Alarming levels of poverty and hardship reported in New Zealand

John Braddock

Radio New Zealand (RNZ), the state broadcaster, reported on July 17 that social services are experiencing an “alarming level” of poverty as families struggle with escalating living costs in the difficult winter. Four welfare agencies said they regularly hear of families sleeping in one room and turning off power as they try to stay warm and pay bills.

Charities are running special appeals to support families facing hardship. Presbyterian Support manager Grenville Hendricks said his organisation has been forced to help 800 fewer families after its government funding was slashed by $1.5 million as part of the National Party-led ruling coalition’s vicious cost-cutting program.

“It’s also a challenge when there’s been issues around benefit payments, there’s been reductions in the numbers of available social housing,” Hendricks said. His agency knows of families sleeping in one room and children sharing beds to keep warm, with people’s health suffering due to overcrowding and damp, mouldy houses. 

Unaloto Latu, a mother from South Auckland, told RNZ there are a dozen people in her household and not enough beds. Three children sleep on couches in the living room. “Those three big chairs over here, our younger children sleep here... we know that sometimes it’s hard for them but they have no choice,” she said.

Latu’s injured husband has been off work for three years and their benefit is “always stretched.” She said their children “go without milk, meat and bathroom stuff, cleaning stuff,” and they wear worn-out clothes and shoes.

Foodbank in Invercargill, December 2024 [Photo: Facebook/Harcourts Invercargill]

A welfare organisation sponsors Latu’s children for $50 a month each as a contribution to household costs. Power and internet bills are paid but dinner is sometimes just rice. The children receive school lunches through a government-funded private program, which has been criticised as grossly inadequate by nutritionists following cost cutting. 

In a significant long-term indicator, the New Zealand Herald reported on July 19 that the country’s fertility rate dropped from 2.17 in 2010 to 1.56 per woman in 2023—a steep decline in couples having children due mainly to the cost of living.

The desperate conditions have disastrous consequences for young people. School principals recently warned that the number of school-leavers with no qualifications is set to spike in poor communities. Their warnings followed the release of nationwide literacy and numeracy tests held in May. As many as a third of teenagers leaving schools in Tai Tokerau/Northland and South Auckland could have no National Educational (NCEA) certificates—double the normal figures.

Papakura High School principal Simon Craggs said in the one-third of schools in the poorest areas, which are also the worst-resourced, just 34 percent of students pass the numeracy assessment, 41 percent passed reading and 35 percent passed writing.

Aorere College principal Leanne Webb told RNZ that young people leaving school without a qualification would be unable to access tertiary education and get “shoved to the bottom of the heap.”

Students from poor families frequently go to school tired and hungry, are often absent due to illnesses, have little access to books and nowhere to do homework. Many work jobs to support their families. In 2023 Tamaki College student Atareita told TV1: “The most hours I’ve worked in a school week is 47. Because my parents are sick, it’s only me and my sister and my uncle working as our main source of income.”

University students nationwide are also being forced to choose between heating their flats or eating proper meals, just to stay enrolled. Auckland University of Technology (AUT) Chancellor Rob Campbell told Stuff this week that many are juggling near full-time work on top of study, racking up debt for daily essentials, and giving up on food and basic comfort to get through the semester. While AUT’s hardship fund provides some support “it’s not enough,” Campbell said.

Some pensioners are turning off hot water cylinders for days to save money. Electricity costs have gone up almost 9 percent since June 2024. Pensioner Sally told RNZ: “I have a shower then and it stays off for three nights.” Her power bill last year was $85 a month but the most recent was $131.

Age Concern Canterbury CEO Greta Bond said severe cold weather in Christchurch meant some elderly people would be staying in bed until midday. She said the government’s winter energy payment of up to $700 over five months was not enough to keep up with rising prices.

Bond added that some people were eating tinned food cold because of electricity costs. Others spend 80 percent of their pensions on rent, leaving very little left for food, heating, or going to the doctor.

Electricity is not the only staple being hit by escalating costs. Since June last year petrol has gone up by 15.5 percent and now retails for about $2.55 per litre. Food prices rose an average of 4.6 percent in the last 12 months, according to Statistics NZ. All these figures are much higher than the official inflation rate, which has jumped this month to 2.7 from 2.5 percent, a 12-month high.

The limited budgets of working class households are hit most severely. Poultry and fish prices jumped 6.4 percent over the year. Beef steak rose 22.3 percent and the average cost for a kilogram of beef mince was $21.73, up from $18.80 a year ago. Fruit and vegetable prices were up 5 percent.

Dairy products, while locally produced, are driving eye-watering costs. Milk was $4.57 per two litres in June—up 14.3 percent on the year before. Cheese climbed 30 percent to $13.04 per kilogram last month. According to the Conversation, “butter prices rose by 46.5 percent in the year to June and are now 120 percent higher than a decade ago. The average price for a 500g block is NZ$8.60, with some local brands costing over $10.”

Following widespread outrage over the impossible price of butter, Westpac economist Paul Clark told the New Zealand Herald that with Global Dairy Trade auction prices having “reached new highs, combined with a generally weaker New Zealand dollar,” retail prices will “ratchet higher in coming months.” 

The looming effects on global trade of US President Donald Trump’s escalating tariff war—including 10 percent tariffs on imports from NZ—will have a further inflationary effect on goods internationally.

Poverty and hardship have not appeared overnight. The 2017–2023 Labour-led government presided over a sharp increase in those children living in material hardship—in families without access to basic necessities—by 6.4 percent from 135,000 to 143,700 (about 1 in 8 children). This was despite then Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern launching a “child poverty reduction law” to halve child poverty over a decade.

Escalating inequality provoked Labour’s massive defeat at the 2023 elections when it was deserted by working class voters. The current government has continued where Labour left off, imposing a brutal program of austerity and preparations for war abroad. Its measures include sweeping job cuts, attacks on public services and harsh attacks on welfare benefits, all while pushing ahead with tax breaks and legislative measures to benefit businesses and the wealthy.

Election promises made by the National Party that tax and welfare changes in its 2024 budget would benefit the “average” family by $250 per fortnight have proven to be a fraud. It was calculated that this applied to fewer than 3,000 households. A so-called FamilyBoost childcare rebate was supposed to provide $150 a fortnight of this money. However, just 249 families received it in the first nine months of the scheme.

Finance Minister Nicola Willis recently announced an expansion of the FamilyBoost payment, but said this would only lead to “up to 16,000 more families accessing the payment”—about 0.3 percent of the population.

Trump administration releases thousands of files on assassination of Martin Luther King Jr.

Fred Mazelis

Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. walks across the balcony of the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, April 3, 1968. [AP Photo/Charles Kelly]

Last Monday, the Trump administration released almost 250,000 pages of federal records in connection with the April 1968 assassination of Martin Luther King Jr., including FBI surveillance of the civil rights leader. Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard made the announcement via a press release, and the materials were made available on the website of the National Archives. The trove contained FBI documents and notes on investigations, as well as decades of news clippings on the case, but did not include the transcripts of wiretaps  of King.

The release of the King files, which originally had been sealed until 2027, follows those of documents and files related to two other prominent US assassinations of the 1960s, those of President John F. Kennedy and his brother Robert F. Kennedy. All these files were made available pursuant to an executive order issued by Trump soon after beginning his second term last January.

The Kennedy and King files contained very little new information. Noted King biographer David Garrow said, after looking at the King files, “There is nothing new or notable in what was released yesterday,” and that much of the material had been in the public domain for decades. This is precisely why Trump was willing to release the files, enabling him to pose as an advocate of “transparency” and pretending some sympathy with those who believe that all the assassinations of that decade, including that of Malcolm X, were the result of conspiracies at the highest levels.

King’s two surviving children, Bernice and Martin III, had opposed the release of the files. They were clearly suspicious of Trump’s attempt to manipulate the matter, and they issued a statement declaring, “While we support transparency and historical accountability, we object to any attacks on our father’s legacy or attempts to weaponize it to spread falsehoods.”

They called for the files to be seen “within their full historical context,” and added a reminder that King had been “relentlessly targeted by an invasive, predatory, and deeply disturbing disinformation and surveillance campaign orchestrated by J. Edgar Hoover through the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).” Among the concerns of the family was the fear of renewed attention to the well-established extramarital relations of King, unearthed via the FBI surveillance and very likely sensationalized in the reports filed by agents who were seeking to meet the expectations of J. Edgar Hoover, whose racism and pathological hatred of King were well known.

Trump’s executive order was entirely consistent with the trademark cynicism and demagogy of the would-be Führer in the White House, for whom the “Big Lie” is standard operating procedure. Attorney General Pam Bondi declared with a straight face that, “The American people deserve answers decades after the horrific assassination of one of our nation’s great leaders.” But it is her boss who recently welcomed Afrikaner “refugees” from South Africa, who has ordered that the names of Confederate “heroes” be restored to various military bases, and who is attempting to roll back voting rights and other gains of the mass civil rights movement.

Moreover, the political views of King, the man Bondi now calls a “great leader,” were substantially to the left of the current Democratic mayoral candidate in New York, Zohran Mamdani, the same man whom Trump has been calling a “Communist lunatic” almost every day for the last month. It is not very difficult to deduce Trump’s real estimation of Martin Luther King.

As for the precise timing of the release of the King files, that is undoubtedly connected to the mounting crisis facing Trump over the demands for the release of the Epstein files, including the list of powerful corporate and political figures who made use of Jeffrey Epstein’s criminal sex-trafficking operation involving young girls. The release of the King files looks like a clumsy attempt at distraction from the other files, and the growing likelihood that the continuing Epstein scandal, almost six years after his reported “suicide” in a Manhattan jail cell, will ensnare Trump personally.

Regardless of Trump’s cynical calculations, however, the renewed attention to the assassination of Martin Luther King and to the legacy of the slain civil rights leader raises important historical issues.

James Earl Ray was arrested in London after a long manhunt. He at first pleaded guilty, and was tried, convicted and sentenced to a 99-year prison term. Ray later attempted to recant his plea, saying he had been set up to take the blame for killing King. The King family, including Coretta Scott King before her death, believed him. The family pointed to the fact that the investigation of King’s assassination had been carried out by the very same FBI, under Hoover, that had targeted him in a years-long campaign of defamation and spying. They insisted on further investigation, and filed a wrongful death lawsuit that led to a 1999 verdict that found that King had been the victim of a huge conspiracy, and not of a lone racist gunman.

Fifty-seven years after the murder of Martin Luther King Jr., it is necessary not only to expose the obscene attempt of the fascist Trump to make political capital of his death, but also to restate King’s legacy, and that of the movement he led.

In the three years between the legislative victories of the mass civil rights movement and King’s death, amidst the growing escalation of the Vietnam War as well as the rebellions in urban ghettos throughout the US, King became increasingly critical in his estimation of what had been achieved and what remained to be done. In 1967 he denounced the Vietnam War, an action that angered Lyndon Johnson and other erstwhile “allies” in the Democratic Party. King was denounced by the editorial board of the New York Times and elsewhere. In his speeches on Vietnam, King emphasized the connection between war abroad and attacks on democratic rights and living conditions at home. He soon spelled this out further, with the launching of the Poor People’s Campaign.

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. addresses a capacity crowd from the pulpit at the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C., March 31, 1968. [AP Photo/John Rous]

King’s fateful trip to Memphis in late March 1968 was part of his struggle to build the Poor People’s Campaign, which had begun in Washington, with the aim of calling attention to the issues of poverty through civil disobedience actions. King’s political outlook remained one of reforming capitalism, but his actions also raised the possibility of a growing mass movement in the working class, one that could be a far greater threat to the capitalist status quo.

His specific aim in Memphis was to aid the union organizing campaign of the city’s black sanitation workers. The 1,300 workers had begun a strike after the horrific deaths of two workers, Echol Cole and Robert Walker, crushed in a malfunctioning sanitation truck. These deaths were the last straw for the sanitation workers, who were paid poverty wages for backbreaking work under appalling safety conditions, and without overtime pay or other benefits.

Fifty-seven years later, little has changed on the issues of imperialist war, unsafe workplaces and capitalist exploitation—except for the worse. The US has seen a recent spate of workplace deaths, including that of Ronald Adams Sr., the veteran autoworker crushed to death last April at a Stellantis plant in Michigan, a tragic and preventable death that has led the International Workers Alliance of Rank and File Committees to initiate a rank-and-file investigation.

The issues of war, steadily widening inequality and the growing danger of fascism around the world make it all the more vital that the lessons of Martin Luther King’s struggle be learned and applied today. Within a few years of his death, his insistence on linking the struggles for full democratic rights to those against war and poverty had been pushed aside. What remained of the official civil rights movement, presided over by such figures as Jesse Jackson and Andrew Young—people who had opposed or been lukewarm toward the Poor People’s Campaign and King’s break with the establishment on the issue of Vietnam—embraced the policy of affirmative action, which soon became part of the entire edifice of identity politics with which the ruling class, and the Democratic Party above all, has worked, through racial, ethnic and gender politics, to divide the working class and make it pay for the deepening crisis of American capitalism.

Thai-Cambodian military clashes threaten to escalate

Peter Symonds

Cambodian military vehicle carries rocket launcher in Oddar Meanchey province, Cambodia, July 25, 2025. [AP Photo/Heng Sinith]

Military clashes between Thailand and Cambodia have taken place over the past two days in 12 locations along their disputed border. Thai authorities have reported that 14 civilians and a soldier have been killed, while Cambodia has acknowledged one death and provided no further casualty figures.

Mass evacuations have occurred from the border areas in both countries as clashes have continued. Thai officials announced yesterday that 138,000 people had been evacuated from four border provinces. About 20,000 people have evacuated from Cambodia’s Preah Vihear province, according to the Khmer Times.

Speaking to reporters in Bangkok, acting Thai Prime Minister Phumtham Wechayachai said fighting was escalating and “could develop to the stage of war.” At present, however, he said, there had been no declaration of war and the conflict was not spreading into more provinces.

Both governments blame each other for the clashes that followed two incidents on July 16 and 23 in which Thai soldiers were injured in land mine explosions. In response to the second incident, Thailand recalled its ambassador in Phnom Penh and closed all border crossings between the two countries. Cambodia responded in kind, recalling all embassy staff from Bangkok.

Cambodian border crossing point of Krong Poi Phet, 2016 [Photo by John Hulme]

The Thai military has carried out airstrikes inside Cambodia, while its armed forces have hit inside Thailand using heavy artillery and rockets. The Thai military is far larger and better equipped than its Cambodian counterpart, whose air force consists of a handful of helicopters and transport planes but lacks any fighter aircraft.

Many countries have called for de-escalation, including the United States and China, with the UN Security Council being convened to discuss the conflict. Malaysia, which currently chairs the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN), has called for a ceasefire. Cambodia accepted the proposal but Thailand has placed conditions on any end to fighting.

Thailand’s foreign ministry stated yesterday that it had agreed in principle to Malaysia’s ceasefire plan, yet insisted that it be based on “appropriate on-the-ground conditions.” It also lashed out at the Cambodian military for continuing “indiscriminate attacks on Thai territory.”

The clashes reflect heightened political and social tensions in both countries, fueled by slowing economies that will be further hit by the Trump administration’s tariffs. Cambodia, which sent 40 percent of its total exports to the US in 2022, faces a huge across-the-board Trump tariff of 36 percent from August 1.

While not as dependent on exports to the US, Thailand is being hit by the same figure amid a sharp economic slowdown. The so-called Tiger economy had gross domestic product (GDP) growth of just 2.5 percent last year and the estimates for this year are less than 2 percent.

The longstanding border dispute, which derives from the region’s colonial past, is an inflammatory issue that has been exploited by nationalist demagogues in both countries. An earlier clash in late May that resulted in the death of a Cambodian soldier became the pretext for the suspension of Thai Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra from office on July 1.

Bitter opponents of her government seized on a leaked phone call between Paetongtarn and former Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen, claiming she had been too deferential to the Cambodian strongman and had denigrated the Thai military. A large patriotic protest by the so-called Yellow Shirts—supporters of the monarchy, the army and state bureaucracy—demanded her resignation.

Paetongtarn is the daughter of former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, who was ousted in a military coup in 2006. The current government is a highly unstable coalition between the Shinawatras’ Pheu Thai party and parties closely aligned with the military and the country’s traditional elites. Paetongtarn is the second Pheu Thai prime minister to be removed by the Constitutional Court on trumped-up charges in the past two years.

Thaksin himself faces charges of lèse-majesté—disrespecting the monarchy—that carry penalties of up to 15 years jail. On social media, Thaksin thanked countries for offering to mediate in the conflict with Cambodia but called for them to wait a bit. “We need to let the Thai military do their job, and teach Hun Sen a lesson,” he said. Thaksin was clearly bitter that Hun Sen had leaked the phone call to his daughter, but also did not want to provide ammunition to his political enemies.

Hun Sen responded on Facebook in kind, declaring that Thaksin’s “warlike tone” underscored “Thailand’s military aggression toward Cambodia.” Hun Sen’s son—Hun Manet—took over as prime minister in 2023 after general elections in which Hun Sen’s Cambodian People’s Party claimed a “landslide” victory after a crackdown on political opposition that continues.

Tensions between the two countries flared in February after a group of 25 Cambodians escorted by Cambodian soldiers visited the Prasat Ta Moan Thon Temple inside Thailand near the border. Reportedly the group provocatively sang the Cambodian national anthem at the site but were stopped by the Thai military officials, who said it violated mutual agreements about tourist protocols.

The present military clashes are the worst in more than a decade. In 2011, Thai and Cambodian troops clashed in an area surrounding the Preah Vihear temple, a central focus of the border disputes. Thousands of people on both sides were forced to flee and at least 20 people were killed.

The disputes have their origins in a 1907 map drawn by French officials in Indochina to demarcate France’s colonial possessions from the Kingdom of Siam (now Thailand), which was nominally independent, sandwiched between French Indochina and British colonial Burma. The map was the basis for Cambodia’s claims to the areas around the Preah Vihear temple. Thailand has not accepted an International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruling in Cambodia’s favour in 1962.

The current clashes could become embroiled with the geo-political tensions roiling the entire region as US imperialism accelerates its economic war and preparations for military conflict against China. Cambodia is one of the ASEAN countries most closely aligned with China, even though it depends heavily on US markets. China is a significant supplier of arms to Cambodia and holds annual Golden Dragon joint military exercises.

The United States has a longstanding military alliance with Thailand. During the Vietnam War, it used the Thai air forces bases to bomb North Vietnam and other targets. Large annual Cobra Gold joint US-Thai war games have been running for over two decades. More than 60 other joint exercises are held annually as well as many visits by US military aircraft and warships. At the same time, Thailand depends on China economically and for military equipment and weaponry.

If the clashes continue to escalate, the US together with its allies could seek to exploit the conflict to strengthen its position in South East Asia as part of the build-up to war with China.

New COVID-19 variants surge as Kennedy escalates war on science

Benjamin Mateus & Evan Blake

The ruling class’s declaration that “the pandemic is over” has been disproven yet again, as the 11th wave of mass COVID-19 infection is now sweeping across the US and other countries, driven by new highly transmissible variants. The SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus has shown no signs of settling into a predictable “endemic” state falsely promised by official scientists and COVID contrarians alike.

The current surge is being propelled by two dominant variants: NB.1.8.1, dubbed “Nimbus,” and XFG, known as “Stratus,” which together represent a new phase of viral evolution. NB.1.8.1 now accounts for 43 percent of US cases, while XFG has rapidly spread worldwide and comprises the third most prevalent strain nationally.

According to the Pandemic Mitigation Collaborative (PMC) from Tulane University, the most consistent public dashboard available in the US, new daily infections reached 347,000 by July 21, with forecasts suggesting this number will nearly double by next month. 

This graph shows the current forecast of the COVID-19 pandemic in the US, with daily new infections now approaching 500,000 [Photo by PMC via Dr. Mike Hoerger]

Extrapolating from these data, the PMC estimates that over the coming month there will be between 6,700 and 11,200 excess deaths due to COVID-19, while up to 3.76 million Americans will join the tens of millions more already suffering from Long COVID. Strikingly, they estimate that the average American has now been infected 3.85 times, meaning more than 1 billion COVID-19 infections have occurred in the US since the pandemic began.

Separate data compiled by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) indicate that official deaths in the US continue to remain elevated at 10.6 percent above pre-pandemic levels, underscoring the ongoing mortality burden caused by the pandemic.

The current crisis represents the culmination of a bipartisan war on public health, which began not with Trump’s return to power but with the Biden administration’s systematic dismantling of COVID-19 protections. Biden’s September 2022 declaration that “the pandemic is over” set the stage for today’s wholesale dismantling of all public health measures under the diktats of the anti-vaccine quack Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.

Since taking control of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), Kennedy has unleashed an unprecedented assault on federal health agencies. HHS employment has been slashed from 82,000 to 62,000 workers through mass firings, buyouts and early retirements. The agency’s 28 divisions are being consolidated to just 15, with numerous offices entirely shuttered.

Under the proposed fiscal year 2026 budget, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) faces a staggering $18 billion cut—a 40 percent reduction that would devastate medical research. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) would lose $3.6 billion, more than half its budget, with critical programs for chronic disease prevention, HIV surveillance and global health monitoring eliminated entirely.

These coincide with a calculated undermining of the scientific method itself. Kennedy has fired vaccine experts, rescinded evidence-based flu shot recommendations, and on Friday announced plans to fire all 16 members of the US Preventive Services Task Force, which determines what cancer screenings and preventive health services insurers must cover. The administration has canceled more than $11 billion in funding to state and local health departments, severing the connections between federal agencies and frontline public health workers. 

HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. (right) with Argentina's fascist President Javier Milei [Photo: Robert F. Kennedy Jr.]

The timing of this assault on public health is particularly sinister. As new COVID-19 variants drive hospitalizations higher and Long COVID cases mount, the administration is systematically destroying the capacity to monitor, respond to and mitigate all disease outbreaks.

Furthermore, these deepening attacks on public health take place as scientific evidence provides deeper insight into one of the pandemic’s most devastating long-term consequences: widespread neurological damage that will burden the working class for generations. Two landmark studies published in Nature Communications and Science Advances provide forensic evidence of COVID-19’s assault on brain health, exposing the criminal negligence of all those who falsely declared the pandemic “over.”

The Nature Communications study found that simply living through the pandemic—even without infection—accelerated brain aging equivalent to 5.5 extra months, with the greatest impacts on older adults, men and people from disadvantaged backgrounds. For those confirmed to have been infected with COVID-19, this brain aging was linked to measurable cognitive decline.

More alarming still, the Science Advances research demonstrated that SARS-CoV-2 can directly trigger the formation of amyloid-β plaques—the hallmarks of Alzheimer’s disease. Using lab-grown human retinal models and postmortem tissue from COVID-19 patients, researchers found viral proteins embedded within these plaques, suggesting COVID-19 may initiate or accelerate neurodegeneration through direct biological mechanisms.

Neuroscientist Leslie M. Kay’s prophetic 2022 warning of “a looming wave of dementia” now appears grimly prescient. The persistent loss of smell and taste affecting millions of COVID-19 survivors may signal early stages of neurodegenerative diseases, as the virus inflames the olfactory bulb, an area crucial for memory and emotion. Critically, this damage occurs even in mild cases, meaning the neurological toll extends far beyond those who were hospitalized.

These policies amount to what Friedrich Engels termed “social murder”—the systematic creation of conditions that shorten working class lives. The $156 billion in Social Security savings from COVID-19 excess deaths is not incidental but rather is built into the strategy. By gutting the public health system, the Trump administration is engineering a rise in death rates to reduce liabilities to Medicare and Social Security, freeing up funds for militarism and tax cuts for the rich.

The recent gruesome and preventable workplace deaths of Ronald Adams Sr. and Brayan Neftali Otoniel Canu Joj underscore this reality. They are among the over 140,000 workers who die each year from hazardous working conditions in America’s industrial slaughterhouse, including over 5,000 from traumatic injuries.

Adams, a 63-year-old machine repairman at Stellantis’ Dundee Engine Plant, was crushed to death in April when an overhead gantry suddenly activated while he was performing maintenance. Brayan, a 19-year-old immigrant worker from Guatemala, was killed while cleaning an industrial meat grinder at the Tina’s Burritos plant in Vernon, California.

The wholesale attack on science, public health and workplace safety serves multiple functions for the ruling elite. It eliminates inconvenient evidence of ongoing health crises, dismantles the limited institutions ostensibly overseeing workplace safety like the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) and normalizes mass death as an acceptable cost of maintaining profits. The firing of public health experts and the defunding of disease surveillance ensure that future outbreaks will be met with ignorance rather than science-based responses.