We got unscientific politicized policies during the COVID panic because the US health bureaucracy, US national media, and various science organizations was completely infected with political actors. Even now with new ethical leadership in place, these agitators continue their attacks on reason and science.
Since DOGE uncovered extensive waste and fraud in the USAID investigation, it also became clear that USAID grants to media organizations were a means of coopting the media, and paying them to produce and publish false information, misleading information and just plain political motivated propaganda. That is what this Science magazine reporter did with her "interview" resulting in a hit piece against the reconstituted Department of Health and Human Services. A lot of money was blocked by DOGE going to major and minor press and broadcast services.