Disease Burdens

Right. Time to address a new elephant that has entered the room: disease burdens. How am I qualified to talk about this? I have a more-than-passing interest in medical science, and am conversant with, and make daily use of, complementary health systems (which, for clarity, literally complement, and are not diametrically opposed to, modern medical advancements). Also, as a trained economist with links to work being done in developing countries, I have a working understanding of the socio-economic effects of health burdens. I also have friends whose quality of life is directly affected by the current US Health Secretary’s wilfully profound medical science illiteracy.

In the US president’s Executive Order of the 13th of February 2025, sweeping statements are made about life expectancy, health burdens and other socio-economic health indicators. However, the EO completely ignores the main drivers of disease burdens (usually HIV/AIDS, infectious and non-infectious diseases, respiratory infections and nutritional deficiencies, among others) and focuses instead on antidepressants, autism (?) and ADHD.

While the high need for anti-depressants is concerning (stress, anyone? Poor diet, anyone? Sometimes, it’s just how a person’s body functions), the production and use of anti-depressants is not in itself a driver of health burdens. It’s most frequently a symptom of deeper societal issues (see stress, poor diet). Classing autism and ADHD as “diseases” … well, while they can both be categorised as “dis-ease”, they are certainly not key drivers of health burdens.

Current US policy appears to be:

Don’t track the spread of infectious diseases. This is the effect of the very early freeze on external communications imposed on federal health institutions.Reduce, or cease, vaccination programmes.Ignore infectious diseases as a driver of greater health burdens on the economy, and of lower life expectancy.Attempt to remove the modern treatments that improve quality of life for those struggling with depression – SSRIs, anti-depressants, etc.Ignore the research that has proven that autism is neither a disability nor a disease, but, rather, is how a person is.

And all of this without taking cognizance of the actual drivers of poor societal health, such as nutritional deficiencies (eg. ultra-processed foods), stress (the Trumpomuskovia regime is likely to CAUSE more stress than it cures), infectious diseases that we have spent a century and more trying to eradicate – with the help of vaccination programmes – and last but not least, the simple fact that not all human beings are created equal, with the result that our bodies operate on an individual basis, and sometimes we need a little extra help in order to function optimally and be the best we can be.

All countries have a baseline of how many births and deaths they can expect in a year. When the number of people who die is more than is expected, this is called “excess deaths”. We saw this phenomenon during the COVID pandemic, where more than the usual/expected number of people died. It will not surprise me if we see the US experiencing excess deaths over the next few years as a result of the current health secretary’s policies.

But the big question is: will we even know?

Laurel C. Kriegler's Blog

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