ensure a younger labor force and stronger tax base. The Trump administration, however, is doing the opposite — revoking visas and creating an environment in which immigrants who are in the U.S. legally feel increasingly uncomfortable because of heavy-handed policies, analysts say.

The country’s this year fell for the since the 1960s, according to a Pew Research Center analysis.

Meanwhile, to critics of the administration, the focus on encouraging childbirth allows the Trump administration and Republicans to sound as if they support families.

“You’re not seeing policies that support families with children,” said , vice president of income security and child care at the National Women’s Law Center, a nonprofit focused on gender rights. “It’s a white, heterosexual, fundamentalist Christian, two-parent marriage that’s being held up.”

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He with reporters, acknowledging it sounded a little like “The X Files,” a science fiction television show.

Academics cite Wallace’s story as one of the catalysts behind a fringe concept that has spread among adherents to the Make America Healthy Again, or MAHA, movement and is gaining traction at the highest levels of the federal government. Its treatment as a serious issue underscores that under President Donald Trump, unscientific ideas have unusual power to take hold and shape public health policy.

The concept posits that airplane vapor trails, or contrails, are containing toxic substances that poison people and the terrain. Another version alleges planes or devices are , private companies, or researchers to trigger big weather changes, such as hurricanes, or to alter the Earth’s climate, emitting hazardous chemicals in the process.

Several GOP lawmakers and leaders in the Trump administration remain convinced the concepts are legitimate, though scientists have sought to discredit such claims.

Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is planning to investigate climate and weather control, and is expected to create a task force that will recommend possible federal action, according to a former agency official, an internal agency memo obtained by ºÚÁϳԹÏÍø News, and a consultant who helped with the memo.

The plans, along with comments by top GOP lawmakers, show how rumors and conspiracy theories can gain an air of legitimacy due to social media and a political climate infused with falsehoods, some political scientists and researchers say.

“When we have low access to information or low trust in our sources of information, a lot of times we turn to our peer groups, the groups we are members of and we define ourselves by,” said , a folklorist and professor of information at the University of California-Berkeley. He added that the government’s investigation of conspiracy theories “gives the impression of having some authoritative element.”

HHS is expected to appoint a special government employee to investigate climate and weather control, according to of the agency’s MAHA agenda, who said he drafted the memo. The agency has interviewed applicants to lead a “chemtrails” task force, said Jim Lee, a blogger focused on weather and climate who Delany said helped edit the memo, which Lee confirmed.

“HHS does not comment on future or potential policy decisions and task forces,” agency spokesperson Emily Hilliard said in an email.

The memo alleges that “aerosolized heavy metals such as Aluminum, Barium, and Strontium, as well as other materials such as sulfuric acid precursors, are sprayed into the atmosphere under the auspices of combatting global warming,” through a process of stratospheric aerosol injection, or SAI.

“There are serious concerns SAI spraying is leading to increased heavy metal content in the atmosphere,” the memo states.

The memo claims, without providing evidence, that the substances cause elevated heavy-metal content in the atmosphere, soil, and waterways, and that aluminum is a toxic product used in SAI linked to dementia, attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, asthma-like illnesses, and other chronic illnesses. The July 14 memo was addressed to White House health adviser , who didn’t respond to a voicemail left by a reporter seeking comment.

High-level federal government officials are presenting false claims as facts without evidence and referring to events that not only haven’t occurred but, in many cases, are physically impossible, said Daniel Swain, a climate scientist at the University of California.

“That is a pretty shocking memo,” he said. “It doesn’t get more tinfoil hat. They really believe toxins are being sprayed.”

Kennedy has previously promoted debunked chemtrail theories. This spring, he was asked on “Dr. Phil Primetime” about chemicals being sprayed into the stratosphere to change the Earth’s climate.

“It’s done, we think, by DARPA,” referring to a Department of Defense agency that develops emerging technology for the military’s use. “And a lot of it now is coming out of the jet fuel. Those materials are put in jet fuel. I’m going to do everything in my power to stop it. We’re bringing on somebody who’s going to think only about that.”

DARPA officials didn’t return a message seeking comment.

Federal Messaging

Deploying chemtrails to poison people is just one of many baseless conspiracy theories that have found traction among Trump administration health policy officials led by Kennedy, a longtime anti-vaccine activist before entering politics. He continues to promote a supposed link between vaccines and autism, as well as make statements in drinking water to arthritis, bone fractures, thyroid disease, and cancer. The World Health Organization says when used as recommended.

Delany, who was from HHS, said Kennedy has expressed strong interest in chemtrails.

“This is an issue that really matters to MAHA,” said Delany, referring to the informal movement associated with Kennedy that is composed of people who are skeptical of evidence-based medicine.

The memo also alleges that “suspicious weather events have been occurring and have increased awareness of the issue to the public, some of which have been acknowledged to have been caused by geoengineering activities, such as the flooding in Dubai in 2024.” intentional large-scale efforts to change the climate to counteract global warming.

“It is unconscionable that anyone should be allowed to spray known neurotoxins and environmental toxins over our nation’s citizens, their land, food and water supplies,” Delany’s memo states.

Scientists, meteorologists, and other branches of the federal government say these assertions are largely incorrect. Some points in the memo are accurate, including concerns that commercial aircraft contribute to acid rain.

But critics say the memo builds on kernels of truth before veering into unscientific fringe theories. Efforts to control the weather are being made, largely by states and local governments seeking to combat droughts, but the results are modest and highly localized. It isn’t possible to manipulate large-scale weather events, scientists say.

Severe flooding in the United Arab Emirates in 2024 couldn’t have been caused by weather manipulation because no technology could create that kind of rainfall event, , a meteorologist at the University of Reading who studies Gulf region rainfall patterns, said in a statement on the floods. after central Texas experienced devastating floods.

The Government Accountability Office concluded in a that questions remain as to the effectiveness of weather modification.

Research into changing the climate has been conducted, including work by that engaged in field tests. Still, federal agencies say no ongoing or large-scale projects are underway. Study of the concept remains in the . The Environmental Protection Agency says there are or government efforts to affect the Earth’s climate.

“Solar geoengineering is not occurring via direct delivery by commercial aircraft and is not associated with ,” the agency says on its website.

Widespread Misinformation

Misperceptions about weather, climate control, and airplane contrails extend beyond the Trump administration, scientists said.

In September, a congressional titled “Playing God With the Weather — A Disastrous Forecast” involved two hours of debate on the once-fringe idea. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), who chaired the hearing, has introduced legislation to ban weather and climate control, with a fine of up to $100,000 and up to five years in prison.

Some Democrats objected to the nature of the discussion. Rep. Melanie Stansbury (D-N.M.) accused Greene of using “the platform of Congress to proffer anti-science theories, to platform climate denialism.”

Frequently citing chemtrails, GOP lawmakers have in states to ban weather modification or geoengineering. to establish an online portal so residents can report alleged violations.

“The Free State of Florida means freedom from governments or private actors unilaterally applying chemicals or geoengineering to people or public spaces,” GOP Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said in a this spring.

Meanwhile, the chemtrail conspiracy has permeated popular culture. The title track on singer Lana Del Ray’s seventh studio album is entitled “.” Bill Maher dove into the chemtrail myth on his podcast “Club Random,” saying, “.” And “Chemtrails,” a psychological thriller, in July.

Social media has given wing to the chemtrails concept and other fringe ideas involving public health. They include an outlandish belief that Anthony Fauci, who advised both Trump and President Joe Biden on the government response to the covid-19 pandemic, . There is no evidence of such a link, public health leaders say.

Researchers say another false belief by those on the far right holds that people who received covid vaccines could , causing infertility in the unvaccinated. There is no evidence of such a connection, scientists and researchers say.

More severe weather events due to global warming may be driving some of the baseless theories, scientists say. And risks occur when such ideas take hold among the general population or policymakers, some public health leaders say. Climate researchers, including Swain, say they’ve received death threats.

Lee, the blogger, said he disagrees with some of the more far-fetched beliefs and is aware of the harm they can cause.

“There are people wanting to shoot down planes because they think they are chemtrails,” said Lee, adding that some believers are afraid to venture outside when plane vapor trails are visible overhead.

There is also no evidence that plane contrails cause health problems or are related to intentional efforts to control the climate, according to the EPA and other scientists.

The memo and focus at HHS on climate and weather control are alarming because they perpetuate conspiracies, said David Keith, a professor of geophysical sciences at the University of Chicago.

“It’s unmoored to reality,” he said. “I expected there were documents like this, but seeing it in print is nevertheless shocking. Our government is being driven by nonsensical dreck from dark corners of social media.”

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