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Fast Company
19-05-2025
- Health
- Fast Company
5 facts about the brain to improve your decision-making skills
Emily Falk is a Professor of Communication, Psychology, and Marketing at the University of Pennsylvania, where she directs the Communication Neuroscience Lab and the Climate Communication Division of the Annenberg Public Policy Center. Her work has been covered in the New York Times, Washington Post, BBC, Forbes, and Scientific American, among other outlets. What's the big idea? Every moment is filled with how we've decided to spend our time, and that time defines us. We make value judgements (often automatically) of our options and follow similar patterns, day in and day out. When we decide we want to change in some way, it can be extremely difficult to snap out of our typical decision-making to opt for something else, even if we genuinely care about living differently. By understanding how the brain calculates values to drive daily decisions, we can learn how to explore paths that are more aligned with new goals and evolving self-image. By expanding the power and possibility of our choices, we increase the capacity for inner, societal, and cultural growth. Below, Emily shares five key insights from her new book, What We Value: The Neuroscience of Choice and Change. Listen to the audio version—read by Emily herself—in the Next Big Idea App. 1. Our brains shape what we value. Neuroscience research (first in monkeys and then in humans) has shown that a network of brain regions, known as the value system, computes our daily choices in a process called value calculation. This happens whether we're aware of it or not. Each choice we make is first shaped by what options our brain considers. When I imagined choosing between a run or doing extra work, other options like heading to a karaoke bar with my coworkers or going for a walk with my grandma rarely entered the calculation. In the next phase of decision-making, the value system assigns a subjective worth to each choice based on our past experiences, current context, and future goals. Going for a run is hard. It's the end of the day, and I'm already tired. Sure, the run would be good for my health, but look how many unread emails there are…so I choose to finish up the emails. After we choose, the value system keeps track of how things went, making us more likely to repeat choices that were more rewarding than we expected and less likely to repeat choices that were less rewarding than we expected. After choosing the work, my body felt kind of blah, but my students were making progress on interesting problems, and that felt good. The value our brains assign to different options is dynamic and can shift depending on context, like what mood we're in, what other people are saying or doing, and which parts of the choice we pay attention to. Understanding this can help us identify opportunities to change, and ways to align choices with our bigger-picture goals and values. For me, I knew I needed to find a way to make moving around and spending time with people I love more compelling to my brain in the moment. 2. Our brains shape—and limit—who we are. Our sense of who we are is an important factor in shaping our choices. Neuroscientists have identified brain regions that help construct our sense of 'me' and 'not me,' and when we make decisions this self-relevance is deeply intertwined with the value system. Together they guide us toward choices that are aligned with our perceptions of who we already are. 'We tend to favor choices that reinforce our existing identity, sometimes at the cost of new opportunities and experiences.' Having a coherent sense of who we are can be useful, but it also limits us. We tend to favor choices that reinforce our existing identity, sometimes at the cost of new opportunities and experiences. When I kept choosing work, my identity as a hard-working researcher who always hits deadlines and invests in mentoring students weighed heavily on my value calculations. I didn't think of myself as an athlete, and in the process, I deprived myself of chances to improve as a runner, dancer, or any number of other options. A mountain of research data shows that I'm not alone in this. Most of us cling to ideas and behaviors we consider 'ours,' a phenomenon called the endowment effect. Sometimes, this helps us affirm our core values and reinforce choices that are compatible with longer-term goals, but it can also leave us with a bounded notion of self, meaning that it limits the way we see ourselves. When confronted with evidence that our past behaviors weren't optimal, or that others want us to do things differently, it can make us defensive, leading us to double down on past choices, which can make change harder. When my grandma told me that she wished we could spend more time together, I barely let her finish the sentence before defensively explaining that of course we spent time together—she'd come to my house and hang out with my kids while I cooked dinner, and often we'd even steal a few minutes to walk around the block together. But, no, she patiently explained, that was not what she was after. It wasn't until later when I was able to think about what really matters to me that I could see that what she was asking for was something that I wanted too. 3. We don't decide alone. Neuroscientists have identified brain regions that help us understand what other people think and feel. The brain's social-relevance system helps us connect and coordinate with other people, also shaping the decisions we make. Our sense of what others are doing or thinking strongly affects what we choose, what we're willing to change, and the possibilities we consider. Feeling a sense of status, belonging, and connection serves as a powerful reward, and we often make choices shaped by these forces. When I imagined what other researchers were doing, I imagined them hard at work making progress—not going for runs or walks with their grandmas. It was important to me to be seen as a serious scientist. When I imagined my collaborator's appreciation of my speedy email replies and my students' gratitude for timely feedback, the decision to keep working made even more sense. 'Feeling a sense of status, belonging, and connection serves as a powerful reward.' But, although the social relevance system can help us understand others, it can also mislead us. I was imagining what others would think and feel if I left work, and my social relevance system was very convincing, even though in reality, I didn't actually know. I had never fact-checked those assumptions. The same can be said when our social relevance system paints such a vivid picture that we feel certain we know why a co-worker didn't invite us to lunch or why our spouse is frustrated. By keeping us aligned with others, the social relevance system can do useful things like keep us current on trends. Or it can do harmful things like deluding us into agreeing with popular but patently false social media posts. It also shapes what we think is acceptable and desirable regarding whether we should spend a beautiful autumn afternoon at the office or on a jog. 4. We can work with our brains to create change. Many of us have been taught that hard work and pain are necessary for achievement. Theodore Roosevelt went so far as to suggest that 'Nothing in the world is worth having or worth doing unless it means effort, pain, difficulty…' But neuroscience research highlights that small shifts in how we frame decisions can change our value calculations. My hope is that understanding how this works might make change easier. Our value system serves as the bridge between where we are now and where we want to be, and the self- and social-relevance systems shape what we value. If we want to change ourselves, the people we care about, or even society, we need to harness these systems and leverage key ingredients for change, such as shifting focus, letting go of defensiveness, and expanding where the inputs to our value calculations come from in the first place. Based on what we know about the brain's value system, we can shift our focus to different aspects of a situation to align our emotions with our objectives. For instance, we can leverage the brain's natural tendency to prioritize immediate gratification to make future-oriented choices feel more rewarding in the present. Instead of choosing between immediate and future rewards, we can find ways to bridge them. Returning to the whisper in the back of my mind, reminding me to spend more time with my grandma, I knew I needed to find a way to make walks with Grandma Bev compatible with the other immediate pressures factoring into my value calculations. One day, walking home from work, a podcast episode created a small bridge in my thinking. The episode of How to Save a Planet highlighted the joy of biking. What if, instead of driving to Bev's, arriving stressed from the traffic and struggling to find parking, I biked? What if I had some time to myself outside and got some exercise on the way? The immediate reward of checking something off of my work to-do list was offset by the opportunity to enjoy a bike ride in addition to the reward of spending time with my grandma. Hearing these regular people on the podcast teetering around on bikes also made me think that I could be that kind of person too. 'We can shift our focus to different aspects of a situation to align our emotions with our objectives.' There was still the issue of not wanting my grandma to be right when she pointed out that we weren't spending much quality time together. Should I admit I was wrong? Using what we know about the self-relevance system, to combat defensiveness, we can focus on 'self-transcendent values,' which focus on the things that matter most to us. Zooming out like this to focus on our core values, or the well-being of others and the world, allows us to see that being wrong about something doesn't have to mean we're a bad person, or that everything about us has to change. We can hold onto a core sense of self while opening ourselves to changing what's not working and letting go of preconceived notions of who we are. Finally, turning to the social relevance system, the people who most immediately come to mind when we make choices get an outsized influence. When I was thinking about the people I spent my days with at work, it made work rewards salient. And this isn't just true when it comes to decisions about how we spend our afternoons. All kinds of decisions, from the products we buy to what we think is important politically, are shaped by the voices we imagine most readily. Research shows that the people we spend time with are often similar to us in many ways. To counteract known biases in the social relevance system, we can audit who is and isn't part of our social networks and actively bring in new ideas through what we read, listen to, and spend time with. This expands our universe of choices, provides new and unexpected perspectives, and improves our ability to come up with creative solutions to problems. 5. Shaping the future starts in our minds. Our choices don't just shape our own lives; they ripple outward, influencing culture and collective values. Research shows that norms are deeply shaped by those around us. Just as observing others influences our value calculations, we serve as role models for the people who see what we do. In this way, our own value calculations influence the people around us. When I share stories about my grandma with my students and colleagues, I'm not just telling them about my family. I'm opening a possibility for them to prioritize spending time with their loved ones. Consciously and unconsciously, our actions change what others value. The ways we see ourselves can influence what is possible for others, and what we think is possible shapes the culture of the future.
Yahoo
15-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
'Most Transparent' White House In History Keeps Majority Of Trump's Remarks Secret
WASHINGTON — If you're interested in finding Donald Trump's precise words as he lied about his failed coup attempt in his Jan. 20 remarks at the U.S. Capitol soon after his inaugural speech, good luck with that. Same with his Feb. 12 thoughts in the Oval Office on how magnetism, in his view 'a new theory,' doesn't work on the aircraft carrier Gerald Ford. Or his statements in the Feb. 28 meeting with Volodymyr Zelenskyy, berating the Ukrainian president and empathizing with Russian dictator Vladimir Putin instead. Ditto with his April 14 explanation of how well he is doing with 'the cognitive' compared to previous occupants of the White House. The self-proclaimed 'most transparent' White House in history, as it turns out, has little interest in making the vast majority of Trump's speeches and interactions with journalists readily accessible to the public whose taxes pay for their transcription, publishing just 29 transcripts of the 146 public remarks Trump made in his first 100 days in office. Trump's White House posted transcripts for only 11 of the 40 speeches in which Trump did not take questions from the media, and for only one of his six formal news conferences, according to a HuffPost review. And of the 98 media 'availabilities' in which Trump took questions from reporters informally — a practice that his aides point to as proof of his great accessibility — only 15 of the transcripts have been made public. Previous White Houses, going back decades, made all of the transcripts compiled by the non-political stenography office, staffed by career civil servants, available in printed form, via email and on the White House website, as a matter of course. Trump's first-term staff also published all his remarks, with the exception of his speeches at rallies and fundraisers. Trump's second-term White House stopped emailing transcripts to its press list just five days after taking office, and of late has largely stopped posting them on the website, too. As of Thursday morning, the last transcript from Trump on the site is from March 13. Trump aides would not explain their decision to withhold 80% of the transcripts that have been prepared. White House communications director Steven Cheung, however, did insult HuffPost for asking the question: 'You must be truly fucking stupid if you think we're not transparent. The president regularly does multiple press engagements per day and they are streamed live on multiple platforms. We've even granted low-level outlets like HuffPo [sic] additional access to events, because we're so transparent. For anyone to think otherwise proves they are suffering from Trump Derangement Syndrome. Stop beclowning yourself,' he wrote, demanding that his statement be published 'in full.' Kathleen Hall Jamieson, director of the Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania, said transcriptions of a president's remarks have always been seen as historical records, not things to be politicized. 'Making the words of the president readily available is part of the accountability obligation of the White House,' she said. 'The public has the right to know what the leader says ... It's a mark of a democratic system,' she added, saying that she could not speculate as to why Trump is withholding most of his transcripts' release. 'Trying to figure out why this White House does what it does requires a skill far beyond mine.' While it is true that videos of nearly all of Trump's public remarks are available on C-SPAN, YouTube or other websites, they are not easily searchable by topic or keyword. There are private firms that transcribe his words, but they are not comprehensive and not well-known to the public. Indeed, Trump critics say that increasing the difficulty of finding his exact words on any given topic is precisely the point of keeping most of the official transcripts a secret. After 10 years of hearing him, Trump's outlandish claims and constant lies have become mere background noise to many Americans, they argue, while actually reading his statements hits in a different way. 'They know the transcripts will reveal, on paper, the word salad and incoherence that characterizes Trump,' said Norman Ornstein, a political scientist with the conservative-leaning American Enterprise Institute. 'It is much easier to pore through written transcripts and compare them, which will show inconsistencies and reversals.' Andrew Bates, a top press aide in the Joe Biden White House, said his counterparts in the Trump White House clearly understand that reading what Trump has said does not reflect well on him. 'He keeps saying things that are a liability, like talking about dolls and pencils. Or just getting confused,' Bates said. The Biden press office famously altered punctuation in a transcript to make it seem that Biden was criticizing a smaller subset of Trump supporters than the transcript originally suggested. The Biden team, nonetheless, released that transcript and appears to have released all those prepared by the stenography office, totaling well over 2,000 over four years. The Trump press shop, in contrast, appears to have decided that the best way to avoid negative media coverage of his transcribed remarks is to not release them in the first place. A comparison of the posted transcripts versus the remarks for which the transcripts have been withheld suggests an effort to conceal Trump's most outrageous, factually inaccurate or lie-filled statements. On Inauguration Day, for example, while the transcript for the official speech given immediately after Trump took the oath of office is available on the White House website, a second one he gave to congressional Republicans soon afterward is not. In that one, he again pushed his oft-repeated lies about Jan. 6, 2021, the day he encouraged a mob of his followers to march on the Capitol and then tried to use their assault on police officers and other violence to remain in power despite having lost the 2020 election. Trump bemoaned that his staff talked him out of including that material in his actual inaugural address. 'You can't put things in there that you were going to put in, and I was going to talk about the J6 hostages, but you'll be happy because you know it's action, not words that count, and you're going to see a lot of action on the J6 hostages, see a lot of action,' he said in a 1,232-word section that repeatedly blamed former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi for all that happened on Jan. 6. 'And I was going to talk about the things that Joe [Biden] did today with the pardons of people that were very, very guilty of very bad crimes like the unselect committee of political thugs where they literally, I mean, what they did is they destroyed and deleted all of the information, all of the hearings. Practically not a thing left.' Three weeks later, following a swearing-in ceremony for his director of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, Trump offered nonsensical answers to a variety of questions, including one about waste and fraud in the federal government. Trump launched into a 1,710-word rant on military contractors, including the builders of the newest aircraft carrier, the USS Gerald Ford, which uses a high-tech electromagnetic catapult system to launch airplanes to reduce stress on their airframes and landing gear. 'Take a look at the Gerald Ford, the aircraft carrier, the Ford. It came ― it was supposed to cost $3 billion; it ended up costing like $18 billion, and they make, of course, all electric catapults, which don't work. And they have all magnetic elevators to lift up 25 planes at a time, 20 planes at a time,' he said, not appearing to understand the rationale for the new designs. 'And instead of using hydraulic, like on tractors, that can handle anything from hurricanes to lightning to anything, they used magnets. It's a new theory, magnets are going to lift the planes up, and it doesn't work.' At the end of that month, Trump and Vice President JD Vance attacked Ukraine's Zelenskyy for not being sufficiently grateful to the United States before Trump turned to his familiar defense of Putin, who continues to slaughter Ukrainian civilians to this day through aerial attacks on residential areas. 'Let me tell you, Putin went through a hell of a lot with me. He went through a phony witch hunt, where they used him and Russia, Russia, Russia, Russia. You ever hear of that deal?' Trump said during a 206-word tangent again recounting his grievances. 'That was a phony ― that was a phony Hunter Biden, Joe Biden scam, Hillary Clinton, Shifty Adam Schiff. It was a Democrat scam, and he had to go through that, and he did go through it, and we didn't end up in a war, and he went through it. He was accused of all that stuff. He had nothing to do with it. It came out of Hunter Biden's bathroom. It came out of Hunter Biden's bedroom, it was disgusting. And then they said, 'Oh, oh, the laptop from hell was made by Russia,' the 51 agents, the whole thing was a scam, and he had to put up with that. He was being accused of all that stuff.' Six weeks later, during a visit by Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele, who is housing deportees whom Trump claims are criminal illegal immigrants, Trump was asked how many more people he intended to ship there. Trump responded with a 417-word answer that quickly veered into boasts about his mental acuity. 'By the way, I took my cognitive exam as part of my physical exam, and I got the highest mark. And one of the doctors said, 'Sir, I've never seen anybody get that kind of ― that was the highest mark.' I hope you're happy with that, although they haven't been bugging me too much to take a cognitive. But I did do my physical, and it was released. I hope you're all happy with it. I noticed there's no questions, so probably you are. But the cognitive, they said to me, 'Sir, would you like to take a cognitive test?' I said, 'Did Biden take one?' 'No.' 'Did anybody take one?' 'No, not too many people took them.' I said, 'What about Obama, did he take one?'' Trump said. 'The totality of his statements clearly show that he is utterly fucking off the rails,' said Rick Wilson, a longtime GOP consultant who became an early Trump critic. 'Most of the Washington media is still playing the polite game of pretending this is a normal White House, and so they just move on and move on and move on eternally into the future.' Trump's usually rambling, often incoherent, at times downright deranged statements, of course, did not stop at the 100-day mark. On Day 102, in a Rose Garden celebration of the National Day of Prayer, Trump suggested that Muslims are primarily terrorists willing to die to earn a reward of virgins in paradise: 'Imams who I got to know in Michigan. I loved them. They were great, by the way. They said, 'We don't want to die.' I said, 'Do you want to die? They said, 'We don't want to die.' I said, 'What about the 38 virgins?'' On Day 106, in an Oval Office photo opportunity, Trump went on at length about his idea of reopening Alcatraz prison in San Francisco Bay. 'I guess I was supposed to be a moviemaker. We started with the moviemaking, and we'll end, I mean, it represents something very strong, very powerful in terms of law and order. Our country needs law and order. Alcatraz is, I would say the ultimate, right, Alcatraz, Sing-Sing and Alcatraz the movies,' he said in an answer that continued for 268 words. 'But it's right now a museum, believe it or not. A lot of people go there. It housed the most violent criminals in the world, and nobody ever escaped. One person almost got there, but they, as you know the story, they found his clothing rather badly ripped up, and it was a lot of shark bites, a lot of problems.' It's unclear what motion pictures featuring the prison as a setting have to do with reopening Alcatraz or why Trump believed his Muslim supporters in Michigan would be entitled to only 38 virgins, just over half of the 72 customarily cited. Among the posted transcripts are two media interviews he did. While Trump does numerous interviews — most of which include statements that make him seem ignorant or foolish or both — his press staff has posted only two softball interviews: One by informal Trump adviser and Fox News host Sean Hannity dated Feb. 18 as well as a two-minute one by Jamie Little, a Fox Sports NASCAR announcer at the Daytona 500 race that Trump had attended two days earlier. And while the stenography office transcribes every White House briefing and question-and-answer session aboard Air Force One by press secretary Karoline Leavitt, she and her staff have released only two. One was her first briefing on Jan. 29, in which she promised to always tell the truth, which she then immediately followed with an absurd falsehood about $50 million worth of condoms being sent to the Gaza Strip. The second was the Feb. 20 briefing in which she and other aides celebrated Trump's first month in office. Leavitt did not respond to HuffPost queries for this story. Trump's refusal to release transcripts created at taxpayer expense is just one piece of his effort to diminish independent news media. He has seized control of the White House press pool, which covers his events that take place in confined spaces like the Oval Office and Air Force One, from the White House Correspondents Association, which had administered it since its inception decades ago. Trump and his staff have replaced journalists from legitimate news organizations with pro-Trump cheerleaders in many of the pool seats. Trump also excluded the Associated Press from the pool because it refused to bend to his will and call the Gulf of Mexico by the name Trump decreed by fiat, the Gulf of America. When a federal judge ruled that Trump could not treat the AP any differently than it treats other wire services, he responded by ending assigned pool slots for all three wires: the AP, Reuters and Bloomberg. On Trump's current excursion to the Arabian Peninsula, his first extended foreign trip since he retook office in January, not one U.S. wire service print reporter has been part of the pool aboard Air Force One or in meetings with various officials — thereby degrading news coverage for thousands of news outlets with billions of readers in the United States and globally.
Yahoo
06-05-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
What the Trump White House Is Doing to Our Kids' Health
A family supports a young child as he receives the MMR vaccine at a vaccine clinic put on by Lubbock Public Health Department on March 1 in Lubbock, Texas. Credit - Jan Sonnenmair—Getty Images In March 2025, it was announced that the U.S. would no longer support international public health programs that vaccinated millions of children worldwide. This is a hit to children worldwide on top of the Trump administration cuts to U.S. AID programs that provided basic nutrition for hundreds of thousands of children worldwide. One may interpret these directives as a reflection that the current U.S. political leadership no longer believes that the U.S. has an obligation to non-American children. But one only needs to look at what is happening in the U.S. now to see that the lack of care for children at home, as the administration signals to cut the Vaccines for Children program, which supports disease-preventative efforts in the U.S. Examining what has evolved from the culture wars of the past several years, one sees a slew of policies detrimental to children in many ways. Rather than reflecting mainstream pediatric and educational philosophy, these policies mirror the political creep of fringe groups and politicians to impose their viewpoints on other people's children. These policies impact infection control, education, nutrition, healthcare, and the environment. Front-page news is now dotted with reports of a resurgence in vaccine-preventable infections, including measles. But contrary to some, vaccinations have never been a matter of personal choice in this country, but rather a 100-year-old societal obligation to keep America safe. In fact, the majority of Americans support childhood vaccination (about 70%), according to a January 2025 report by the Annenberg Public Policy Center (APPC). Yet, the measles outbreaks happening across the U.S. are predictable consequences of a well-funded anti-vaccine movement that has pushed for laws encouraging vaccine exemptions and the weakening of school vaccine requirements. To the dismay of our nation's physicians, this movement now has a seat at the top of Health and Human Services (HHS) in RFK Jr., an anti-vaccine proponent. The fact that two unvaccinated children have died of measles, 17% of infected individuals are hospitalized, and children have been hospitalized with vitamin A toxicity, reportedly in response to RFK Jr. advocating vitamin treatment for measles, shows the consequences of fringe medical viewpoints on children. As the number of reported cases of measles in the U.S. nears 1000, and cases are now in half the states without a massive outcry and response from federal agencies, one can only ask if childhood deaths from measles will become the new normal. The recently announced $11 billion in cuts of CDC funding will also impact health departments across the country, affecting not only COVID-19 relief programs but also state pediatric vaccine programs. Plans to reduce the HSS workforce by 10 thousand employees will also affect vaccination programs and infection surveillance. Thus, children in the U.S. will bear the consequences of needless infections, with medical, educational, economic, and lifelong consequences, and the nation may sadly soon learn what natural herd immunity looks like as vaccine-preventable illnesses spread across the country. Pediatric healthcare is also under attack as never before. Americans may be surprised to learn that 48% of children in the U.S. are covered by Medicaid, which provides healthcare for these children. We now hear cries for hundreds of billions of dollars to be cut from Medicaid, claiming that these cuts will come from curtailing waste, fraud, and abuse. Yet, according to reports, this number is quite low. We also need to recognize the significant shortages in pediatric care providers, which will only worsen as provider payments are cut. What are the proposed alternatives for providing pediatric healthcare when Medicaid is cut? What's more, there is a woeful shortage of pediatric dental care. This situation is even dire for children on Medicaid. And now, the scientifically unsound political campaign against water fluoridation is another example of an anti-pediatric fringe initiative to dismantle a public health success. There is no evidence that properly maintained levels of fluoride in drinking water provide anything but benefits through the reduction of dental cavities. Furthermore, the anti-fluoridation movement has not called for cavity prevention alternatives, such as fluoride supplements or varnishes, which are proposed to promote pediatric dental health or improve access to pediatric dental care. It is also an uncomfortable reality that millions of children in America do not have enough food and would go to bed hungry if not for federally funded nutrition programs. The SNAP program, administered by the United States Department of Agriculture, provides billions of dollars in funding for school lunch programs and serves approximately 30% of school-age children in the US. However, this program is slated for large budget cuts. Additionally, procuring produce from local farmers was a key component to promote nutritious offerings in school lunch programs. However, despite RFK Jr.'s calls to promote healthy eating, the $1 billion local farmer procurement program has been eliminated. This doesn't even begin to touch the intense effect cuts to reproductive care have on kids. The impact of abortion bans on teenage pregnancy and outcomes is now coming to light. These data show increases in teen pregnancies and an increase in newborn deaths. Yet, we are seeing attempts to restrict sex and birth control education in many states by conservative elements when more education is needed to prevent unintended pregnancies. Read More: What Trump Has Done on Reproductive Health Care In His First 100 Days Much has been highlighted about the mental health problems our children are experiencing. It is too convenient to blame these issues on the unregulated proliferation of social media. There are multiple factors for mental health problems in the U.S., including the stress that society is under due to dizzying politics and culture wars—not to mention environmental degradation. The past few decades of climate change have had an impact on society. Thus, there has been a rightful concern and regulation of environmental toxins in air, water, and food, as well as the impact of climate change on health. Numerous studies also show that environmental toxins disproportionately hurt children as compared to adults. Incredibly, looking to their future, children in Montana sued the state and won, arguing that the state needed to implement policies to mitigate the impact of climate change. Here, too, we are seeing the evisceration of policies that provide environmental protections for all of us, including children. At the state level, we also see laws considered that will be detrimental to children. In response to a workforce shortage caused by the loss of immigrant workers, the Florida legislature is proposing legislation that will roll back child labor laws. The proposed bill will allow children as young as 14 years old to work overnight shifts on school days. The impact of a singular pediatric-related policy change on infection prevention, nutrition, education, healthcare, or the environment would be dramatic. However, the cumulative effect of numerous collective policies that change in multiple ways simultaneously may be devastating. In 1963, President Kennedy said, 'For, in the final analysis, our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this small planet. We all breathe the same air. We all cherish our children's future. And we are all mortal.' Amidst the political chaos, which is sadly becoming the new norm, perhaps now is the time to step back and ask when America stopped cherishing its children. Are we prepared for the answer and consequences? Contact us at letters@
Time Magazine
06-05-2025
- Health
- Time Magazine
What the Trump White House Is Doing to Our Kids' Health
In March 2025, it was announced that the U.S. would no longer support international public health programs that vaccinated millions of children worldwide. This is a hit to children worldwide on top of the Trump administration cuts to U.S. AID programs that provided basic nutrition for hundreds of thousands of children worldwide. One may interpret these directives as a reflection that the current U.S. political leadership no longer believes that the U.S. has an obligation to non-American children. But one only needs to look at what is happening in the U.S. now to see that the lack of care for children at home, as the administration signals to cut the Vaccines for Children program, which supports disease-preventative efforts in the U.S. Examining what has evolved from the culture wars of the past several years, one sees a slew of policies detrimental to children in many ways. Rather than reflecting mainstream pediatric and educational philosophy, these policies mirror the political creep of fringe groups and politicians to impose their viewpoints on other people's children. These policies impact infection control, education, nutrition, healthcare, and the environment. Front-page news is now dotted with reports of a resurgence in vaccine-preventable infections, including measles. But contrary to some, vaccinations have never been a matter of personal choice in this country, but rather a 100-year-old societal obligation to keep America safe. In fact, the majority of Americans support childhood vaccination (about 70%), according to a January 2025 report by the Annenberg Public Policy Center (APPC). Yet, the measles outbreaks happening across the U.S. are predictable consequences of a well-funded anti-vaccine movement that has pushed for laws encouraging vaccine exemptions and the weakening of school vaccine requirements. To the dismay of our nation's physicians, this movement now has a seat at the top of Health and Human Services (HHS) in RFK Jr., an anti-vaccine proponent. The fact that two unvaccinated children have died of measles, 17% of infected individuals are hospitalized, and children have been hospitalized with vitamin A toxicity, reportedly in response to RFK Jr. advocating vitamin treatment for measles, shows the consequences of fringe medical viewpoints on children. As the number of reported cases of measles in the U.S. nears 1000, and cases are now in half the states without a massive outcry and response from federal agencies, one can only ask if childhood deaths from measles will become the new normal. The recently announced $11 billion in cuts of CDC funding will also impact health departments across the country, affecting not only COVID-19 relief programs but also state pediatric vaccine programs. Plans to reduce the HSS workforce by 10 thousand employees will also affect vaccination programs and infection surveillance. Thus, children in the U.S. will bear the consequences of needless infections, with medical, educational, economic, and lifelong consequences, and the nation may sadly soon learn what natural herd immunity looks like as vaccine-preventable illnesses spread across the country. Pediatric healthcare is also under attack as never before. Americans may be surprised to learn that 48% of children in the U.S. are covered by Medicaid, which provides healthcare for these children. We now hear cries for hundreds of billions of dollars to be cut from Medicaid, claiming that these cuts will come from curtailing waste, fraud, and abuse. Yet, according to reports, this number is quite low. We also need to recognize the significant shortages in pediatric care providers, which will only worsen as provider payments are cut. What are the proposed alternatives for providing pediatric healthcare when Medicaid is cut? What's more, there is a woeful shortage of pediatric dental care. This situation is even dire for children on Medicaid. And now, the scientifically unsound political campaign against water fluoridation is another example of an anti-pediatric fringe initiative to dismantle a public health success. There is no evidence that properly maintained levels of fluoride in drinking water provide anything but benefits through the reduction of dental cavities. Furthermore, the anti-fluoridation movement has not called for cavity prevention alternatives, such as fluoride supplements or varnishes, which are proposed to promote pediatric dental health or improve access to pediatric dental care. It is also an uncomfortable reality that millions of children in America do not have enough food and would go to bed hungry if not for federally funded nutrition programs. The SNAP program, administered by the United States Department of Agriculture, provides billions of dollars in funding for school lunch programs and serves approximately 30% of school-age children in the US. However, this program is slated for large budget cuts. Additionally, procuring produce from local farmers was a key component to promote nutritious offerings in school lunch programs. However, despite RFK Jr.'s calls to promote healthy eating, the $ 1 billion local farmer procurement program has been eliminated. This doesn't even begin to touch the intense effect cuts to reproductive care have on kids. The impact of abortion bans on teenage pregnancy and outcomes is now coming to light. These data show increases in teen pregnancies and an increase in newborn deaths. Yet, we are seeing attempts to restrict sex and birth control education in many states by conservative elements when more education is needed to prevent unintended pregnancies. Much has been highlighted about the mental health problems our children are experiencing. It is too convenient to blame these issues on the unregulated proliferation of social media. There are multiple factors for mental health problems in the U.S., including the stress that society is under due to dizzying politics and culture wars—not to mention environmental degradation. The past few decades of climate change have had an impact on society. Thus, there has been a rightful concern and regulation of environmental toxins in air, water, and food, as well as the impact of climate change on health. Numerous studies also show that environmental toxins disproportionately hurt children as compared to adults. Incredibly, looking to their future, children in Montana sued the state and won, arguing that the state needed to implement policies to mitigate the impact of climate change. Here, too, we are seeing the evisceration of policies that provide environmental protections for all of us, including children. At the state level, we also see laws considered that will be detrimental to children. In response to a workforce shortage caused by the loss of immigrant workers, the Florida legislature is proposing legislation that will roll back child labor laws. The proposed bill will allow children as young as 14 years old to work overnight shifts on school days. The impact of a singular pediatric-related policy change on infection prevention, nutrition, education, healthcare, or the environment would be dramatic. However, the cumulative effect of numerous collective policies that change in multiple ways simultaneously may be devastating. In 1963, President Kennedy said, 'For, in the final analysis, our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this small planet. We all breathe the same air. We all cherish our children's future. And we are all mortal.' Amidst the political chaos, which is sadly becoming the new norm, perhaps now is the time to step back and ask when America stopped cherishing its children.
Yahoo
07-03-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Trump's 1% policy wars: Transgender people, USAID funding and now Canadian fentanyl?
When Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau called President Trump this week to discuss the imposition of stiff U.S. tariffs, Trump linked the decision to deadly fentanyl and undocumented migrants crossing into the U.S. along its northern border. Trump said he blamed Trudeau for "weak border policies" allowing "tremendous amounts" of fentanyl and migrants to "pour into" the U.S. "I told him that many people have died from Fentanyl that came through the Borders of Canada and Mexico, and nothing has convinced me that it has stopped," Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform. "He said that it's gotten better, but I said, 'That's not good enough.'" The framing was on brand for Trump in that it cast him as a tough negotiator on two of his favorite political issues: illegal immigration and synthetic opioid deaths. But it also was on brand as another 1% policy war for the president, stoking fear around a proportionally tiny issue. Seizures of fentanyl at the northern border represented less than 1% of all recent U.S. seizures of the drug nationwide, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection data. Most fentanyl seizures occur along the southern border with Mexico. Apprehensions of undocumented migrants at the northern border have increased in recent years, but still only represented about 1.5% of apprehensions nationwide in fiscal 2024, according to an analysis by a project of the Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania. Again, most apprehensions occur along the southern border. Trudeau has repeatedly referenced those relatively small stakes in pushing back against Trump in recent months, calling Trump's focus on such issues a "pretext" for a trade war that will destabilize Canada's economy and make it easier to annex, a goal Trump has espoused. Trump has similarly attacked transgender people, who represent about 1.3% of the U.S. population, according to recent Gallup polling, and foreign aid issued by the U.S. Agency for International Development, or USAID, which represents less than 1% of the federal budget, according to multiple analyses. Trump and his supporters say he is pursuing an "America First" agenda that supports "common sense." They say even small amounts of fentanyl or fraud in government spending are cause for alarm, and that transgender people represent a growing threat to women and children and deserve equal concern. But Trump's critics and other experts reject those defenses as alarmist, inaccurate and unduly dismissive of such policies' downsides. Read more: Commentary: In Trump's address to Congress, boredom meets terror — and Democrats do nothing In an interview on "The View" last month, transgender actress Laverne Cox blasted Trump for spreading "propaganda and lies" about transgender people being a threat. She noted the community has no real power or influence in the lives of average Americans, and contrasted that with the outsize influence of "the other 1%" — a clear reference to the nation's ultra-wealthy. "At the end of the day, trans people are less than 1% of the population, and trans people are not the reason you can't afford eggs. We're not the reason that you can't afford healthcare. We're not the reason that you can't buy a house or your rent's too high," Cox said. "I think they're focused on the wrong 1%. I think the other 1% is the reason for all those things." LGBTQ+ rights organizations and other critics have echoed that argument, in part by highlighting Trump's reliance on Elon Musk, the world's richest man and head of Trump's so-called Department of Government Efficiency, which has been trying to close out USAID. According to an analysis by the Pew Research Center, the U.S. government spent $71.9 billion on foreign aid in fiscal 2023, which amounted to 1.2% of that year's overall federal spending of more than $6.1 trillion. Of that $71.9 billion, less than $43.8 billion was distributed by USAID — meaning its budget was well under 1% of federal funding that year. Rep. Robert Garcia (D-Long Beach) recently drew attention by comparing USAID's budget to much larger expenditures by the Department of Defense, including on its F35 fighter jet program, and to the roughly $40 billion in federal contracts held by Musk and his companies, which Garcia noted could essentially cover USAID's entire annual budget. "The [Republican] majority isn't talking about Elon Musk's programs or asking him here to testify. They're attacking USAID, and are supporting a billionaire who gets richer every single day," Garcia said. "We gotta push back." Musk and Trump have largely brushed off such criticisms. Trump's supporters have said attempts to cast Trump's favorite targets as small issues miss the point. They point to the fact that younger generations of Americans are identifying as LGBTQ+ in greater numbers, and suggest that means "woke" activists will "indoctrinate" even more children if they don't intervene, which is a baseless claim used to suppress LGBTQ+ rights for generations. Read more: Transgender Americans weigh leaving U.S. over Trump's policies. Some already have They have alleged with little evidence that USAID is awash in waste and corruption and a major drain on U.S. resources, and that such waste — large or small — should be rooted out anywhere it exists. And they have noted that fentanyl is deadly in even tiny amounts like those seized at the northern border. When recently asked about imposing such serious tariffs on Canada over such small amounts of fentanyl — just 43 pounds were seized at the northern border last year — White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt avoided the issue of scale and called the question "disrespectful to the families in this country who have lost loved ones at the hands of this deadly poison." She said Trump has spoken to those families, and they are grateful he is imposing tariffs on Canada, Mexico and China for their roles in fentanyl reaching the U.S. "There need to be consequences for that. Period," Leavitt said. Republican leaders also have backed the president. Senate Majority Leader John Thune of South Dakota, for instance, said fentanyl is a major issue that many Americans expect Trump to address, and Trump is using tariffs to do so. Kathleen Hall Jamieson, director of the Annenberg Public Policy Center, said Trump's amplification of relatively small issues into major threats to his constituents — and putting human faces to those issues, as he did at his joint address to Congress this week — is not a new political tactic, but one he uses particularly well. "President Trump masterfully plays to his base's fears by exaggerating the extent and significance of problems and their effects in dramatized detail," she said. Read more: News Analysis: Trump gives himself high marks. Polls, markets, courts, allies paint a different picture Such plays on fear can be effective politically, but can also carry "costs that are disproportionate to any benefit," Jamieson said. Halting every fentanyl package from Canada would hardly make a dent in the U.S. opioid epidemic, but Trump's tariffs will have a major negative effect on individual consumers, industry and the relationship between the two countries, she said. Cuts to USAID — couched by Trump as a simple crackdown on U.S. handouts abroad — will save relatively small amounts of money, but could have major consequences in the U.S., she said, including if infectious diseases that otherwise could have been contained abroad manage to arrive stateside. Jamieson said placing Trump's policies within the proper context — and on the right scale — will be important in turning down the temperature in American politics moving forward, as Americans tend to moderate their opinions when they know the facts. For example, according to a recent KFF poll, 86% of Americans overestimate the share of federal dollars that go to foreign aid, estimating on average that the U.S. spends about a quarter of its budget on such aid. After being told the figure is closer to 1%, however, the percentage who believe the U.S. spends too much on foreign aid "drops more than twenty percentage points," KFF found, to just 34%. Get the L.A. Times Politics newsletter. Deeply reported insights into legislation, politics and policy from Sacramento, Washington and beyond, in your inbox twice per week. This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
