NOAA comes under Trump administration scrutiny
Scaling back work of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration would have a devastating impact on science and the ability of Americans to prepare for increasingly dangerous weather, experts warn.
NOAA, which is a major global source of data on extreme weather and climate change, is one of most recent agencies to come under scrutiny from the Trump administration, with workers from the so-called Department of Government Efficiency entering the agency’s Maryland headquarters Feb. 4 to access IT systems.
The attention continued Feb. 6, when officials at the U.S. Commerce Department instructed NOAA staff to identify grants that may involve topics covered by President Trump’s recent executive orders, covering terms such as climate, greenhouse gas and methane, Axios reported. Workers at NOAA’s National Marine Fisheries Service were told to pause all international engagements, according to a report from Wired, while former NOAA officials told Politico’s E&E News that the Trump administration is looking to cut the agency’s workforce by half.
Supporters are worried the administration is planning to follow through on Project 2025 guidance for the federal agency, which would gut its work. Released by the conservative Heritage Foundation in 2024, Project 2025 calls for dismantling NOAA, commercializing the National Weather Service and eliminating climate change research from the agency’s Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research, which the project called a source of “climate alarmism.” Research shared by the office over the past year has included reports on shorter winters in the Great Lakes, increasing surface ozone generated by wildfires, growing fossil fuel-related carbon emissions and the increasing role of heat in droughts in the Western U.S.
Members of Congress and environmental groups denounced attempts to interfere with NOAA’s work, with Juan Declet-Barreto, senior social scientist for climate vulnerability at the Union of Concerned Scientists, stating that “decimating the nation’s premier climate science agency will not make the existential climate change threat disappear.”
Among its work, NOAA operates Climate.gov, a hub for weather and climate-related science and resources, including information linking climate change to human activity and a toolkit designed to help Americans adapt to change. The agency’s Climate Program Office funds research, outreach and education on topics that have included community drought resilience, the impacts of wildfire emissions and climate adaption in rural areas.
NOAA also issues annual and monthly global climate reports through its National Centers for Environmental Information. Its most recent report shared that last month was globally the warmest January ever recorded, and the 10th-warmest January on record for North America.
U.S. kids dying from extreme weather
Extreme weather is accounting for a growing proportion of deaths among U.S. children, a new study finds.
From 2001 to 2021, more than 1,400 children in the U.S. died from extreme weather, such as major floods, intense heat waves and powerful hurricanes, according to the Feb. 11 study in Pediatrics.
Flooding and rip currents were the deadliest type of event for children, making up 37% of all weather-related deaths for the population. Winter weather, ice and cold were linked to 13% of deaths; tornadoes to another 13%; heat to 12%; and hurricanes and storms to 11%.
Almost half of the children died in Alabama, Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas — all Gulf Coast states — as well as in Georgia. Children living in rural areas were at especially high risk. While rural areas were home to only about 22% of U.S. children, 42% of the children who died from extreme weather lived in rural areas.
Children younger than age 3 and older than age 13 were at highest risk of dying from extreme weather.
Human-caused climate change is fueling more extreme weather in the U.S., strengthening hurricane intensity, creating longer and more intense heat waves, and worsening flooding, among other effects.
Health care company shareholders getting bigger payouts
Payouts to shareholders of health care companies have tripled over the past 20 years, scientists report in a new research letter.
Nearly 100 publicly traded health care companies listed on the S&P 500 health care index paid out a combined $170 billion to their shareholders in 2022, according to the research published Feb. 10 in JAMA Internal Medicine. The total represents a 315% increase in shareholder payouts since 2001.
Nineteen of the companies — which included health care facilities, health care distributors and pharmaceutical businesses — accounted for about 80% of the payouts. In some cases, shareholder payouts exceeded the net income of the companies, the research letter said.
The pharmaceutical industry accounted for the almost 46% of the payouts over the study period, providing $1.2 trillion to its shareholders. The biotechnology industry paid out $394.4 billion; managed health care, $376 billion; and health care equipment and supplies, $341 billion.
The increase in payouts came even as Americans faced higher health care premiums and out-of-pocket expenses, the Yale School of Medicine researchers noted. They suggested the higher payments to shareholders were associated with higher prices for health care.
Other recent public health news of note:
• Many rural residents must travel more than an hour for surgical care, says a new study in the Journal of the American Medical Association. About 44% of rural Medicare patients had to travel 60 minutes or more for surgery in 2020, an almost 20% jump from 2010. Reasons for the increase include ongoing rural hospital closures and health care workforce shortages, researchers said.
• While fewer people in Appalachia are being diagnosed with and dying from cancer in Appalachia, incidence rates remain high compared to the rest of the U.S., a study in the Journal of the American College of Surgeons finds. Reasons for the disparities include poverty, poor access to care and the coal mining industry, researchers said.
• People who are injured at work have poorer mental health in later years than people injured elsewhere, a Feb. 13 study in JAMA Network Open finds. Researchers said processes for workplace injury claims and compensation may contribute to the disparity.
• A study in Environmental Science & Technology finds that Proposition 65, the California law that requires manufacturers to provide warnings about significant exposures to chemicals, often prompts businesses to reformulate their products.
• Dust storms, which are becoming more frequent in the Southwest U.S. with climate change, drive up visits to hospital emergency departments, according to new science in JAMA Network Open. The storms were linked to cases of asthma, pneumonia and heart failure — some as much as seven days later — as well as motor vehicle crashes.
• People with ALS who are from disadvantaged neighborhoods may not live as long as patients in high-income areas, recent research in Neurology finds. Researchers noted that people with low incomes may be less able to afford caregiving that can help them manage the progressively fatal disease, which can cause paralysis and loss of muscle control.
• Cardiovascular risks for Black Americans remain high, says new science from the American Heart Association. Black communities in the U.S. face disproportionately higher risk of heart disease, stroke and hypertension, contributing to unequal death rates, according to the report in Circulation.
• Even brief exposure to high levels of air pollution can make it harder to focus on tasks and avoid distractions, according to new research in Nature Communications. Researchers said inflammation may play a role in reducing cognitive function.
• Eight inspectors general fired by the Trump administration filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court Feb. 12, contending their terminations were “unlawful and unjustified.” The plaintiffs served as watchdogs at federal agencies such as the departments of Agriculture, Labor and Health and Human Services until they were removed last month along with nine others.
The Watch is written by Michele Late, who has more than two decades of experience as a public health journalist.