How We Broke Public Health: A National Security Perspective

In 2014, I helped write the U.S. Government’s pandemic preparedness playbook. It was detailed, evidence-based, and designed to guide agencies through the fog of biological crisis. That playbook was ignored. The institutions that were supposed to serve as the nation’s immune system instead became vectors of dysfunction. From my position as a national security scientist—briefing the Trump Administration, the National Security Council, and working across HHS, DHS, USDA, DoD, and the Intelligence Community—I witnessed the controlled demolition of our public health system, aided by political cowardice, bureaucratic inertia, and international sabotage.

My firsthand work in pandemic planning began with the National Center for Food Protection and Defense, continued with HHS and the CDC, and later expanded throug…