As a researcher who studies the politics of science and expertise in public policy, Dr. Ann Keller is keeping a close eye on the Trump administration’s efforts to bar researchers from talking about their work.
On Thursday, March 6—the day before the national Stand up for Science rally—Keller, associate professor of health politics and policy, told a group of journalists how to track important public health markers despite the dearth of information coming from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and other federal agencies.
The key issue, Keller said, is transparency. The public needs to hear experts’ unvarnished opinions about what is happening.
Keller’s remarks were made at a briefing run by SciLine, a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization based at the American Association for Advancement of Science. SciLine, a free service for journalists and scientists, connects journalists with scientists who can give unbiased, factual information for news reports.
“The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention works to protect the U.S. from health threats by researching a range of pathogens, collecting data on diseases, promoting environmental and occupational health, enacting programs to combat diseases, and more,” noted SciLine in an announcement for the event.
“Recent changes in CDC funding and messaging—especially during a time of measles and avian influenza outbreaks—will impact public health in communities across the country.”
SciLine’s media briefing covered the CDC’s role in the U.S. public health infrastructure and workforce, U.S resilience and preparedness for disease outbreaks, and how to build trust when communicating about public health issues.
Keller was joined on the panel by two other well-known researchers: Dr. Beth Resnick, a professor in the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, and Dr. Jennifer Nuzzo, an epidemiologist and founding director of the pandemic center at Brown University School of Public Health.
Dr. Ann Keller
Keller, who was the first interviewed by SciLine moderator Elena Renken, was asked what challenges the CDC faced responding to infectious disease outbreaks. The difficulty, Keller said, is how differently government scientists must respond to infectious disease outbreaks in real time, compared to handling issues where the science has long been settled, such as the dangers of smoking cigarettes or failing to wear seat belts.
“There was a treasure trove of information saying that people who were seat-belted in cars did better during car crashes. It’s an example where public health advises us from a stable state of evidence; a base that is sometimes decades in the making,” she said. “When a novel infectious disease comes to town, you have an evidence base that might be only weeks old and is rapidly changing. It’s not a domain for the faint of heart.
“It’s incredibly difficult to try to write good guidance in those circumstances. And if you fold in the politics and divisiveness over what people think we should do, it makes that domain much harder.”
Keller also noted the difficulty that CDC had, when faced with new COVID-19 variants, requiring updated guidance for immunizations, and other issues, which led some Americans to believe the agency was making mistakes.
“The CDC found itself criticized for acting too quickly,” she said. “But if CDC takes time to try to validate information before writing guidance, it is likely to be criticized for being slow and bureaucratic—and not sharing with the public what it knows.”
One solution for that, Keller said, would be for CDC to be more transparent about its process.
“If journalists covering the CDC could treat controversy and learning as normal, instead of treating it as failure, then the public might be invited into a process of learning,” she said.
Keller, who is a political scientist, also discussed her research on what she called “replacement,” the practice where a president, including Donald Trump during his first term, muzzles experts by giving their normal responsibilities to political appointees, who have no scientific training or expertise in public health.
“A lot of scientists were surprised by this,” she said. “But political scientists weren’t. It’s very easy for a president, without even sidestepping the Constitution, to replace the work of civil servants by handing those responsibilities to political appointees.”
She believes the same thing is happening now—and warns that it is not good for public trust in government.
“You want to hear straight from the CDC what is going on,” Keller said, in an interview after the event. “You are better informed if you hear directly from public health experts about their concerns.”
“Right now the concern is that we’re potentially experiencing an administration that is cutting off communities from useful, helpful expertise. SciLine wants journalists to understand what this might mean for public health, and to be able to connect government efforts to the real lives of people in the communities they write for.”