Founder of Bloomberg LP, Bloomberg LP
Opening Remarks: Michael R. Bloomberg
WHO Global Ambassador for Noncommunicable Diseases and Injuries and Bloomberg American Health Initiative Founding Donor Michael R. Bloomberg delivers opening remarks at the 2024 Bloomberg American Health Summit.
About Michael Bloomberg
At the 25th anniversary of the Tribeca Festival, Michael Bloomberg reflected on the festival's role in revitalizing Lower Manhattan after the September 11 attacks. He stated that the "rebirth and revitalization of Lower Manhattan will be remembered as one of the greatest comeback stories in American history" and that "the arts can and must play a pivotal role in strengthening our city's spirit, our economy and our quality of life." At Bloomberg CityLab 2026 in Madrid, Bloomberg announced an additional $350 million commitment from Bloomberg Philanthropies to the Global Road Safety Initiative, with a goal of saving one million lives by 2030. He said that "the more national governments retreat from the world stage, the more important mayors become" and emphasized that "one city's success can spread to other cities and improve lives there, too." Bloomberg also discussed the launch of a Mayors AI Forum supported by the Bloomberg Center for Government Excellence at Johns Hopkins University and an expansion of global leadership programs in partnership with the London School of Economics and the Hertie School.
Transcript (20 segments)
✨ AI-enhanced transcript with speaker attribution
M
Michael Bloomberg0:00
Welcome, Michael Bloomberg.
Hello, well good morning everyone and welcome to the Washington DC 7th annual Bloomberg American Health Summit. Now for those of you who participated in the photo line, here's the numbers: 176 fellows took pictures in 13 minutes. I learned that I am not the tallest, not the shortest, thank you, but definitely the oldest. Anyways, let me thank Ron Daniels as well as the leadership of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Josh Sharfstein and Michelle Spencer, and a special thanks to Dean Emeritus Al Sommer and current Dean Ellen McKenzie. You should know that Ellen's time as Dean is winding down, and for all of the incredible work that she's done, let's give her a big round of applause.
Now I graduated from Johns Hopkins University 60 years ago. That's the class of 64, if anyone's trying to do the math. I think it's fair to say I spent as much time organizing fraternity dances as I did in the library. And if I had told my professors that one day the public health school would bear my name, they would have laughed me out of class. Of course, back then if I had also said that one day someone who opposes vaccines for deadly diseases would be nominated to run the Department of Health and Human Services, they would have laughed even harder. But sadly and shockingly, as we all know, it is no laughing matter.
When I was growing up, one of the biggest fears parents had was that their children might contract polio. I remember the cover of Life magazine showing a gymnasium full of iron lungs, with people having their heads sticking out looking helplessly at the camera. The disease paralyzed and killed thousands of people before the vaccine was introduced in 1955. Thanks to that vaccine and others, polio and other diseases like measles and mumps are now exceptionally rare. Before vaccines, a half a million people contracted measles every year and 10% were hospitalized. 200,000 got diphtheria every year and some 15,000 of them died. In fact, over the past half century, vaccines have saved the lives of millions of Americans, especially children. And making it harder to get vaccines would be one of the most catastrophic mistakes in American history, a travesty beyond measure.
I'm hopeful that Senate Republicans will convince President-elect Trump to rethink the nomination of Robert Kennedy Jr. And the president has good reason to rethink it. After all, Kennedy has attacked what may be President Trump's biggest first-term accomplishment, something called Operation Warp Speed, the federal effort to fast-track development of a vaccine for COVID-19. It saved millions of lives, allowed the economy to reopen, and helped Americans get back to their normal routines. And it continues to do that. President Trump does deserve real credit for Operation Warp Speed. Yet Kennedy has made the outrageous false claim that it was, quote, 'the deadliest vaccine ever made' and that it, quote, 'may have caused more harm than good.' In reality, studies show the vaccine saved some 20 million lives.
And just imagine if RFK Jr. had been in office during Trump's first term. Would Operation Warp Speed have even happened? And if it did, how long would the vaccines have been delayed? How many fewer people would have gotten the shot? How many more people would have died? How much more damage would that have done to our economy? All we can say for sure is this: it would have made COVID even more deadly and even more economically painful. And so the question now is how much worse might the next pandemic be under a Secretary Kennedy? Sadly, the reality is the next one may already be on our doorstep. Thankfully, the H5N1 bird flu and mpox viruses, which are deadly, remain fairly isolated for now. But whether it's those viruses or a different virus that emerges, the next pandemic isn't a question of if, it's a question of when.
We need government leaders who are capable of preparing and responding effectively, including by supporting the development of new vaccines. Putting RFK Jr. in charge of that would be beyond dangerous. It would be medical malpractice on a mass scale. Now I understand the frustration that parents felt around school closures, and I shared it. Thanks to the outrageous opposition of the teachers' unions to reopening schools, too many schools stayed closed for far too long, and children paid a terrible price. But as bad as that was, the price children would pay if resistance to vaccines or inability to access them become commonplace would be far, far worse. Parents who have been swayed by vaccine skepticism love their children and want to protect them, and we need leaders who will help them do that, not conspiracy theorists who will scare them into decisions that will put their children at risk of disease and even death.
Kennedy has said that when he's hiking and passes people on the trail with kids, he tells them, quote, 'better not get them vaccinated.' Well, if parents listen to him, their children are more likely to become severely sick or even die. I remember in 2019, when an incorrectly prepared vaccine for measles led to the death of two children in Samoa. Kennedy traveled there, and he and his organization fanned the flames of fear and misinformation. As a result, vaccine rates dropped, and more than 5,700 people contracted measles. Tragically, 87 people, most of them children, died. Just think of the parents of those children and the suffering they are still feeling. And now think of what a similar situation would look like in the United States. In Samoa, vaccine hesitancy killed 87 people out of a population of 200,000. If we apply that percentage to the US, the death toll would have been about 150,000 people, most of them young children.
It's beyond comprehension that we can inflict this kind of damage on our own nation, our own communities, our own families. And already we are seeing glimpses of the dangers in places like Michigan, where surges in whooping cough cases are the result of declining vaccination rates. Kennedy's attacks on vaccines are part of a worldwide view that sees conspiracy everywhere and can't be bothered with facts. He still claims that vaccines cause autism, even though an abundance of data makes it clear that they don't. He's also said that anti-depressants cause mass shootings, and exposure to Wi-Fi damages the brain, and that the water vapor airplanes leave in the sky is actually a top-secret chemical spray used for nefarious purposes. It's all nonsense with no evidence whatsoever. But he doesn't care about evidence, and that's the real danger.
Because it's one thing to joke about the way some people call lies 'alternative facts' and actual facts 'fake news.' But when reality is reversed on vaccines and medicine, when people are led to believe that what is up is down, what is dangerous is safe, and what is safe is dangerous, many, many people will die. As bad as that scenario is, it gets worse. As Secretary, Kennedy could slow or stop approvals of new treatments and vaccines, and even try to revoke approvals already granted. He could encourage litigation against vaccine manufacturers, and by doing so, discourage investment in new cures. And he could allocate research dollars away from life-saving work and towards junk science. And as this group knows, Project 2025 calls for research funding to be distributed through block grants to states, rather than going to universities and research institutions that are leading the most promising work.
If we allowed research money to be doled out like political pork and for pseudo-scientific theories, America will forfeit its place as the best country in the world for medical research, and millions will die early. We can't afford to let that happen. The COVID vaccine that Trump championed is a case in point. The success of mRNA has opened up immense promise in the fight against other diseases, and as a result, medical researchers are applying the science to improve more and save more lives. And this group helps make all of that possible.
Now I've heard a few Democrats express some sympathy for Kennedy because he has been critical of the junk food and processed food industries. But we don't need to choose between someone who is pro-healthy food and pro-vaccine. Americans deserve both. And let me tell you, you're not going to find anyone who has more scars from battling the junk food and processed food industries than I do. Just try to tell them they shouldn't drink in City Hall. We banned trans fats over industry opposition. We pushed the industry to reduce salt in foods, and we won. We fought the fast food chains to put calorie counts on menus, and we won. And we took on the soda industry with a plan to reduce consumption of sugary drinks. Those battles and others we fought are reasons why the life expectancy of New Yorkers increased by three years during our time in office. They were lonely battles, but we fought them to save and improve lives, and we are still fighting them through the work of Bloomberg Philanthropies and through my role as the World Health Organization's Global Ambassador for Non-Communicable Diseases.
Over the years, Bloomberg Philanthropies has invested a great deal of money to prevent non-communicable diseases like diabetes and heart disease. But if the federal government steps back from vaccines, all of that progress will vanish. How many Americans will needlessly and tragically die from infectious diseases is anyone's guess: 100,000, a million, two million. And if the federal government starts reallocating science funding to many conspiracy theories, how many years will that set back a cure for cancer, and leukemia, and ALS, and Alzheimer's, and Parkinson's, and every other disease that needs more funding? It boggles the mind that the Senate would even consider giving Kennedy any power whatsoever over American health policy.
Whatever one may think of his positions on food policies, it's nowhere near enough to overcome his opposition to vaccines. A Secretary Kennedy would set back the goal at the heart of our work together: helping Americans live longer and healthier lives. We started the Bloomberg American Health Initiative back in 2016 to combat the decline in life expectancy our country was experiencing. We set out to focus on the most pressing threats to American health: addiction and drug overdoses, adolescent health, environmental challenges, obesity, and gun violence. We've made some important progress in each of those areas, thanks in no small part to everyone here today, including our Bloomberg American Health Fellows as they work towards their Master's or Doctorate degrees.
For example, our fellows have conducted research that has helped pass gun safety measures in 21 states, including red and purple states, which is keeping guns out of the hands of potentially violent people. For example, in Minnesota, our fellows are tackling domestic violence against Black women and girls, who make up just 7% of that state's population but sadly 40% of domestic violence victims. In coordination with state legislators and activists, they helped create the nation's first ever office dedicated to tackling this crisis. I'd like to ask all the fellows in this room who are working hard to make a difference across America to please stand up, and let's give them a big round of applause. Come on, stand up.
Thank you. To help put the state of American health in context, the Bloomberg American Health Initiative is releasing a study today that compares life expectancy in the US to the UK. In the UK, people live about 2.7 years longer, and men live 3.5 years longer than they do in the United States. Researchers found that these gaps can be explained by four preventable causes: cardiovascular disease, drug overdoses, motor vehicle crashes, and guns. The very issues our work focuses on. And we know we have a long ways to go. Despite having the world's largest economy and most advanced healthcare facilities, America still ranks 40th in the world in life expectancy. Think about that: 40th down the list. Can anyone imagine the national uproar that would have occurred if America had finished in 40th place in the Olympic medal count? People would have been up in arms, seriously, and every elected official would have been calling for heads to roll and policies to change. But when we finish 40th in life expectancy, they hardly utter a peep about most of the main causes.
It's hard to say which is more disgraceful: finishing 40th or having leaders shrug their shoulders about it. And just imagine how much farther we will fall if Kennedy is confirmed. We can't allow Kennedy or Trump or anyone else to bring unimaginable suffering to the American people. So if the president-elect doesn't reconsider the nomination, the Senate has a duty to our whole country, but especially to our children, to vote no. Those senators considering a yes vote should ask themselves: with a nation facing a possible bird flu outbreak, are they really prepared to roll the dice on the lives of their constituents by placing someone in charge of public health who has made it clear that he will prevent the approval of life-saving vaccines? And they should remember: in November, Americans voted for change, but they did not vote to bring back polio and measles and other deadly diseases.
Throughout my career, in building a company, in running New York City, in pursuing our philanthropic work, I've always led with a commitment to data and facts. I guess it's the Hopkins-trained engineering in me. I believe in science, and for generations Americans did too, which produced innovations and breakthroughs that changed the world time and time again. But now too many Americans reject facts and seek their own. The burden is on us in this room to unite our nation behind an optimistic belief in the science of vaccines and future cures that will save countless lives. This is a mission of public health. It is noble, it is needed, and it is our job to bring everyone along. Of course, it ain't going to be easy, and there may be setbacks, but this group is critical to making progress on public health in the United States. And our team at Bloomberg will be here to support you, not only in the lab but also in the halls of power.
Let me close with one final thought. If there ever was an issue that both parties should strongly support, it's vaccines. After all, we might not even be a country were it not for vaccines. You'll love this story. Back in 1777, before even I was born, after the Continental Army had suffered a series of defeats, General George Washington feared that the war could be lost to smallpox, which was killing soldiers and harming recruitment. Incredibly, about 90% of the Army's casualties were due to infectious diseases, most of them from smallpox. British soldiers had been exposed to the disease in Europe, which gave them some immunity and a military advantage. So Washington took a bold and controversial step: he mandated that all soldiers be inoculated. And despite public fear and distrust of inoculation, the soldiers complied. And over the coming months, a mass inoculation effort took place across the Army. And as a result, rates of infection fell, along with the threat of outbreaks, which saved lives and also led to a surge in new recruitment. Without that move, the war may well have been lost, and the greatest nation on Earth would have, like so many children who lived before the age of vaccines, died in the cradle.
As we gather in this city named for Washington, on the road that connects the White House and Congress, we want both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue and both parties to hear us when we say it's a patriotic duty to leave politics out of vaccines, out of medicine, and out of scientific research. Thank you all for your leadership and for coming together today to find new ways to expand and celebrate your work. We have a great agenda ahead, and I'd like to turn the floor over to Josh Sharfstein and Michelle Spencer. Both Josh and Michelle have been great partners to our Public Health team at Bloomberg Philanthropies, led by Dr. Kelly Henning. We also are very fortunate to have with us today. We're grateful for all the work they do, and I know the Bloomberg American Health Initiative is in good hands with their leadership. Josh and Michelle, would you come out on the stage?