DEAR READERS: Please see the following post from the Union of Concerned Scientists:
“President Trump’s second administration has targeted the public science that we all depend on: from weather forecasts to public health, from cancer research to climate science. This administration has made quick work of gutting scientific expertise, halting science and innovation, ignoring public input, cutting out independent experts, and censoring and suppressing scientific information.
"These actions are not normal. They are part of an illegal power grab that violates our democratic systems. UCS wrote a comprehensive and illuminating report on the administration’s attacks because we cannot improve what we do not measure. And improve we must; our future demands it.”
For more, see this interview with UCS Analyst Dr. Jules Barbati-Dajches: blog.ucs.org/guest-commentary/ask-a-scientist-how-does-documenting-attacks-on-science-stop-authoritarians.
I wonder, in President Trump's vociferous attacks against “wokeness,” what he is afraid of, exactly? This word, arising from the Black community concerning social justice, is now also linked with economic and environmental justice. It literally means being awake -- open to reality and to the truth. That is the quest of science.
But now that quest has been politicized in this polarized society, where any interference with making money is taboo -- regardless of scientifically documented adverse socioenvironmental consequences. This is probably why funds for maintaining NASA's climate-monitoring satellites may soon be curtailed. (See npr.org/2025/08/04/nx-s1-5453731/nasa-carbon-dioxide-satellite-mission-threatened.) Trump also signed a bill in July canceling approximately $1.1 billion in previously approved funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, the entity that provides federal funding to NPR, PBS and local public stations. This is because of concerns about perceived liberal bias in news coverage.
Money rules us, and will be the ruination of the planet.
The recent global summit in Geneva, where representatives from 184 countries met to address plastic pollution, fell flat because the U.S., Saudi Arabia and other oil-producing countries opposed any limits on the production of plastics. These are toxic petrochemicals, some 400 million tons of which are manufactured every year.
Trump’s military deployment to selected cities to "fight crime" is more than just another step toward authoritarianism. It is also a distraction from the deeper concerns and existential crises in America and around the world.
There is crime and violence across the country, along with escalating deaths from drug overdoses and rising rates of mental health issues in adolescents and children. Much of this is a consequence of generations of oppression, racism, sexism, injustice and socioeconomic inequality. This existential and spiritual crisis surely calls for compassionate action and empathic understanding -- the antithesis of deploying the military. This is evidence of empathy-deficit disorder and an abuse of power.
Many of the federal agencies dealing with these societal issues, and their related environmental counterparts, have been decimated by executive order and must be restored for the common good.
REIMAGINING STATE FAIRS
Every summer, agricultural states hold their state fairs, which often include exhibits with poultry, sheep, cows and pigs. At the very least, these events should be held in the fall, during cooler weather. Many of these animals suffer in the heat and during transportation to and from the fairs.
The risk of poultry and livestock infecting people at state fairs with any number of bacteria and viruses -- notably swine and avian influenza, fecal E. coli, listeria and salmonella -- is ever-present and considerable, especially for the young and the immunocompromised. Veterinary health checks give no guarantee of biosecurity, which can be breached when visitors are reaching out to pet the animals and breathing the same air (perhaps carrying airborne pathogens).
One would hope, for reasons of compassion, that displays of cows, sheep and pigs giving birth in "miracle of life" centers will soon become things of the past. All birthing animals prefer seclusion, and being transported to fairs while heavily pregnant is an added stress that cannot be justified on the grounds of public education. Where is the empathy?
With tragic irony, while an estimated 2 million people attended the Minnesota State Fair and likely consumed some $40 million worth of food and beverages over 12 days, there is a concurrent humanitarian crisis in the Middle East, about which the U.S. government has remained relatively silent. Children and babies are dying from starvation, disease, chronic malnutrition and injuries from military weapons. This involves some 7.3 million Palestinians.
Many believed a humanitarian crisis of this magnitude could never happen again after the genocidal holocausts of the Jews under Germany’s Nazi fascism, Armenians under the Ottoman Turks, Cambodians under the Khmer Rouge, and Ukrainians under Russia’s Stalin.
How can this cycle of inhumanity be broken? It surely lies in our restoring the circles that connect us all, and in extending the golden rule to embrace all sentient beings. Living simply so that others may simply live is a good beginning, but to little avail if governments and industries continue to ignore reality and act in discord rather than concord.
(Send all mail to animaldocfox@gmail.com or to Dr. Michael Fox in care of Andrews McMeel Syndication, 1130 Walnut St., Kansas City, MO 64106. The volume of mail received prohibits personal replies, but questions and comments of general interest will be discussed in future columns.
Visit Dr. Fox’s website at DrFoxOneHealth.com.)