In Simple Terms
People are more likely to trust health advice when care is affordable, useful research is easy to find, and experts explain things clearly. Michigan senator-elect and epidemiologist Abdul El-Sayed says fighting false claims is not enough: health and science institutions also need to show people that they work for the public. Trust, he argues, grows when people can see and feel the benefits.
A Crisis of Trust Amid Rising Health Threats
El-Sayed’s call to rebuild trust comes as public health in the United States faces mounting pressure. In an interview published on November 13, 2026, the Michigan senator-elect and epidemiologist argued that the problem cannot be reduced to the spread of a false claim or the actions of a single politician. It also requires looking at how health care and research institutions operate—and whether people can benefit from science without cost, complicated language, or commercial interests standing in the way.
The interview described a troubling public health landscape: more than 5,000 Americans had contracted measles during the year, and the United States was expected to lose its official status as a country where measles transmission had been eliminated by the end of November. Dengue fever was spreading in Florida, respiratory virus season was beginning, and a foodborne disease outbreak had sickened more than 20,000 people across the country.
These events do not prove that declining trust caused every problem. They do help explain why El-Sayed sees trust as a practical concern, not an abstract debate among scientists and politicians. Public health agencies depend on people understanding warnings and recommendations, and trusting officials to spot threats and respond to them. When that relationship weakens, clear health guidance becomes harder to deliver precisely when people need it most.
El-Sayed says responsibility does not rest solely with those who spread misinformation. In his view, they take advantage of a gap left by science and health institutions that have failed to explain their work or make people feel that they can understand it. That is why he links efforts to counter misinformation with a broader review of how institutions meant to protect and serve the public are performing.
From the Cost of Care to Corporate Interests
El-Sayed puts the cost of health care at the center of his plan to restore trust. He supports a universal health care system known as Medicare for All. Expanding coverage, he argues, could reduce the influence of insurance companies, pharmaceutical companies, and hospital groups, while bringing medical advances within reach of the people who need them. This is not just a question of how care is paid for. It is also about who benefits from scientific progress, and whether discoveries become a public good or remain tied to an individual’s ability to pay.
In discussing the issue, El-Sayed sets corporate interests against two goals he considers essential: people’s health and their ability to afford treatment. He describes the strain of everyday expenses—from groceries and fuel to the difficulty of seeing a doctor—as part of the environment in which people form opinions about the health system. When basic services feel out of reach or too expensive, it can be difficult to persuade people that the institutions providing them have their interests at heart.
He also calls for exposing the tactics that, in his view, people promoting deception use to win over the public. They may rely on impressive-sounding terms not to explain an idea, but to appear authoritative; the financial benefit, meanwhile, goes to those who sell or invest in the claim. El-Sayed does not present this as a substitute for reform, but as work that must accompany it. Institutions need to earn trust through their performance, while the public needs to be able to tell the difference between evidence-based information and a claim designed to benefit its seller.
A Political Fight Focused on Institutional Performance
El-Sayed expects to scrutinize the work of Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the secretary of health and human services. But he says making the secretary the sole focus of the debate could distract from a larger question: How can institutions such as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Food and Drug Administration, and the National Institutes of Health be built and run so they deserve the trust of the people whose health depends on them? From this perspective, a possible investigation would be a way to identify what has gone wrong and fix it—not simply a tool for political retaliation.
El-Sayed says he wants officials held accountable if they are found to have knowingly harmed public institutions, while giving priority to understanding what happened and how to put it right. That distinction reflects an effort to separate an assessment of policy from pursuing individuals for its own sake. His proposed standard is whether decisions protect people, lower their costs, and give them a better chance to live healthy lives. Arguments about political figures, he says, matter less than the outcomes people actually experience.
Regarding Kennedy specifically, El-Sayed says he wants to question him about positions and decisions that affect health agencies’ ability to do their jobs, as well as measures concerning food contaminants and additives. He says it is important to ask the secretary about the gap between his promise to confront corporate influence and what El-Sayed sees as the continued strength of that influence. In this view, accountability is most effective when it focuses on specific decisions and their consequences, rather than becoming an exchange of accusations that leaves the public unclear about what needs to change.
El-Sayed does not rule out working with Kennedy or his team on issues where they agree, such as reducing contaminants or reviewing food additives. His position is selective: he is willing to cooperate on specific matters if there are concrete steps, while continuing to oppose what he considers wrongheaded positions on other issues. In this way, he aims to leave room for limited progress without giving up oversight or accountability.
Measles Shows the Gap Between Evidence and the Public
Measles features prominently in El-Sayed’s remarks because, in his view, it shows the consequences of declining trust in health institutions. He describes the possibility that the United States could lose its official measles-elimination status as a failure that could have been prevented. He blames people who spread misinformation, but also holds the science and health systems responsible for creating conditions in which some of those messages found a willing audience.
One concerning example is the belief that the measles vaccine causes autism, a claim that was scientifically disproved 20 years ago. El-Sayed argues that the response should not stop at repeating that the claim is false. The broader question is how to explain the evidence about vaccines in a way that helps people understand why vaccination is recommended. In his view, that work begins with basic science education and rebuilding communication between experts and the public.
When scientists speak to one another in specialized terms, or present knowledge as if it belongs only to people in the profession, those without technical training may feel shut out of a discussion that affects their health. El-Sayed says the goal of communication should be to help people grasp an idea, not to show off how much the speaker knows. That does not mean simplifying science until its findings are distorted. It means explaining what is known, how it was learned, and why the evidence is trustworthy.
Public Knowledge Shouldn’t Be Locked Away
El-Sayed also connects trust to who can access research findings. Much scientific research, he notes, is funded with public money, yet some of its results remain behind subscription or publishing barriers that many people cannot get past. He says this contradiction can breed resentment: people help pay for knowledge, then find it difficult to read the findings or understand what they mean for their lives.
That is why he describes science as a valuable public resource, not the private property of the research community. The more accessible knowledge is and the more clearly it is explained, the more people can benefit from it and understand how health recommendations are developed—and why they sometimes change as new evidence emerges. When findings are hidden or presented in language that does not reach the public, institutions can seem distant from the communities they are meant to serve.
This vision is not simply a call to publish scientific papers without restriction. El-Sayed raises a broader institutional challenge: How should research be organized, explained, and made available, and who gets to benefit from it? He hopes that having a doctor and scientist in the Senate will help advance this discussion—not because a professional background alone provides the answers, but because policies on research and health need public scrutiny and wider participation.
Trust Is Built on Results, Not Slogans
El-Sayed offers a practical standard for judging politicians’ work: Have their decisions helped people become healthier, eased their burdens, and given them a greater ability to make choices about their lives? If so, that is progress. If not, slogans and political feuds are not enough to make it a success. This standard links health with financial security, because access to care, safe food, and understandable information depends on what people can afford and what is available to them.
From this perspective, El-Sayed does not treat restoring trust as a public relations campaign that an institution can launch and then declare successful. Trust, as he sees it, is the cumulative result of performance people can observe: a health system that is less exploitative, public agencies that can do their jobs, scientific information that is understandable and open, and accountability that focuses on fixing failures. It also means health and science institutions must consider why people are skeptical, rather than simply dismissing skeptics as wrong.
The Bottom Line
Abdul El-Sayed argues that restoring public trust in science and health will take more than countering misinformation or focusing on a single political leader. His approach combines limiting the influence of commercial interests in health care, holding health agencies accountable for their performance, and making knowledge accessible and clear. The measles figures and foodborne outbreak illustrate the scale of today’s health challenges, while the vaccine debate shows how difficult it can be to turn evidence into public trust. In El-Sayed’s view, persuasive words alone will not settle the issue. Institutions must deliver tangible benefits and show that science serves the public—and that people can share in its benefits.