Trust in science shapes everything from vaccine safety to emergency response to the basic functioning of our healthcare system. Over the past several years, that trust has been strained, and in many ways, increasingly compromised.
To understand how we got here, I sat down with Xavier Becerra, former U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services, longtime member of Congress, former California Attorney General, and now a candidate for Governor of California. Becerra led HHS through one of the most difficult periods in modern public health. And a few years later, we’re watching confidence in federal health institutions continue to fall, scientists leave government, and proposals emerge for unprecedented cuts to the CDC and NIH.
Our conversation looks at how this erosion of trust happened, what it means for the country, and what it will take to rebuild it.
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