A new day, another morning. I walk my daughter to daycare. She babbles away, pointing to birds and trees as we walk past a block where, just a few weeks ago, masked ICE officers arrested a driver off the street while he was delivering food to a neighbor. A few streets down, a man was dragged out of his home. They are some of more than 228,000 people—neighbors, parents, workers—who have been arrested by ICE, often with no reason, in 2025. These seemingly random acts traumatize people and their families, sending them into hiding from their lives, jobs, and communities. I think about my privilege as a birthright citizen (though, now, that Constitutional right is also under threat), and as a child of immigrants who escaped persecution.
I drop my daughter off along with our latest daycare payment and make a mental note to talk to my husband about our budget. After concerted efforts by Republican-led states and directives by President Trump’s Department of Education, the student loan forgiveness program that helps families in public service is being gutted. Our monthly loan bills have nearly quadrupled as a result.
I get home and start my work day: researching, documenting, and discussing our nation’s growing attacks on science: 479 and counting since Trump came into office.
Hours later, I sit down for lunch and read an email from my daughter’s pediatrician. They are awaiting the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) guidance for the COVID-19 vaccine and “are doing everything possible to ensure the vaccine will be available to our patients.” Normally, this is not a question, but recent political interference in the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP)—the federal advisory committee that advises the agency on vaccine doses and scheduling and informs insurance coverage for vaccines—has led the committee astray from science-based decisionmaking.
In June, Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., dismissed all of ACIP’s members, replacing them with his hand-picked choices, many of whom have made a career sowing doubt in vaccine science. During this month’s ACIP meeting—following former CDC Director Susan Monarez’s scathing testimony—the committee peddled false and dangerous claims about the COVID-19 vaccine. Thankfully, the committee ultimately still recommended the vaccine for those above six months of age (with a confusing caveat emphasizing individual choice), but access is restricted for some. With more restrictions, “there may be supply issues, especially with kids’ vaccines.” And clinics like my daughter’s pediatrician that were awaiting this guidance may experience delays with receiving vaccine doses.
During my lunch break, I peruse LinkedIn, sending job postings to my friends and family who lost their jobs due to the Trump administration’s mass firings across the federal government, laying off or pushing out hundreds of thousands of civil servants. Family members who spent decades improving access to maternal and child health care internationally; friends who entered public service to improve public transit access or ensure clean air and water for their communities. It is hard to see so much work be cast aside without consideration for the consequences.
At the end of my workday, I pick my daughter up from daycare, and my husband and I take her to the park. We see a parade of unmarked law enforcement vehicles speed through our neighborhood, blowing through stop signs. We put our phones away and try to enjoy our time together as a family.
After dinner, and once our daughter is sound asleep, I grab a can of paint. Over the summer, she tested positive for low levels of lead in her blood. The news was scary, but we sprang into action—identifying, remediating, and repainting lead-painted surfaces in our century-old home.
Tonight, I’m painting our baseboards, thinking about the programs and research on understanding and preventing lead poisoning that no longer exist. Earlier this year, Trump’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) fired the CDC team tasked with addressing and responding to lead poisoning, including helping schools prevent lead exposure threats to kids. This CDC program funds the lead prevention program in my state, which provided me with invaluable guidance and support when I called them asking for help after seeing my daughter’s blood test results.
When a Milwaukee school district dealt with lead contamination issues earlier this year, they reached out to the CDC for help. The team that is supposed to respond no longer existed. For the first time, there was nobody to answer the call. As a parent, that is unfathomable. In June, some of these staff were reportedly reinstated after immense public pressure. Is this what we call efficiency?
It’s not just the CDC. Congress proposed to slash funding for lead service line replacements—critical programs that my own home benefited from to get lead out of our drinking water. The administration also proposed to cut funding for U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development programs that help subsidize the costs of safely getting lead sources out of people’s homes. As a result, states are being forced to cut these programs.
In May, EPA announced it would shutter its Office of Research and Development (ORD), the agency’s independent research arm that studied the risks and effects of exposure to toxics like lead, asbestos, and PFAS chemicals, among others. ORD’s integrated science assessment for lead, updated last year, serves as the scientific basis for EPA’s review and regulation of National Ambient Air Quality Standards for lead in our air. And then there’s the sweeping cuts to grants for research on chemical exposures in children—despite the empty promises of the “Make America Healthy Again” agenda—that could help make the case for additional funding and regulation of lead pollution.
All of it affects all of us
As a public health researcher who works to understand and defend science in policy, I think about these issues every day, and it is a privilege to do so. But it’s not just my job. The systematic dismantling of our scientific and democratic systems affects our everyday lives, our families. While these actions are intentionally and viciously targeted to harm those who are most underserved, they impact us all. Authoritarianism makes us feel less safe in our neighborhoods, it makes our bills harder to pay, our health care harder to access, and stifles our ability to thrive and support our families and communities. It’s exhausting and it’s not normal.
Not everyone has the time to research how public policy impacts their everyday lives (although hopefully we make it easier for you through our work at UCS). Nor should we have to constantly remind those in power that they are supposed to serve the people, not their personal interests.
We each can’t take on all these issues at once, but we can start with one. Here are some ideas:
- Get involved in mutual aid organizations in your community.
- Ask your elected officials to maintain funding levels for critical programs that protect our health and safety.
- Ask your members of Congress to support the Scientific Integrity Act. The bill, if passed, would codify protections for science and scientists into law, making it more difficult for political interference in science-based decisions that impact our everyday lives.