Category Archives: Science

Food Safety Inspection Funds Increase

By David Arnett

U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Brooke L. Rollins announced in a release today she will exercise the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) authority to provide a much-needed funding increase of $14.5 million in reimbursements to states for meat and poultry inspection programs. Without this funding, States may not have the resources to continue their own inspection programs which ensure products are safe. This funding increase ensures American produced meat and poultry can make it to market and onto the tables of families across the country.

“President Trump is committed to ensuring Americans have access to a safe, affordable food supply. Today I exercised my authority to robustly fund state meat and poultry inspection programs to ensure states can continue to partner with USDA to deliver effective and efficient food safety inspection,” said Secretary Rollins.

“While the Biden Administration let this funding decline in recent years, the Trump Administration recognizes the importance of our federal-state partnerships and will ensure services that our meat and poultry processors and producers rely on will continue to operate on a normal basis. The President’s commitment is reflected in his 2026 budget proposal, which calls on Congress to address this funding shortfall moving forward.”

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U.S. Holding the WHO Accountable

By David Arnett

“Like many legacy institutions, the WHO has become mired in bureaucratic bloat, entrenched paradigms, conflicts of interest, and international power politics.”

WASHINGTON, DC— Today in a release with video remarks aired during the Seventy-Eighth World Health Assembly in Geneva, Switzerland, U.S. Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. defended the Trump Administration’s intent to withdraw from the World Health Organization (WHO) and shared his vision for the future of global health.

“Like many legacy institutions, the WHO has become mired in bureaucratic bloat, entrenched paradigms, conflicts of interest, and international power politics,” said Secretary Kennedy. “While the United States has provided the lion’s share of the organization’s funding historically, other countries such as China have exerted undue influence over its operations in ways that serve their own interests and not particularly the interests of the global public.”

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Drug Prices Driven Lower for Americans

By David Arnett

Today, President Donald J. Trump signed an Executive Order to bring the prices American taxpayers pay for prescription drugs in line with those paid by similar nations. At the signing event, Secretary of Health and Human Services, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said several of his family, who were Bernie Sanders supporters came to tears upon hearing that President Trump would do today what many candidates for President have promised for generations.

A fact sheet accompanying the signing outlines details:

  • The Order directs the U.S. Trade Representative and Secretary of Commerce to take action to ensure foreign countries are not engaged in practices that purposefully and unfairly undercut market prices and drive price hikes in the United States.
  • The Order instructs the Administration to communicate price targets to pharmaceutical manufacturers to establish that America, the largest purchaser and funder of prescription drugs in the world, gets the best deal.
  • The Secretary of Health and Human Services will establish a mechanism through which American patients can buy their drugs directly from manufacturers who sell to Americans at a “Most-Favored-Nation” price, bypassing middlemen.
  • If drug manufacturers fail to offer most-favored-nation pricing, the Order directs the Secretary of Health and Human Services to: (1) propose rules that impose most-favored-nation pricing; and (2) take other aggressive measures to significantly reduce the cost of prescription drugs to the American consumer and end anti-competitive practices.
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Cuts in science funding?

By Jane Orient, M.D.

Public Health Watch: What Is the State of American Science?

Are you worried that the U.S. will lose its preeminence in science if DOGE manages to achieve massive cuts in spending?

Universities are loudly lamenting the termination of grants and the slashing of the “overhead” portion that goes to the institution rather than to the researcher. “The weeks ahead may be the greatest test the US scientific community has ever faced,” writes editor-in-chief H. Holden Thorp (Science 2/28/25).  But is the threat to science a loss of funding—or the lock that the system places on innovation or discoveries that disrupt the status quo, as shown below.

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