Foreign Policy: Trump’s Battle Against Breastfeeding Is a Small Part of a Wider War
Laurie Garrett, former senior fellow for global health at the Council on Foreign Relations

“…If the people lose faith in government, science, and each other, the entire public health house of cards can quickly collapse. … This is nowhere more visible than in the United States under the influence of President Donald Trump, whose nationalist agenda has amounted to a multifront war on global public health. … No one nation operating in isolation can stop a pandemic, reverse carbon dioxide buildup in the atmosphere, put a halt to the spread of drug-resistant microbes, finally conquer HIV, or create a nonpolluting energy source for all of humanity. … As trust breaks down further between nations, and within them, every facet of public health will be sorely challenged. The global institutions created to stop epidemics and promote health will, in the near term, try to regain public trust and find alternative sources of funding to stay alive. But their longer-term missions of universal health cannot possibly be realized in the previously trustful world that Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin, and Xi Jinping are now unraveling” (7/16).