In August, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) director Susan Monarez was fired because, according White House spokesperson Kush Desai, she was “not aligned with the president’s agenda of Making America Healthy Again.” Several senior CDC officials resigned in protest—of Monarez’s removal, yes, but also to CDC budget cuts, and what they described as scientific censorship and the manipulation of data for political ends. In October, HHS fired 600 other CDC employees, including seasoned scientists, and laid off over 3,000.
“We don’t have the capacity or technical expertise to do research,” explains Washtenaw County Health Department (WCHD) administrator Susan Ringler-Cerniglia. “The CDC has critical resources when we need to respond at the local level. In the case of an unusual pathogen, we call on the CDC. It’s incredibly frightening to feel like we may not be able to rely on them.”
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Most of WCHD’s work is governed by local or state health codes. But, Ringler-Cerniglia notes, the federal government is trying to roll back long-standing policies, including clean air regulations, vehicle emissions standards, and regulations on greenhouse gas emissions. These decisions could have a ripple effect here in Washtenaw County.
And with Trump’s decision earlier this year to claw back $11.4 billion in Covid-related funding for local health departments, the WCHD saw a 6 percent reduction in its budget. “The loss of federal capacity, support, and investments is … problematic,” Ringler-Cerniglia says.
One example is vaccines. The FDA issues safety approvals based on scientific data reviewed by a CDC panel of experts known as the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices. In June, Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. fired all seventeen members of the panel, replacing them with his own handpicked roster. In a September meeting, the panel voted against recommending Covid-19 vaccines.
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Ringler-Cerniglia says the panel’s findings “fueled concerns already there and undermined solid and established data that Covid vaccines are safe, effective, and widely used. … They reduce transmission, serious disease, and death.”
Washtenaw County makes a strong case. During the pandemic, she says, “we had very high vaccination uptake compared to other counties … and had the lowest death rate from Covid-19 in Michigan since the beginning of the pandemic.”
Ringler-Cerniglia notes that although public health officials can’t be certain the vaccine was responsible for our lower death rate, “we do know now it’s most effective at reducing severe illness and death.”
“We lost 642 people to Covid-19 in Washtenaw County during the first three years of the pandemic,” she adds. “If Washtenaw had the same Covid-19 death rate as the Michigan average, an additional 631 people in our community would have died during those three years.”
The Covid vaccine was developed quickly, says Ringler-Cerniglia, because related research had been underway for some time: “It was ready to be turned into something.” Without ongoing research, “that capacity is not going to be there for us and undermines our capacity to respond locally.”
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Kennedy’s vaccine panel also advised that the measles, mumps, rubella (MMR), and varicella (chickenpox) vaccine be separated into two shots: one for MMR and the other for varicella. Critics say it will make it more difficult and expensive for parents to vaccinate their children—which may lead to fewer vaccinations.
This occurs as three unvaccinated children in other states have died this year from measles. In 2024, Michigan had seven cases of measles; so far this year, there have been twenty-eight. There have been none in Washtenaw County, but an increase in cases also increases the possibility that someone could bring it here. Because the disease spreads so rapidly, Ringler-Cerniglia explains, “one case is treated as an emergency.”
The Trump administration has also cut funding to university medical researchers and launched a criminal and civil investigation of institutions providing gender-affirming care to minors. After it received a federal subpoena, Michigan Medicine stopped offering these services.
U-M researchers and physicians would not give interviews, per a new university policy. Michigan Medicine director of public relations, Mary Masson, shared a prepared statement instead. It explained that hormonal therapies and puberty blocker medications would no longer be available to minors, “given escalating external threats and risks,” and it promised “we will continuously support the well-being of our patients, their families, and our teams.”
Targeting particular groups reflects a deeper problem. “Discrimination is not favorable to public health,” Ringler-Cerniglia says, noting that immigrants may not seek health services they need for fear of deportation—and therefore may spread illness to others. “When everyone is healthy, it helps everyone.”