In three weeks, Americans will be voting for those who will represent us in Congress. But the midterms are much more than which politicians we vote for.
They are a vote for or against science.
Though no position in government was immune from political influence, past heads of the Department of Health and Human Services (formerly Health Education and Welfare or HEW) and the Surgeon General always believed in and supported scientific research and public health.
Let’s look at a few of them who served under other Republican presidents: The first Secretary of HEW, appointed by Dwight D. Eisenhower, was a Democrat from Texas named Oveta Culp Hobby. She oversaw the rollout of the first polio vaccine, developed the first health insurance program for Americans, helped to expand the US hospital system, and improved food and drug laws.
George H.W. Bush appointed the first African American secretary to what became Health and Human Services (HHS), Louis Sullivan. After growing up in the segregated South, he taught medicine and hematology at BU and Harvard and was a founder and dean of Morehouse University’s School of Medicine. He was a strong advocate for the FDA, restrictions on cigarette smoking, and for research on the role of gender, race and ethnicity in health and disease.
George W. Bush’s HHS secretaries — Tommy Thompson and Mike Leavitt — though both conservative Republicans, helped bring increased funding to NIH, supported state plans to provide insurance to 1.8 million lower-income Americans, approved higher standards for ozone emissions, and were strong supporters of the World Health Organization.
The imposing C. Everett Koop was Ronald Reagan’s Surgeon General. He was the founder and chief of the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia Department of Surgery from 1946-1981. He sent out a letter to every household in the US warning of the dangers of AIDS. Though a religious conservative, he refused to condemn abortion, and he advocated condom use for safer sex, leading to calls for his resignation. Koop famously said, “I am the surgeon general of the young, the old, of the moral or the immoral, the married and the unmarried. I don’t have the luxury of deciding which side I want to be on.”
Richard Carmona, the first surgeon general of Puerto Rican heritage, served under George W. Bush. He was a US Army veteran, a graduate of UCSF Medical School, with an MPH and a career in law enforcement. Carmona became a strong spokesperson for the dangers of second-hand smoke.
He once said, “The thing that we answer is, ‘What is the best science to solve this problem or prevent this disease?’ That’s not an issue that’s partisan.”
There have been no approved surgeons general under this administration. Awaiting confirmation now is Nicole Sephier, a breast radiologist, Fox News contributor, who felt the AAP is “too strict” about vaccines and refuses to endorse remote prescribing of mifepristone to terminate early pregnancies. Before her was Casey Means, a wellness influencer who did not finish her residency and does not have a current medical license.
Trump’s highly acerbic and eccentric HHS Secretary has overseen the firing of thousands of experienced scientists of the CDC, the FDA, the National Science Foundation and the NIH, including all members of the Vaccine Advisory Committee. In 2025, 7,800 approved grants were rescinded, investigating everything from childhood cancers to AIDS. In July of this year, 30% of the budget of the NSF was cut, significantly affecting research in physics, aerospace, mathematics, geology, computer science, and biology.
Trump and RFK Jr. have turned words inside out and upside down so that the term “gold standard science” now means “factoids that I make up, depending on who’s bribing me.”
For example, citing “gold standard science,” in May of this year, the FDA eased regulations on flavored cigarettes, after a subsidiary of Reynolds American had donated $5 million to a Trump super PAC and met with him at the White House.
“Gold standard science” is now used in the awarding of federal grants, but in practice, this means political appointees override medically based grant reviews — politicians who are beholden to outside interests.
The head of the EPA Lee Zeldin promised “to drive a stake through the heart of the climate change religion”; this career politician then cited “gold standard science” to withdraw regulations that would reduce exposure to the dangerous forever chemicals called PFAS. Even worse, he and the administration rescinded the 27-year-old Endangerment Finding that allows the EPA to regulate emissions that lead to global warming — this after months of climate-fueled fires and heat waves that have devastated the globe.
RFK Jr. rejected previous nutritional guidelines and instead drew together a group with many ties to the meat and dairy industry to design a new food pyramid which promotes beef and beef tallow — our arteries and the climate be damned.
He touts banishing chronic disease and autism as two of his major goals, yet the CDC’s chronic disease and birth defects divisions are half of what they both were. This administration has been especially tough on kids, resurrecting the myths that MMR causes autism, eliminating Medicaid and SNAP benefits for millions of children, as well as the divisions on smoking and child abuse in the CDC.
The president issues ridiculous executive orders, relating Tylenol taken in pregnancy to autism, for example, or separating the components of the measles, mumps, and rubella vaccine.
In the meantime, measles cases are reaching record levels; this summer saw one of the worst outbreaks of foodborne illness in US history, and scientists estimate that there were at least 183 deaths and $31.9 billion in damage in the US in the first half of 2026 related to climate change. Rates of obesity, diabetes, chronic kidney disease, and depression and anxiety are surging, and the US continues to have the highest maternal and mortality rates of any wealthy nation, especially among minority populations
In two short years, the US has gone from the pinnacle of the world in science, medicine, and public health to a laughingstock, led by fringe figures, conspiracy theorists, and snake oil salesmen. The Republicans are saying little to nothing to oppose this debasement of what once was the model of “gold standard science.”
It is clear how we must vote if we believe in science.
Dr. David Gottsegen is a physician who spent 40 years practicing in Holyoke and South Hadley.