Federal funding and science doubled life expectancy. We can’t do more with less.

Skip to content

The views expressed by contributors are their own and not the view of The Hill

Today’s life expectancy is due in no small measure to sustained U.S. governmental support for critical vaccine research and humanitarian aid. These efforts have halted the spread of serious disease and saved millions of lives here at home and around the world.

For decades, the U.S. government provided critical federal funding to the medical and public health community. This commitment is now waning, putting the health of the American people at risk and jeopardizing our ability to pioneer future medical breakthroughs.

One of the most influential immunologists of all time is an American who few people have ever heard about. Dr. Maurice Hilleman, raised on a farm just outside Miles City, Montana, developed 40 vaccines throughout his lifetime. Eight of them became commonly administered to children for protection against serious communicable diseases, including measles, mumps, hepatitis A, hepatitis B, chickenpox, meningitis, pneumonia and the flu.

His discoveries weren’t accidents. They were based on years of hard work and painstaking research, backed by the support and encouragement of an American government that understood the significance and importance of his work.

U.S. support for public health has extended far beyond government-funded research. For years, the U.S. spent billions fighting tuberculosis which saved nearly 80 million lives. Another initiative, the U.S. President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), which supported HIV prevention, care and treatment for over two decades, has saved an estimated 26 million lives.

The impact of this work has been monumental. The average global life expectancy has doubled since 1900. Research attributes vaccinations, combined with improved hygiene and antibiotics, with this achievement.

Which is why this moment is so troubling.

We are at dangerous risk of turning back the clock on the strides we’ve made in public health. U.S. donations to curb tuberculosis abruptly stopped in 2025 with the abolition of the U.S. Agency for International Development, opening the door for the disease to spread internationally. Cuts to PEPFAR have also been announced.

The U.S. is also showing signs of retreating from the very immunization practices that have produced remarkable health gains. Measles, a highly contagious disease that was eliminated in the U.S. as of 2000, has returned in communities where vaccination rates have fallen as other states continue to see significant spikes in whooping cough.

These outbreaks used to be extremely rare. Today they are increasingly disrupting schools and putting immunocompromised Americans in harm’s way.

Public trust in science demands that government officials, whose actions have influence over population behavior, respect and support it, too. And when those leaders question long-established health practices, or use vaccinations to score political points, Americans stand to suffer the consequences.

The recent decision by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to end the military’s longstanding requirement for influenza vaccination reinforces the point. Back in April, Hegseth ended mandatory flu shots for U.S. troops.

“The notion that a flu vaccine must be mandatory for every service member, everywhere, in every circumstance at all times is just overly broad and not rational,” he declared at the time.

Just two months later, a flu outbreak at Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio, Texas, reportedly impacted 275 service members and sent four to the hospital. Hegseth quickly reinstated the vaccination policy for recruits — because the science shows vaccinations work.

Public health decision-making should not be exempt from rigorous debate. But rejecting proven remedies that have protected the health of the American people for decades without offering any compelling contradictory evidence is a major step backward.

Before vaccines, most families feared diseases that today’s younger generations have never heard about. Polio paralyzed children. Measles hospitalized nearly 50,000 people annually. Those memories have faded because our government led the way in trusting the science.

We are now at an inflection point. Our government leaders can choose to partner with public health experts and follow the science to thwart the challenges that lie ahead. Or we can accept the brutal truth that once preventable diseases that can wreak havoc will increasingly become part of everyday reality — while diseases on the horizon that have yet to be discovered will have a deadly advantage.

Research on Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s own website estimates that vaccinations administered to children born between 1994-2013 will have prevented 322 million illnesses, 732,000 deaths and 21 million hospitalizations over the course of their lifetimes. Government-backed research made these statistics possible.

For years, progress in public health has been led by scientific process. The pathogens American researchers spent generations trying to control haven’t gone away. They’re waiting patiently, invisibly, for us to put our guard down so that they’ll have the chance to strike again.

We have the tools to prevent this from happening — but only if government officials trust what the evidence shows and are willing to fund global public health measures going forward, for the health of America and our fellow nations around the world.

Lyndon Haviland, DrPH, MPH, is a distinguished scholar at the CUNY School of Public Health and Health Policy.

Tags

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

chickenpox vaccine

Dr. Maurice Hilleman

Federal research grants

flu outbreak

flu vaccine

hepatitis a vaccine

hepatitis B vaccine

measles

measles outbreaks

MMR vaccine

Mumps vaccine

PEPFAR

Pete Hegseth

Pete Hegseth

pneumonia vaccine

Polio vaccine

research funding

tuberculosis

U.S. government

usaid cuts

vaccine health

vaccine hesitancy

vaccine recommendations

vaccines

whooping cough

Copyright 2026 Nexstar Media Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.