Traditionally considered impartial and the ultimate source for reliable health information in the United States, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has increasingly become mired in political battles.
When the agency published its guidelines for reopening schools this summer, the executive branch pushed back hard to override them. Squeezed between the coronavirus pandemic on one side and President Trump鈥檚 demand for open schools on the other, CDC officials have offered mixed messages, argue 91原创 health policy historian and physician and Gil Eyal, a professor of sociology at Columbia University.
鈥淭he Trump administration鈥檚 interference may be egregious, but the CDC鈥檚 vulnerability to such obtrusion is rooted in something more fundamental,鈥� write Raz and Eyal in a , published in the newspaper鈥檚 鈥淢ade by History鈥� section.
Established originally in 1946, the CDC has guided public health measures since the 1960s by estimating health risks, balancing one against another, and making recommendations to the public on how to minimize those risks. Yet, by its very nature, any risk assessment 鈥渞eflects political and value choices and involves trade-offs,鈥� Eyal and Raz write.
Risk assessments, the duo argues, ultimately come down to pinpointing what costs鈥攊n terms of illness, economics, or other societal harms鈥攁re acceptable. They write,聽鈥淣o matter how objective they attempt to be, agencies working in risk assessment are vulnerable to political manipulation because they must make choices about costs and benefits, and such choices are inherently political.鈥�
While this summer鈥檚 political pressure campaign on the public health agency had some extraordinary facets about it, the duo argues that in many ways it was also 鈥渧ery ordinary鈥濃�攏amely, a dispute about risk assessment.
鈥淩egulatory science was supposed to depoliticize risk awareness, to present the public and policymakers with an objective, apolitical resolution to such disputes. Yet it became another tool in political struggle,鈥� Raz and Eyal argue.
鈥淭his vulnerability predated the Trump administration, and it will outlast it.鈥�
- Read the op-ed in the .
