839 - The First Week's Executive Orders

Public Health On Call

The Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health

News, Health & Fitness, Medicine

4.6 • 644 Ratings

🗓️ 24 January 2025

⏱️ 14 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

About this episode:

In the first few days of President Trump's second term he signed a blitz of executive actions. In today's episode: a look at some of the actions and memos that take aim at key public health policies including the communications pause for health and science agencies, a pause on NIH study sections, immediate posturing on DEI initiatives, exiting the Paris Agreement and WHO, and more. Note: These podcasts are a conversation between the participants, and do not represent the position of Johns Hopkins University.

Guest:

Dr. Josh Sharfstein served in a number of political roles in his career including as the Secretary of the Maryland Department of Health, the Principal Deputy Commissioner of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, as Commissioner of Health for Baltimore City, and as a Congressional health policy advisor.

Host:

Stephanie Desmon, MA, is a former journalist, author, and the director of public relations and communications for the Johns Hopkins Center for Communication Programs, the largest center at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

Show links and related content:

Memo: Immediate Pause on Issuing Documents and Public Communications (pdf)—Department of Health & Human Services
Ending Radical and Wasteful Government DEI Programs and Preferencing—White House Executive Order
Putting America First In International Environmental Agreements—White House Executive Order
Withdrawing the United States From the World Health Organization—White House Executive Order
Federal health agencies told to halt all external communications—NPR
Trump administration halts NIH grant-making process—The Hill
Trump is withdrawing the U.S. from WHO. Here's what that means—Science News
Statement From Dr. Richard Besser on DEI and Health—The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to Public Health On Call, a podcast from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health,
0:05.9	where we bring evidence, experience, and perspective to make sense of today's leading health challenges.
0:16.3	If you have questions or ideas for us, please send an email to public health question at jhhhu.edu.
0:23.8	That's public health question at jhhu.edu for future podcast episodes.
0:31.9	Hey listeners, it's Lindsay Smith-Rogers. Today, a look back at a busy first week in office for President Trump.
0:38.9	Stephanie Desmond talks with former federal health official and current health policy
0:42.7	distinguished professor of the practice, Dr. Josh Sharfstein. They discuss some of the many
0:48.2	executive orders and their potential impacts for health policy. Just a reminder, as always,
0:53.6	these podcasts are a conversation between
0:55.3	the participants and do not represent the position of Johns Hopkins University. Let's listen.
1:01.4	Josh Sharsteen, thanks so much for joining me. Good to see you, Stephanie. We have a lot of talk
1:06.4	about today. There's been a flurry of executive orders in the first week of the new presidential
1:11.8	administration in Washington. We've heard a lot about impacts this might have on global health,
1:19.4	on climate, DEI. Can we talk through a few of these things as someone who's sort of been through
1:24.7	a lot of administrations? I'm happy to.
1:27.8	Sounds great.
1:28.4	Well, let's start with, this one's nearer to my heart.
1:31.2	It's federal communications pause.
1:33.7	The health agencies aren't being allowed to sort of do their regular course of work.
1:37.9	For example, you know, we find out how much flu there is in the country.
1:43.1	We find out how much bird flu there is because we get regular reporting from agencies,
1:47.0	and that stopped.
	...

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