Scientific studies calculate climate change as health danger, while Trump calls it a 'scam'

The Trump administration has revoked a scientific finding that climate change is a danger to public health, an idea that President Donald Trump called 'a scam.'

Published on Feb. 12, 2026

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The Trump administration has revoked a scientific finding that climate change is a danger to public health, an idea that President Donald Trump called 'a scam.' However, repeated scientific studies have found that climate change is a documented and quantifiable harm, leading to increasing disease and thousands of deaths every year.

Why it matters

The 2009 Environmental Protection Agency finding that climate change is a danger to public health has been the legal underpinning of nearly all regulations fighting global warming. Revoking this finding could undermine efforts to address the health impacts of climate change.

The details

Thousands of scientific studies have looked at climate change and its effects on human health in the past five years, predominantly showing that climate change is increasingly dangerous to people. Studies have found that thousands of people have died and even more were sickened because of climate change in the past few decades, with heat-related deaths more than doubling in the past quarter century. A 2021 study found that more than a third of heat deaths are due to human-caused climate change, amounting to more than 9,700 global deaths a year. Research is booming on the topic, with over 29,000 peer-reviewed studies looking at the intersection of climate and health since the government first determined climate change to be a public health danger.

  • In the more than 15 years since the government first determined climate change to be a public health danger, there have been more than 29,000 peer-reviewed studies that looked at the intersection of climate and health.
  • More than 60% of those studies have been published in the past five years.

The players

Donald Trump

The former President of the United States who called climate change 'a scam.'.

Howard Frumkin

A physician and professor emeritus of public health at the University of Washington who said that revoking the endangerment finding is 'akin to insisting that the world is flat or denying that gravity is a thing.'

Jonathan Patz

A physician who directs the Center for Health, Energy and Environmental Research at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and said that 'Health risks are increasing because human-cause climate change is already upon us.'

Lynn Goldman

A physician and dean emeritus at the George Washington University School of Public Health who said that 'Public health is not only about prevention of diseases, death and disability but also well-being. We are increasingly seeing people displaced by rising seas, intensifying storms and fires.'

Environmental Protection Agency

The government agency that made the 2009 finding that climate change is a danger to public health, which the Trump administration has now revoked.

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What they’re saying

“It boggles the mind that the administration is rescinding the endangerment finding; it's akin to insisting that the world is flat or denying that gravity is a thing.”

— Howard Frumkin, Physician and professor emeritus of public health at the University of Washington (AP)

“Health risks are increasing because human-cause climate change is already upon us. Take the 2021 heat dome for example, that killed (more than) 600 people in the Northwest.”

— Jonathan Patz, Physician who directs the Center for Health, Energy and Environmental Research at the University of Wisconsin-Madison (AP)

“Public health is not only about prevention of diseases, death and disability but also well-being. We are increasingly seeing people displaced by rising seas, intensifying storms and fires.”

— Lynn Goldman, Physician and dean emeritus at the George Washington University School of Public Health (AP)

The takeaway

This decision by the Trump administration to revoke the scientific finding that climate change is a danger to public health flies in the face of overwhelming evidence from thousands of peer-reviewed studies. It raises serious concerns about the administration's willingness to prioritize science and public health over political ideology when it comes to addressing the growing threat of climate change.