Editor's note: Anthony Moretti, a special commentator for CGTN, is an associate professor at the Department of Communication and Organizational Leadership at Robert Morris University in the U.S. The article reflects the author's opinions and not necessarily those of either CGTN or Robert Morris University.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has enjoyed a longstanding reputation for making the world as prepared as possible to fight any health crisis. To outline all of its efforts would take a book, so let's acknowledge here that without the CDC international health would be in chaos.

A hamstrung CDC is also horrible for the world. But that grim reality continues to unfold in the U.S., where the White House has engaged in an intentional effort to undermine the agency and medical science in general.

Robert Kennedy Jr. is the secretary of Health and Human Services. In his few months in that role he has fired a panel of experts who worked for the CDC, eliminated pressures on hospitals to report vaccination rates of their staff and dismissed the CDC director. U.S. President Donald Trump appears quite satisfied with these decisions; a few weeks ago he said Kennedy was "a very good person."

That opinion is not shared by the broader scientific community. In examining how the CDC has been trampled upon by this administration, Michael Osterholm, the director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota, recently told the respected Atlantic magazine that, in 2025, "you can't trust anything that comes out of the CDC."

The assault on the CDC is just one example of how American institutions have been subjected to intense hostility over the past couple of decades. The results should surprise no one: Whether asked about government, higher education, media or science, more and more Americans are skeptical that the men and women who are part of these institutions want to do the right thing.

Should the erosion of trust continue, the strength of America's democracy will also suffer; no one can predict with certainty what that will mean, but it will not be good for the American people or for the world.

The White House made another move that defied common sense a few days ago when it announced that more than 1,000 CDC employees were being laid off as part of the federal government shutdown. Yes, the administration soon changed its mind and many of those workers kept their jobs, but the point was clear: Trump appears quite happy to destroy an American institution.

For a moment, it's worth considering what already completed cuts and potential future widespread layoffs at the CDC would mean for global health. Experts involved in the care of pregnant women who have HIV are already sidelined. So too are experts involved in areas such as asthma, from which an estimated 334 million people across the world suffer. And do not forget that cutting men and women who serve in media relations and similar roles means ineffective communication with journalists.

Put it all together and fewer people will be seeking solutions or advising people in power as to how the U.S., and by extension the world, ought to prepare for future pandemics, climate change, annual flu vaccines and more.

There is no way to square this with the stated aim of the administration to return America to a position of greatness and strength. Keep in mind that the White House has also withdrawn the U.S. from the World Health Organization, a move it claimed was necessary because of the agency's "mishandling" of the COVID-19 pandemic and because it "continues to demand unfairly onerous payments from the United States."In effect the U.S. is saying that it is being bullied at home and abroad by respected organizations that want to make the world as healthy as possible.

While it is impossible to quantify the value of the CDC, its necessity is never doubted by the scientific and medical communities. In the aftermath of the first Trump presidency, an influential committee considered what it would take to restore the CDC's gravitas. One committee member noted that "rebuilding the CDC's reputation as an independent, trusted scientific authority is a matter of national security and social cohesion."

Social cohesion: two important words to remember. It was only five years ago that millions of Americans began arguing that three recommended steps to rein in the COVID-19 crisis were unnecessary. They saw calls to socially isolate, move education online and get vaccinated as threats to individual freedoms. They were enabled by some politicians who questioned scientists and by some news organizations that have profited handsomely by undermining some of the aforementioned institutions.

Fast forward to 2025, and the ugly fact is that, should the dismantling of the CDC and the disdain for global health remain government policy into the future, the next pandemic seems certain to spread more quickly and in an even more deadly manner. Likewise, the ability to quickly produce vaccines would be hampered. Nations big and small will turn elsewhere for answers; America's moral authority as a global health leader will be gone.

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