PULLMAN, Wash – Washington Senator Patty Murray says restoring faith in public health is a worthwhile fight and she took a step forward in that fight Wednesday on the campus of Washington State University in Pullman.
Senator Murray formally launched the Public Health for America Working Group.
Sen. Murray says the group will develop ideas and craft legislation to strengthen trust in the public health system.
“Public health is about public safety,” Sen. Murray told the group gathered at WSU Wednesday. “It’s a life and death problem.”
Sen. Murray says she wants to introduce legislation that will make the CDC run by independent researchers and scientists rather than political appointees.
“A CDC that has the information, the science, that is real, that is funded, that gets to local communities so they have a reliable source and trusted source to be able to disseminate that information,” she said.
Senator Murray blamed the Trump Administration and HHS Secretary Robert F. K. Kennedy for the loss in public trust, saying the administration has acted with “genuine malice towards the experts.”
“Trust among the public is in free fall,” she said.
Among those gathered at WSU for a panel discussion on the issue were state and local public health leaders, pediatricians and WSU faculty who work in the public health space.
“I think the biggest thing that is helpful is having the time and relationship over time with families to build rapport,” pediatrician Dr. Katie Hryniewicz said.
Panelists also discussed the importance of providing consistent funding for local public health organizations, even discussing the possibility of extending WSU’s public health system to give people a trusted voice for that information.
“Adding public health as part of that to an existing group of people who are already trusted and people already seek out for information is one way to reinforce the messages that are coming through traditional public health channels,” said Dr. Eric T. Lofgren, a professor of computational immunology at WSU.
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