It’s no secret public health funding and power grew immensely during the COVID-19 era. But less is known of the infrastructure of NGOs which influence the policies and activities of America’s public health entities down to the local level.

Since the return of President Trump, Elon Musk and DOGE have exposed billions of dollars in waste and fraud being shuffled to NGOs at home and around the world, often operating to the benefit of a particular political party and its agenda.

As in other areas of the federal bureaucracy, NGO influence on public health is far reaching. NGOs impact national and state policy, as well as local level operations, making it the perfect conduit for spreading progressive ideology across America. Over recent years, public health priorities have become almost indistinguishable from the Democratic Party platform.

Capitalizing on our culture’s dependence on “experts,” local health departments have been used to credential and spread policy on climate change, racial equity/structural racism (DEI), and LGBTQ+ and Planned Parenthood sexuality agendas for children. With the onset of COVID-19, public health powers and funding grew exponentially to push enforcement of unproven vaccines and health measures for the “common good”— while harming individual freedoms and parental rights, the ability to make personal health care choices, and the health, development, and mental well-being of America’s children.

But these are not the first examples of public health exhibiting questionable judgment. One need look no further than the U.S. Public Health Service’s Untreated Syphilis Study at Tuskegee on Black men or the National Institutes of Health's 1990's-era AIDS drug testing on foster children to know public health efforts are not to be blanketly trusted, regardless of asserted expertise.