Public health leaders are meeting to figure out how to counter the MAHA movement

6 days ago

Public wellness leaders and researchers are kicking disconnected a gathering successful Washington, D.C., to talk really to antagonistic what they spot arsenic vulnerable ideas coming from nan Make America Healthy Again movement.

SCOTT DETROW, HOST:

More than 12,000 nationalist wellness leaders and researchers are kicking disconnected a gathering this play successful Washington, D.C., to look what they spot arsenic a situation successful their field.

GEORGES BENJAMIN: I deliberation nationalist wellness is nether onslaught by our ain national authorities much than thing else.

DETROW: They're coming together to talk really to antagonistic what they spot arsenic vulnerable ideas coming from nan Make America Healthy Again movement. NPR's Pien Huang has this study connected what's astatine stake.

PIEN HUANG, BYLINE: Dr. Georges Benjamin has led nan American Public Health Association for almost 25 years, and he's very worried astir really nan Trump management has trim unit and backing for nationalist health.

BENJAMIN: They're undermining nan halfway systems that we person for group to get good, coagulated aesculapian attraction successful our country.

HUANG: Benjamin says White House policies are besides interrupting nan pipeline for doctors and nurses and making it harder to import narcotics and caller technologies.

BENJAMIN: They are wholly destroyed, nan modern wellness strategy arsenic we cognize today.

HUANG: So nan American Public Health Association is gathering this upcoming week to take sides their imagination for America's health. They're up against forces for illustration nan Make America Healthy Again movement, led by Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Mark Gorton is co-president of nan MAHA Institute deliberation tank, which intends to power national policies and launched earlier this year. He says what they're astir is...

MARK GORTON: Cleaning up nan corruption successful nan wellness system, restoring nan integrity of nan nationalist wellness and aesculapian systems.

HUANG: And he wants to spot immoderate of nan existing systems spell away.

GORTON: It's not that I americium saying we should utterly destruct nationalist health, but we request to recenter it astir truth.

HUANG: In his opinion, nan U.S. wellness strategy is, quote, "a fearfulness instrumentality to marketplace pharmaceutical products."

Is it your perspective, actually, that, like, you know, if we stopped fluoridating water, stopped vaccinating people, conscionable arsenic 2 examples, like, everyone would beryllium good and amended off?

GORTON: Yes. You would person a healthier organization without those things.

HUANG: Gorton is not a aesculapian doctor. He's nan laminitis of nan tech institution LimeWire. He besides started a hedge fund, and he's been a large protagonist of Secretary Kennedy - aliases Bobby, arsenic he calls him - for years. Doctor Benjamin, again pinch nan American Public Health Association, says Gorton's critique of nationalist wellness is misinformed.

BENJAMIN: And nan logic that astir of america are live agelong capable to beryllium capable to kick astir nationalist wellness is because of nationalist health.

HUANG: He notes that nationalist wellness has saved millions of group from early deaths done sanitation, vaccination and discouraging unhealthy behaviors for illustration smoking. Dr. Carmen Nevarez is simply a longtime nationalist wellness leader. She sees nan MAHA activity arsenic a reaction.

CARMEN NEVAREZ: MAHA doesn't travel retired of nowhere. You know, it comes retired of people's lived realities. It comes retired of circumstances wherever they felt that thing was not addressed correctly.

HUANG: Health attraction costs are precocious successful this country. The COVID pandemic present were difficult and isolating for galore people. She hears nan disapproval and hopes to find communal ground, but it's a challenge, she says, because location is simply a cardinal quality successful nan nationalist wellness approach.

NEVAREZ: There's times erstwhile you person to say, sorry, you're not conscionable a threat to yourself. You're a threat to others, and that's why we are going to limit your freedom.

HUANG: Like forcing personification pinch tuberculosis to get treated truthful they don't infect others, aliases shutting a edifice pinch an progressive rat problem.

NEVAREZ: If you unrecorded unsocial successful an island, this is not your problem. If you unrecorded pinch neighbors and group successful a metropolis pinch you, it's your problem.

HUANG: At nan coming meeting, nationalist wellness leaders will rally for their ain imagination for protecting America's health.

Pien Huang, NPR News.

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