Chapter 14 of the Project 2025 Mandate for Leadership outlines plans for the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). In para 2, we read:
As a result of HHS’s having lost its way, U.S. life expectancy, instead of returning to normal after the COVID-19 pandemic, continued to drop precipitously to levels not seen since 1996 with white populations alone losing 7 percent of their expected life span in just one year. Nothing less than America’s long-term survival is at stake.
The italics are mine, but the nod to the notorious 14 words, created by juxtaposing specifically white life expectancy with America’s long-term survival, is author Roger Severino’s. (If this parallel seems far-fetched, please be reminded how these people just can’t help themselves.)
Anyway, skipping ahead to the section devoted to FDA, you’ll find that, far from its supposed focus on dismantling the Administrative State, the Project reveals an enormous enthusiasm here for using its power to regulate abortion. The text of this section suggests to me that, quite early on in the next conservative Administration, FDA statisticians will be required to misrepresent the safety of mifepristone and misoprostol, if they want to keep their jobs. It seems to me worthwhile for statisticians in the health sciences to read this chapter, and consider what social institutions exist to help sustain the profession in such circumstances.