Defend public health includes over 3,000 public health professionals, scientists, clinicians, legal experts, students and advocates. According to Gonsalves, the group seeks to respond to growing political interference in public health infrastructure, including proposed cuts to Medicaid, changes to scientific leadership and shifts in federal research priorities. While the coalition is based at Yale, it includes members from across the country and is focused on broad issues ranging from vaccine policy, reproductive healthcare, biomedical research funding to health equity. 

“We’re all doing this on our own time, and the passion and commitment of so many people in the moment gives me hope,” Gonsalves wrote to the News.

Defend Public Health publishes and promotes op-eds and hosts tele-conferences with union leaders and representatives in order to raise awareness about the threats facing public health, among other initiatives. Additionally, they wrote an open letter opposing Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s nomination for Secretary of Health and Human Services.

Gonsalves hopes to work and collaborate with diverse groups, and encourages  students to get involved. This past Sunday, Defend Public Health’s student caucus held their first meeting, involving undergraduate and graduate students from around the country.

“I cannot think of a time in American history when the voice, skill and ingenuity of students was more needed,” Gonsalves said.

Caitlin Ryus, professor of Emergency Medicine at the School of Medicine, became involved with Defend Public Health in November. 

Ryus felt that her background with science research and clinical work would allow her to participate in the organization’s advocacy efforts. 

“We’re seeing public health infrastructure, which was built over decades, being threatened, whether that’s through funding cuts, politicized leadership changes or anti-science rhetoric,” Ryus said.

She believes it is important for experts to communicate clearly with the population about public health.

Clear communication, Ryus told the News, prevents trust from further being eroded and public health information from being misinterpreted.

“I think that’s one of the great things about Defend Public Health,” Ryus said. “They are trying to bring science out of the ivory tower, through op-eds, social media usage, and grassroots partnerships.”

Ryus also believes protecting public health is particularly important right now. During the COVID-19 pandemic, society relied on “well-funded and nimble scientific infrastructure.” Even now, these qualities are important in fighting seasonal viruses and facilitating research on vaccines and infectious disease treatment.

Ryus has been personally impacted by political attacks on science infrastructure. As a researcher, she relied on grants from the NIH, but had her funding cut. 

“One of the grants supporting my work, which was looking at mental health impacts of different types of homeless shelters, was just terminated less than a week ago,” Ryus said. “We were told it no longer aligned with NIH priorities. That sends a troubling message that research is being deprioritized for vulnerable communities.”

Defend Public Health has taken public stances against figures within the Trump administration.

Mindy Jane Roseman, director of International Law Programs and director of the Gruber Program for Global Justice and Women’s Rights at the Yale Law School, signed the open letter from Defend Public Health opposing Trump’s nomination of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. for Secretary of Health and Human Services. 

Roseman’s work focuses on how international human rights norms and laws improve health outcomes, particularly regarding sexual and reproductive health. While funding for her work does not depend on US government support directly, she is still concerned that the Trump administration wants to remove the voices of underrepresented patients from public health policy, including women and non-gender-conforming patients.

“One size does not fit all,” Roseman said. “It’s important to have diverse representation when doing any kind of health research, because each person’s lived experience really matters.”

By signing the open letter, Roseman hoped to demonstrate she is part of a community who is worried about public health policy. The letter was a “basic exercise of first-amendment rights,” she said, and participating in it is a “fundamental act of democracy.”

Roseman said she hoped the students and younger generations would be energized to stand up for what they believe in and to prevent the federal government from taking further destructive measures.

“Is voicing your dissent going to change policy?” Roseman asked. “We’ll see. But there have already been rollbacks and modifications to some Trump administration policies, and it is all because people have spoken up.”

As of April 14, 2025, Defend Public Health has 7.7k followers on Blue Sky.

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A new study led by researchers at the School of Public Health compared long-term care systems across countries and exposed a troubling reality: one in five dementia patients worldwide receive no care at all.

“We found an alarming message that both developed and developing countries face common care deficits for dementia care,” said Yuting Qian GRD ’27, co-lead author of the study and doctoral candidate in health policy and management at Yale.

The researchers examined both formal care, provided by professional healthcare workers, and informal care, typically delivered by family members. The study uncovered stark variations in how nations structure their care systems, with European countries generally providing better formal support than the United States or China.

Much of the difference lies in how care is financed and delivered. In Denmark and the Netherlands, centralized systems funded by both federal and municipal governments offer comprehensive, formal support. These models have proven more effective at meeting the medical needs of their aging populations.

In contrast, the United States lacks a cohesive national approach to long-term care. Most older adults rely on a patchwork of Medicare, Medicaid and private insurance, with Medicare only covering care for a limited time after hospital discharge — typically up to 100 days.

As a result, the majority of Americans must either pay out-of-pocket, rely on family caregivers or go without necessary care. The study found approximately 86 percent of American dementia patients lack access to formal care services.

“In America, older adults have only limited coverage of long-term care through Medicare and Medicaid, while select wealthy individuals can buy commercial insurance,” said Xi Chen, senior author of the study and associate professor of public health at YSPH. “That makes the American system one of the worst among developed countries.”

The situation appears even more dire in nations like China, where formal care infrastructure for dementia patients is virtually nonexistent, with 99 percent of patients receiving no formal care services.

Socioeconomic factors play a significant role in determining who receives care. Those with fewer financial resources face greater barriers to accessing professional services, creating a cascade of challenges for both patients and their families. For caregivers from lower socioeconomic backgrounds, providing care often means sacrificing income and employment, further straining already limited resources.

“Those who are less educated tend to lack access to formal care, which is important for those with dementia as they need highly skilled services,” said Zhuoer Lin, co-lead author and assistant professor of health policy and administration at the University of Illinois at Chicago School of Public Health. “If family members have to leave work because of caregiving responsibilities without financial support, a greater burden is placed on the family as a whole.”

Addressing these gaps will require significant policy changes. For the United States, Chen advocates for Medicare expansion to cover long-term care and more inclusive eligibility for Medicaid. Federal programs should also extend beyond short-term rehabilitation to address ongoing care needs.

The research also highlighted the potential of novel technologies to help address care deficits — though implementation challenges remain, particularly around patient preferences.

“Incorporating AI or robots in facilities like nursing homes could improve the care deficits,” said Qian. “But a majority of advanced technologies have been introduced in formal care settings, while most patients prefer aging at home in community settings.”

Regardless of new technologies, care systems across countries face sustainability challenges as populations age. Some European governments have begun shifting financial responsibility to local municipalities as costs rise, potentially threatening the centralized models that have proven most effective.

The research team aims to further their study by expanding their global dataset to include more developing nations. Through this ongoing work, they hope to identify sustainable solutions that can be adapted across more diverse healthcare systems and cultural contexts.

YSPH is located at 60 College St.

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Amid this unmet need, researchers at the School of Medicine developed a method to identify the proteins ticks release while feeding on their hosts. Over time, humans and animals can develop resistance to tick bites by producing antibodies that recognize these proteins, blocking disease transmission. 

To pinpoint which proteins trigger this immune response, the team created an antigen library called IscREAM, which contains over 3,000 deer tick antigens and allows for rapid screening of those most likely to aid in developing future diagnostic tests and vaccines.  

“IscREAM stands for the Ixodes scapularis rapid extracellular antigen monitoring, and is a pretty apt name because who wouldn’t scream when they find a tick on them!” wrote Thomas Hart, former postdoctoral associate at the School of Medicine who spearheaded the creation of IscREAM. “We took almost every possible antigen — over 3,000 different proteins — from I. scapularis and engineered yeast cells to display the protein on their surface.”

Creating IscREAM

Hart explained that IscREAM provided a way to effectively categorize the thousands of proteins ticks secrete to find those that lead to resistance. To identify which tick proteins the immune system responded to, the team combined engineered yeast cells expressing tick proteins with an antibody isolated from blood from tick-exposed Lyme disease patients, guinea pigs and mice. 

The team then monitored the yeast cells to see which ones the tick-resistant antibodies bound to. This data, Hart explained, helped researchers filter through the proteins to identify which triggered an immune system response. 

This information allowed the team to identify new ways to induce tick resistance, or reduced likelihood of tick attachment, feeding and disease transmission, in individuals who have not yet been bitten by a tick. 

The Research Journey

According to Yingjun Cui, a researcher at the School of Medicine who authored the study, the team’s work first began with the development of an mRNA anti-tick vaccine. This process, Cui explained, involved collaborating with Drew Weissman’s lab at the University of Pennsylvania, who was awarded a Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for their role in developing COVID-19 mRNA vaccines.

The vaccine works by injecting mRNA — the instructions for a protein that causes an immune-response — into the cells, building tick resistance. Cui emphasized that the initial vaccine was limited in tick-borne disease prevention, so the team continued work after publishing their first study on the topic in 2021 to improve the vaccine. 

The most recent study incorporating IscREAM took the past two years to complete. As Hart explained, the team first looked through all of the proteins in deer ticks to find the candidate proteins secreted or exposed outside the tick cells. Then, the team began their screens of each tick antigen in their expansive library. 

“Creating IscREAM was honestly a lot of fun. It was a lot of work, of course, but it was interesting work, and it’s always exciting to build a technology like this, and to see it come to fruition,” wrote Hart. 

The team worked with the Weissman lab to craft three mRNA cocktails encoding 25 antigens in tick cement — the “glue” they use to bind their mouthpieces to hosts — that would cause an immune system response in the host. From 2023 to 2024, the team immunized guinea pigs with each cocktail and found that one in particular resulted in lower tick weight and early detachment. 

“We are narrowing down the antigen number now, and our initial experiment has a promising result that the guinea pigs immunized with a small cocktail containing 5 mRNAs developed comparative tick rejection to the big cocktail,” Cui wrote. 

Future applications 

Erol Fikrig, professor of medicine at the School of Medicine, said that the team was inspired to take a new global approach to examining all the interactions a tick has with the antibody response in the human body. 

For Fikrig, the team’s research aims to answer two key questions. 

“The first question is, when you’re bitten by a tick, what is it you’re recognizing in terms of making an antibody to that tick bite?” said Fikrig. “The second thing is, are there targets in there that could be linked to tick rejection?”

In Fikrig’s view, the answer for the first question could help pave the way for new diagnostic tests for early tick bites. In the future, patients concerned about having Lyme disease could perform a test to check for Lyme disease and a test if they have had a recent tick bite to confirm their suspicions. 

In terms of the second, Fikrig believes that the team’s work identifying proteins associated with tick rejection shows promise for preventing tick-borne disease transmission.

“In this paper, we show that when you immunize with a cocktail of 25 proteins, we can develop an immune response,” noted Fikrig. “It’s detectable against all of those proteins, which means that it’s a potential target for an anti tick vaccine.”

Fikrig categorized the study as a first step toward creating a diagnostic test and vaccine, and hopes that further research could help bring both to the public within the next 10 years. 

There are over 40,000 tick-borne disease cases in the United States each year. 

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The Mission blue butterfly lives exclusively around the San Bruno Mountain in California. There are an estimated 18,000 adults remaining in their original region. While its bright blues may seem better fitted for the tropics, mountainous regions are, in fact, hosts to two-thirds of butterfly species across the world, according to researchers. 

Recently, Yale researchers published a first-of-its-kind study in Nature, using previously collected data to map out butterfly hotspots. 

“Unfortunately, our first global assessment of butterfly diversity and threats finds that butterflies’ fascinating diversification into higher-elevation environments might now spell their demise, with potentially thousands of species committed to extinction from global warming this century,” Walter Jetz, director of the Yale Center for Biodiversity and Global Change who oversaw the study, told the News. 

Today, climate change threatens the careful balance of the alpine regions, leaving the Mission blue and other fragile butterfly populations in considerable danger.

Climate Threat to Butterflies

Historically, conservation efforts have largely excluded butterflies and other insects to prioritize protecting land vertebrates, such as mammals or reptiles. Now, global assessments of insect biodiversity and climate change vulnerability have been lacking — primarily due to the limited and incomplete distribution data for most insect taxa.

Larry Gall, senior collections manager of the center’s entomology division and moth researcher, considers butterflies to be “specialized moths” that are active in the daytime as opposed to nighttime.

“As is true for most insects, Lepidoptera [the scientific name for butterflies and moths] in their various life stages are involved in pollination, nutrient cycling and other important roles in ecosystems,” Gall wrote to the News. “[With] no habitat for Lepidoptera, [there would be] no springtime as we presently know it, and related tragedies.”

Gall’s alarming message regarding the butterfly threat is not unfounded. However, not much has been done in part due to the lack of information available.

According to Jetz, ignoring insect populations in conservation sciences has created “vast global knowledge gaps,” potentially leading to past conservation decisions that were uninformed.

“Our study is the first to systematically identify and assess butterfly biodiversity hotspots, establishing a clear and strong connection with mountain regions which harbour a disproportionately high percentage of butterfly diversity,” Jetz wrote.

The researchers pored through atlases, field guides and the extensive pre-existing literature on butterflies. They then used automated models that integrated these official records with citizen-scientist data.

In the publication, the team used colorful legends to depict higher concentrations of species of butterflies at higher altitudes.

The main findings? Mountains are critical for butterfly biodiversity. 

Mountain, or alpine, ecosystems are unique due to their physical structures. In addition to being large physical barriers, mountains also serve as environmental buffers. Precipitation levels, temperature and environmental conditions are all more stable in these areas.

However, as outlined in a 2022 article published in PeerJ, mountain environments today are in a “state of rapid transition as a consequence of climate change in the Anthropocene.”

The overall increase in temperature may cause ice cover — a useful sort of “sunshade” — to melt, exposing dark rock that absorbs rather than reflects heat. As the ice melts more, the speed of water run-off that reaches lower-lying ecosystems may increase, changing the way ecosystems or even cities deal with the influx of ice melt.

Regionally, changes in weather patterns may reduce the number of frost days, alter the treeline of forested regions and change the way plants interact with their environment— all of which will indirectly affect butterfly populations. 

“Our results suggest that mountain areas — once vital refugia — are increasingly at risk of becoming biodiversity traps,” Stefan Pinkert, a University of Marburg lecturer and former postdoc in Jetz’s lab, said. 

Pinkert is also the lead author of the study. 

Even then, the data is incomplete. The results are “broad, yet conservative,” according to Pinkert, and don’t offer a complete image of the butterflies’ interactions with other organisms.

Looking Ahead

Protecting these delicate insects extends far beyond just saving their kind.

Butterflies are a vital component of Earth’s biodiversity. As caterpillars, they are often specialized herbivores that help regulate plant abundance and contribute to nutrient cycling; as adults, they pollinate flowering plants. 

This evolutionary relationship they have with plants makes both groups not only ecologically important but also “highly vulnerable.” A loss in butterflies and pollinators as a whole will deeply impact humans — economically and emotionally.

“Just as plants may face greater extinction risks from the loss of associated butterflies, their decline would, in turn, accelerate the precarious situation butterfly populations are facing,” Pinkert said. “While the knowledgebase for other insect groups is even more limited, conservation priorities for butterflies and their vulnerability likely apply to many terrestrial insects. This suggests unfortunately very dire consequences for biodiversity and ecosystem functioning in the coming decades, urging rapid and targeted conservation and restoration efforts.”

With newfound information on butterfly hotspots, Pinkert suggests that governments can increase protections by expanding protected natural areas into mountains, where environmental pressures from human land-and-resource use are increasing.

Governments can also “implement migration corridors and targeted conservation of hotspots of butterfly rarity,” Jetz said.

However, last month, the Trump administration implemented aggressive “rollbacks” on regulations issued by the Environmental Protection Agency, the federal entity responsible for protecting natural lands.

Those who care about butterflies can still do their part in protecting them. 

Butterflies don’t need much space, Pinkert says. Local landowners can set aside small plots of land of butterfly-friendly habitats to support stable populations. 

“Simple measures—such as managing meadows extensively without the use of fertilizers or pesticides—can make a significant difference,” Pinkert wrote. “Many species will readily return to gardens, field margins, and other semi-natural areas if the right conditions are restored.”

Even citizens, unfamiliar with the thousands of species of butterflies, may be able to boost conservation, Pinkert says. By utilizing the iNaturalist app, users can contribute images of species they might happen upon in their neighborhood or vacations abroad.”

The Yale Peabody Museum houses over 350,000 butterfly and moth specimens.

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Measles is a highly contagious virus characterized by symptoms such as high fever, cough, runny nose and watery eyes. The uptick in cases, Yale experts the News spoke to suggest, can be attributed to vaccine hesitancy and decreased vaccination rates, among other things. Though the virus is contagious, the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine is highly effective at preventing infection, with a 93 percent effectiveness rate. The first dose is given at 12-15 months and the second at four to six years of age. 

“The evidence indicates that the measles outbreak in Texas is due to reduced vaccination rates in that geographic area. Measles is a very contagious disease, but the routine childhood vaccination schedule in the U.S. prevents it,” Dr. Ellen Foxman, associate professor of immunobiology at the School of Medicine, told the News. “When the vaccination rate drops, if there is even one case, the virus can spread quickly to any unprotected contacts. The straightforward way to counteract this is vaccination.” 

The Texas Department of State Health Services reported an outbreak of measles in the Panhandle region of Texas, beginning in January. A majority of these cases are located in Gaines County, with the state health services department reporting one death of a school aged child who was not vaccinated. This is the biggest measles outbreak the state has seen in more than 30 years. 

The child’s parents are members of a Mennonite community, with a kindergarten vaccination rate for measles, mumps and rubella in the county sitting at around 82 percent — the state average vaccination rate is at around 91 percent for the first dose and 80.9 percent for the second dose. In terms of full series vaccination rates, Texas falls behind the rest of the nation, with a state average vaccination rate of 67.8 percent. 

“This outbreak is occurring in an area where there is a low rate of measles vaccination. Measles is one of the most contagious diseases in existence, so to stop an outbreak you need a roughly 95 percent vaccination rate or higher,” Dr. Scott Roberts, associate medical director for infection prevention at the School of Medicine, told the News. “There are pockets of the U.S. where it is significantly less than that, and we are seeing the impact of that in real time.” 

The child’s parents had five children catch measles, and they treated the children with inhaled steroids and castor oil. The couple made comments about not taking the MMR vaccine, saying that the infection “wasn’t that bad” for the other children. 

This outbreak came around the same time Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was confirmed to be secretary of the U.S Department of Health and Human Services. Kennedy has made statements in the past about COVID-19, stating the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System record “confirms that this [COVID] is the deadliest vaccine ever made.” He has also made statements to Fox News about how he believes “autism comes from vaccines.” 

“Secretary Kennedy has been quite vocal about his skepticism toward certain vaccines and has promoted misinformation,” Jackson Higginbottom MPH ’20, vaccine demand strategist at the CDC foundation, told the News. “That said, I think it is important to understand that these outbreaks reflect broader trends. We’ve been seeing declining vaccination rates for several years now, well before the current administration.” 

Deaths as a result of vaccination are a rare occurrence, as there are numerous rigid guidelines that must be met in order to release vaccines to the public, and once they are prepared for human use, there are precautions taken about who gets vaccinated to ensure the utmost safety. 

Despite rigorous evidence from the CDC on the safety of vaccines, the dissemination of Kennedy’s misinformation on vaccination are playing a role in government leadership, and with sweeping cuts to state and community health departments, education and access to vaccines has been affected. 

“What’s happening is that public figures with platforms as significant as Secretary Kennedy’s can amplify existing concerns and potentially accelerate these trends through their policy positions and public statements,” Higginbottom told the News. 

Higginbottom also described the ways in which the COVID-19 pandemic has transformed dynamics involving vaccine hesitancy, citing factors such as social media platforms being algorithmically designed to amplify content that generates reactions, shifting trust in medical institutions and government agencies and changing ideas on individual choice versus collective responsibility. 

The COVID vaccine’s rapid development raised a lot of questions for people about public health. The nation saw an unprecedented politicization of public health measures, which made it difficult for some to separate true scientific guidance from political messaging. 

“Disproven myths, such as the [measles, mumps and rubella vaccine] causing autism, are continuing to be circulated. Also with the recent changes at Health and Human Services, I worry that local public health departments, who are already resource-strained, will be further reduced over time,” Dr. Roberts told the News. “I worry that misinformation being promoted, coupled with the changes in public health infrastructure, will make stopping this outbreak all the more challenging.” 

The Yale School of Public Health is located at 60 College St. 

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This consolidation of the workforce comes after what the agency describes as “the biggest action in U.S. history.” On March 12, Administrator Lee Zeldin announced a series of 31 actions to advance President Trump’s executive orders, stating that while the agency is committed to protecting the environment, they are also interested in fulfilling the Administration’s promises to reduce living costs for Americans, strengthen American energy, among other actions.  

“When the agency was founded, there was this old saying that the air is so polluted that the people of Denver wanted to see the mountains again, the people of Los Angeles wanted to see each other again, the water was so contaminated that we had rivers bursting into flames,” Paul Anastas, professor in the practice of Chemistry for the Environment, told the News. “These are not history lessons, these are guarantees of what our future will look like if we don’t take the actions necessary to preserve our environment.”

Anastas is widely known as the Father of Green Chemistry and served as the assistant administrator of the EPA. During this time, Anastas worked to create the EPA’s Scientific Integrity Policy which prohibits political interference with scientists, the conduct of their work and the share of their work. 

The EPA was created by Richard Nixon in 1970 to address a growing number of environmental concerns including environmental pollution, industrial waste, water pollution and interactions between human health and the environment. 

The Office of Research and Development, ORD, is the arm of the EPA responsible for providing a foundation for decision making to protect human health and the environment from pollutants. 

“We don’t have to see research on climate change as being so awfully different from research on cancer, and paint the picture so black and white, but I do think that is what’s happening,” Karla Neugebauer, professor of Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry, told the News.

The information generated by the ORD is the basis of all the regulatory programs, decision making throughout the offices of the EPA, and it is the basis for all of the State departments’ environmental protection initiatives. It is also a widely used source for governments around the world.

The ORD manages the Integrated Risk Information System, IRIS, which is the go-to source for understanding risks involving activities, such as monitoring water quality and quantifying risks associated with various pollutants and how those risks can be mitigated. 

“EPA’s mission of protecting human health and the environment rests on the scientific foundation provided by the ORD. IRIS appears to be a target of both the ORD cuts and the No IRIS Act introduced in Congress,” Shimon Anisfeld, a research scientist in water resources at the Yale School of the Environment, told the News. “Trying to protect water quality without IRIS and ORD is driving blind, an approach that will certainly lead to increased pollution with real-world consequences for ecosystems and communities, especially those with the least power to fight polluters on their own.” 

The agency claims that its actions will roll back trillions in cost of living for American families. The purpose of these deregulatory actions are to remove the government control on industries and sectors to increase competition and lower cost.

Some of these actions include terminating Biden’s Environmental Justice and diversity, equity and inclusion arms of the agency, reconstituting the Science Advisory Board and Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee, reconsidering the National Emission Standards for Hazardous Air Pollutants and reconsidering Mercury and Air Toxics standards. 

“We have to recognize that science has been the golden goose for the U.S. economy, it has been the driver of innovation. Science drives innovation. Poison in our environment is poison in our economy,” Dr. Anastas told the News. “We have run this experiment before, and it didn’t work out very well. Run it again, we are going to do it at tremendous cost to people’s health and even the economy.” 

James Payne, former acting EPA Administrator, issued a directive ordering the staff at the EPA to halt communications outside of the agency, on Jan. 24. 

When asked for specific examples of research initiatives that have been blocked or delayed, Dr. Anastas admitted he was unable to share without revealing who the scientists are involved, as they currently feel under threat. 

“I know that scientists have been told to stop their work, stop their projects, and not communicate with scientists,” Anastas told the News when asked about colleagues currently at the EPA. “There are examples that I am personally aware of scientists from the EPA who are invited to conferences because of their expertise, who are being directed not to attend and not to participate.” 

The Yale School of the Environment is located at 195 Prospect St.

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The Humanitarian Research Lab, or HRL, based at the School of Public Health, investigates the alleged mass deportation of Ukrainian children to Russia using open-source intelligence and satellite imagery. Launched in 2022 with $6 million in federal funding, the lab is part of a broader international effort to document potential war crimes and ensure the preservation of critical evidence.

On Feb. 27, the U.S. Department of State paused funding, halting the lab’s work. The State Department has since granted the lab a six-week extension to finalize its evidence preservation efforts, according to the University spokesperson. HRL’s data repository is expected to be transferred to Europol, the European Union’s law enforcement agency, in the coming weeks.

The current six-week extension will allow the lab to complete ongoing analysis and prepare its dataset for transfer to Europol. The long-term future of federal support for the lab remains unclear.

The February pause in funding was not accompanied by a public explanation from the State Department. A spokesperson from Yale confirmed the suspension in early March.

The lab had previously uncovered Russia’s systematic deportation and coerced adoption of Ukrainian children, which HRL researchers described as one of the largest missing persons cases since World War II. In a December 2024 report, the team documented at least 314 children, primarily from the Eastern Donbas region, who were forcibly moved into Russia’s adoption system.

The lab had previously partnered with the U.S. government to document the forced transfer of Ukrainian children following Russia’s 2022 invasion. 

Myron Melnyk, a Yale alumnus and translator involved with HRL, expressed concern over the funding uncertainty, stating that the lab’s documentation efforts could play a role in future international negotiations.

The State Department has not publicly commented on the funding pause or the reinstatement.

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The School of Medicine immunologist has been working on antiviral drug discovery for emerging pathogens through a National Institutes of Health grant. Although his project was not directly focused on COVID-19, it was swept up in a broader termination of pandemic-related grants. 

Wilen was one of the researchers affected by a recent wave of COVID-19 federal funding cuts. Now, with experiments suspended and hiring frozen, Wilen is left with questions — not only about his own lab’s future, but also about the reliability of federal scientific funding itself.

“It’s not just the loss of money,” Wilen told the News. “It’s the uncertainty. If these grants can be canceled overnight without a clear rationale, how are we supposed to plan or invest in pandemic preparedness?”

In internal documents obtained by Nature, the NIH cited the end of the public health emergency as justification for rescinding pandemic-era research grants, stating that they were “no longer necessary.”

However, faculty at Yale say the move is premature — and potentially harmful to national health preparedness.

“COVID is not over,” said Dr. Sandy Chang ’88, former dean of STEM education and professor of laboratory medicine. “There’s still a significant number of people dying. These cuts are just going to cost additional lives.”

While much of the public has returned to pre-pandemic routines, Yale researchers emphasize that the need for continued research remains urgent. Several labs at the university continue to investigate long COVID, vaccine efficacy and transmission prevention — research heavily reliant on sustained NIH support.

Though his own research is not COVID-related, Chang said the broader funding slowdown has already disrupted the review timeline for grants like his. Chang submitted a grant proposal in January, which he said has still not been assigned a study section.

“Lots of us are in limbo,” Chang said. “We could write 100 grants, but if you’re not going to review them, it’s pointless.”

The effects, according to Chang, reach far beyond delays. He said colleagues in the Department of Laboratory Medicine and the Department of Immunobiology, whose work focuses on COVID-19 and other viruses, are now at risk of losing funding entirely. 

He added that the funding rollback doesn’t just target COVID-specific work — it also jeopardizes research into other pandemic threats, like that conducted by Wilen.

“There are short-sighted, undisciplined cuts, which are not going to lead to any benefit for the American people,” Chang said.

Wilen’s experience reflects that broader concern. His lab was part of a large NIH-funded antiviral development initiative known as AViDD, which supported nine national centers to study pandemic threats. 

Despite the project focusing on a wide range of pathogens, Wilen said all participating teams received abrupt termination notices, citing the end of the COVID emergency. 

“Our research focused on other viruses with pandemic potential,” Wilen said. “Canceling these grants under the logic that ‘COVID is over’ makes no sense at all.”

The decision not only halted Wilen’s planned work but disrupted lab infrastructure, staff support and long-term planning.

Jason Abaluck, professor at the Yale School of Management, echoed concerns about a loss of trust in federal funding. He described the policy shift as “incoherent” and damaging to research stability, and emphasized that even modest investments in vaccine development or public health research can yield high returns.

“We should be gladly paying that money, given the social value of the innovations that come out of the NIH,” Abaluck said. “Even if everything else NIH-funded were a total waste — and it’s not — the return from drug development alone more than justifies the investment.”

According to Abaluck, cutting funding based on the assumption that the pandemic is over risks stalling life-saving innovations. 

Jordan Peccia, professor of chemical and environmental engineering, underscored the importance of research on airborne transmission.

“No one figured out how to stop the environmental spread of COVID-19,” Peccia wrote. “We are very far from controlling infectious disease … Let’s not go through that again.”

Beyond immediate disruptions, Yale researchers also worry about long-term impacts on the scientific workforce. 

Wilen said postdocs and early-career researchers are beginning to look outside the United States for more stable opportunities. Others are considering leaving academia entirely.

“We’re going to lose some of the best people,” he said. “And there are experiments — important ones — that simply won’t be done now.”

Dr. Howard Forman, professor of public health and management, noted that the cuts could also influence the direction of U.S. scientific innovation, as they signal to researchers that “certain areas are going to be less productive for their time.” 

While Yale and other universities have begun offering temporary bridge funding to offset the losses, faculty say it is not a long-term solution. Wilen added that the inconsistency in federal policy makes it difficult to predict which programs may be at risk next.

“This isn’t about a single grant,” he said. “It’s about whether the government is going to stand behind the research it says it values.”

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The cuts, announced by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services on March 27, terminated grants that supported programs across the Connecticut Department of Public Health — or DPH — the Department of Mental Health and Addiction Services — or DMHAS — and the Office of Early Childhood. The rescinded funding had enabled initiatives such as newborn screenings, infectious disease surveillance, immunization campaigns and community-based addiction treatment. Several of such programs had longstanding ties to Yale through research collaborations, public health partnerships and training pipelines for medical and public health students, concerning researchers and professors across the university.

Connecticut Attorney General William Tong joined attorneys general from states including California, New York, Massachusetts, Illinois and Pennsylvania in the lawsuit, which seeks an immediate injunction to prevent further terminations and reinstate the grants. The complaint alleges that the administration’s actions violate the Administrative Procedure Act, which prohibits federal agencies from making abrupt policy changes without public notice or justification.

Connecticut’s legal response has drawn support from Yale faculty who see the lawsuit as a critical step toward preserving public health infrastructure. Dr. Reshma Ramachandran, assistant professor at the School of Medicine, said she supports the legal challenge and sees it as essential to protecting Connecticut’s health infrastructure.

“It’s a good sign that the state is taking this seriously and pushing back,” she told the News. “But I worry that without immediate relief, the damage to public health capacity and research will already be done.”

State officials have said the funding terminations will force the cancellation of dozens of contracts, including 48 local immunization partnerships and regional behavioral health services, according to the press release from Gov. Ned Lamont. 

The grants, authorized by Congress during the COVID-19 pandemic, were designed to bolster long-term infrastructure for disease monitoring, rural outreach and public health modernization, according to Lamont’s press release. Now, health providers and local agencies are bracing for service disruptions as programs wind down.

“These abrupt and unexpected cuts to our health system are going to have a devastating impact on our ability to fight disease, protect the health of newborns, provide mental health and addiction treatment services and keep people safe,” Gov. Lamont said in a March 27 press release.

In the press release, Lamont emphasized that the rescinded funds were not short-term emergency relief, but multi-year investments intended to sustain long-term public health readiness. 

Commissioner of Public Health Manisha Juthani said the grants helped build “core public health functions,” and warned that the loss of funding would severely limit the state’s ability to detect and respond to emerging threats.

The state’s preliminary review shows that several programs are already paused or shuttered, including mobile vaccine clinics, newborn screening enhancements and genomic surveillance equipment installation. The Office of Early Childhood’s Family Bridge Program, which sends nurses to visit families of newborns, is also slated for defunding.

Dr. Sandy Chang ’88, former dean of STEM education and professor of Laboratory Medicine, said the effects of the funding cuts are likely to ripple through both the public and academic health systems.

“All the public health initiatives that Connecticut has been doing — immunization, early cancer detection — are going to go away,” he told the News. “It’s going to impact the most needy people, the people who need critical care and are supported by these initiatives.”

Chang added that beyond community-level consequences, the rollback of funding may hinder clinical research collaborations and preventative medicine programs at Yale and other academic institutions. Many of these programs depend on state and federal support to operate, especially those serving vulnerable populations in New Haven and other underserved regions.

Public health experts have also raised concerns about Connecticut’s future preparedness for pandemics or other health emergencies. According to the state’s impact assessment, the termination of electronic disease reporting and syndromic surveillance tools will limit the state’s ability to track outbreaks in real time or coordinate with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Chang said the sudden removal of infrastructure funding puts the state in a weaker position to respond to future disease outbreaks. 

“Preventative medicine, future pandemic response—all of that’s going to be curtailed,” he said. “If there’s another COVID — or something like it — we’re crippled. Not just us, but the CDC and global monitoring efforts as well.”

Yale faculty have also highlighted the consequences of these changes for research and workforce development. Ramachandran noted that some public health staff funded by these grants have already been laid off, including those working on newborn screening programs. She said the effects of the cuts will extend beyond service access.

“This funding is critical not just for delivering public health interventions, but for evaluating whether they actually work,” Ramachandran said. “We’re going to see a huge narrowing of the pipeline of people coming into academic medicine and research.”

Ramachandran added that the loss of surveillance capacity may further strain healthcare systems already dealing with increased respiratory illness. She cited the recent severe flu season in Connecticut, which left hospital emergency departments over capacity, as an example of the risks posed by limited state-level coordination and real-time tracking tools.

Economists are also critical of the cuts. Jason Abaluck, a professor at the School of Management, said that federal public health and NIH funding consistently show high social return on investment, especially in biomedical innovation and pharmaceutical development. He noted that reductions in funding are likely to reduce research productivity and innovation across the country.

“You get a lot less research, and that research is on the margin clearly worth that spending,” Abaluck told the News. “Even if only a small portion of NIH grants lead to new drug development, the health and economic value generated is significant.”

Abaluck explained that while the $150 million in lost funding represents a small fraction of Connecticut’s economy, the targeted removal of low-cost, high-impact prevention programs could lead to higher downstream costs — both in healthcare spending and public health outcomes.

The multistate lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, expands on these concerns. The plaintiffs argue that the Department of Health and Human Services provided no rationale for terminating the grants, failed to consult with stakeholders and ignored the severe consequences to state and local health systems.

“The Department’s abrupt decision to terminate funding for vital public health infrastructure programs threatens the health and safety of millions of people,” the complaint reads. “These funds were lawfully appropriated by Congress and relied upon by states and territories across the nation.”

As litigation over the funding cuts proceeds, state officials say they will continue to evaluate which programs may be preserved or restored through alternate means. Faculty members like Ramachandran believe the lawsuit is a necessary step, but warn that even a successful legal challenge may come too late to reverse the short-term damage. 

“Programs have already stopped, and people have already lost their jobs,” she said. “The long-term effects may last far beyond this funding cycle.”

The post Connecticut sues Trump administration over $150M in public health cuts appeared first on Yale Daily News.

Last month, the Public Health Committee of the Legislature proposed a bill that could help resolve the issue. S.B. 1285 would create a pilot program for four opioid OPCs in Connecticut beginning in June 2026. This would allow people to use drugs in a monitored setting with access to mental health counseling and medical treatment.

“The advantages of overdose prevention centers is that they create a site where people can not just use drugs safely, but also get medical care, get a square meal, a cup of coffee, use a computer and seek treatment through a referral,” Robert Heimer, professor of pharmacology at the School of Public Health, told the News. “It allows drug users to come together, to talk about their problems, to seek treatment if they are ready for it, to talk to people who successfully managed the transition to medication based treatment. It really saves lives.”

According to Heimer, approximately seven million people in the United States struggle with moderate to severe opioid use disorder, contributing to approximately 700,000 deaths annually. In Connecticut alone, the crisis claims an average of 120 lives each month. Though the rate of opioid overdoses is beginning to go down gradually, New Haven continues to be a hotspot for overdose deaths. And the current rate does not appear to be due to increasing fentanyl supply or due to more people going into treatment.

Currently, there are various frameworks for addressing the opioid overdose crisis in New Haven. The first approach is expanding access to methadone, a medication that reduces withdrawal symptoms and cravings, to help individuals manage opioid use disorder; second, efforts have intensified to distribute naloxone and clean syringes in cities to prevent overdoses and reduce harm; lastly, programs now test drug samples to detect dangerous substances, ensuring users are aware of what they’re consuming. 

However, Heimer points out that accessing these services requires financial resources, awareness, time and personal commitment — barriers that make it challenging for many individuals to get the help they need. OPCs can tackle these barriers.

OPCs provide a safe space for people to use pre-obtained drugs under the supervision of trained staff, without fear of arrest or of overdose. They provide sterile use supplies, answer questions on safer use practices, administer first aid and watch for an overdose. OPCs have sprang up across the world in 14 countries, though in New England, there is only one in Rhode Island. 

Kimberly Sue, assistant professor of internal medicine at the School of Medicine, indicates that what makes OPCs different from treatment centers like the APT Foundation is the lack of direct treatment. At the APT Foundation, individuals can access treatments like methadone and receive primary care; OPCs are for individuals who are trying to use drugs safely.

“If you inject fentanyl, you don’t know how strong it is. You basically could overdose in the span of one minute to 20 minutes, depending on how much you’re doing. So to reverse that overdose, OPCs provide oxygen or even naloxone. So that’s a medication that’ll kick the fentanyl off of opioid receptors, and you can start breathing again, and it saves your life. Time is brain,” Sue said.

These centers do more than just reverse potentially fatal overdoses; it provides a community of medical and mental support. OPCs are associated with better health benefits as they promote cleaner use of drugs and needles through education, reducing transmissions of diseases. Individuals can access medical resources like vaccines and regular wellness care for half the cost. And when they’re ready, they can access substance use disorder and mental health counseling with educational information. For the community, OPCs reduce public drug use and drug debris.

“In addition, OPCs prevent people from having to go to the emergency department or call anyone or ambulances to send them to the hospital,” Benjamin Howell, assistant professor of general medicine, said. “That is where people and the city can save money. OPCs definitely have been shown to be cost-effective in the long run.”

With holistic care, laundry services and computer access, OPCs can serve as vital community hubs, offering social support to drug users who have been marginalized, abandoned and left to struggle alone on the streets.

According to Heimer, OPCs can also reduce the stigma and its impact around drug addicts and drug users. Many individuals may feel demoralized or blamed for their disease and medical problems, when it’s usually a secondary mental health problem that inspired their drug use. And with the stifling stigma of mental health care, many would rather turn to drugs that make them feel better than seek mental health treatment. The stigma around drug use has also led to subpar treatment in hospitals, where they aren’t prioritized for care and forced to go through withdrawals.

In New York, OPCs are frequently used by the same individuals. According to Sue, during an OPC’s first year of operation in NYC, it recorded 48,000 visits and intervened in 636 overdoses. Most of these visitors were registered with the OPC. While Connecticut’s OPCs will likely see fewer visitors, they will also require individuals to register for services.

Last year, the bill was proposed in the state House of Representatives, though it didn’t pull through despite support from psychiatrists and harm reduction activists. One of the reasons why it didn’t pass was because of fears that OPCs will encourage drug use. However, Sue believes that people will find a way to use drugs, especially those physically dependent on them. 

“So there’s two options,” Sue told the News. “One, I’m going to go use a Dunkin’ Donuts bathroom. I’m going to use a needle that I’ve used multiple times before, that is not sterile and has been shared. I could miss my vein and I could overdose and die there. The other option is you go to a place where it’s clean. You can wash your hands. You can use a new sterile syringe. Someone with training who will watch you and make sure that you’re safe.”

In addition, some community members were fearful that construction of these OPCs will increase local crime. However, according to Sue, that’s been proven false in various research articles done at the national and international level. 

Currently, the Public Health Committee has expressed support for this bill. Howell acknowledges that while Connecticut’s opioid crisis is not as severe as in New York or Vancouver, he sees OPCs primarily as an educational tool and a symbol of solidarity rather than just a response to overdose deaths. 

However, Howell believes that the biggest challenge to passing the bill in Connecticut may not be community sentiment but rather the need for strong governmental support — especially given the political climate under the current presidency. Trump is looking to prosecute those who provide a place to use drugs, and Howell is unsure if the state government is ready to take on the federal attention OPCs might bring.

“I mean, don’t get me wrong; OPCs absolutely work. It’s a great public health intervention,” Howell said. “It just takes a lot of courage on the state’s level to pass a bill that might get some fire from the federal government.”

As of 2025, Connecticut residents are more likely to die from unintentional drug overdose than a motor vehicle crash.

The post How overdose prevention centers can change the game in the fight against the opioid epidemic appeared first on Yale Daily News.