The premier federal agency tasked with protecting the health of Americans — the CDC — has set back trust in both science and government. It is no coincidence that doubt about the government’s ability to help the residents of East Palestine, Ohio, in the wake of a toxic train wreck this month followed several years of the CDC’s failed COVID “guidance.” Trust, it turns out, is a fragile thing.

Americans have good reason to distrust the CDC. The agency knew, for example, that its advice on masking and social distancing was ineffective and yet continued to push both policies anyway. Likewise, perhaps CDC officials occasionally reflect on the irony that many citizens have become anti-vaxxers after hearing that the CDC and Food and Drug Administration purposefully skipped safety checks on COVID vaccines for children and adolescents.

This reality is much more than unfortunate. In times of medical crises, people need to know they can trust scientists and public health experts to provide life-saving advice.

Here are five clear and necessary ways to restore accountability and trust.

First, let everyone see the data. The federal government’s default is always to sequester data. From the first, the CDC refused open access to data related to the number and location of COVID cases, hospitalizations, death rates, and its definitions for classifying cases. In February 2022, the New York Times reported the agency had released “only a tiny fraction” of its COVID-related data. The obvious reason is that it did not wish to allow non-government scientists the opportunity to do independent analysis that might have resulted in alternative strategies to contain the virus.

Second, the CDC must be willing to take advice from others when they clearly know more about any given subject. The agency’s dismissal of the suggestions of highly respected scientists who authored the Great Barrington Declaration questioning CDC guidance is a case in point. In times of crisis, efforts to help — especially from eminent researchers — should never be rejected. Yet Francis Collins, then-head of the National Institutes of Health, and Dr. Anthony Fauci actively conspired to disgrace scientists offering advice at odds with their largely conjectural consensus regarding the etiology and treatment of COVID. In the end, the evidence-based arguments of the dissident scientists proved to be the better strategic course.

Third, one agency should lead the parade. President Joe Biden believes in the “whole of government” approach to managing COVID and other crises. Made popular during the Iraq War, the term suggests that across the federal government, there exist diverse competencies that can assist in solving almost any problem. In practice, however, there are few examples of federal agencies with relevant mandates or experience eager to work with others. The larger problem of the whole of government approach is that it relieves any and all participating agencies of culpability if the collective objective is not achieved. Failure can always be attributed to another agency having dropped the ball.

Fourth, don’t circle the wagons to save a broken agency. From the start, it was apparent that the CDC was not likely to handle the COVID pandemic effectively. Within a few months, the Government Accounting Office issued critiques of the CDC’s feeble data management, leaving the agency with no real-time knowledge of how COVID was spreading, and that its confusing communications with the public were begging to be ignored. Criticism was so widespread that Rochelle Walensky, head of the CDC, made an extraordinary public apology for the poor performance of her agency. Yet, several national foundations and Washington, D.C., think tanks have issued reports arguing that the CDC’s failures are easily fixable and the agency should be given more money to undertake self-reform.

Finally, stop rewarding failure. To this end, the Omnibus Budget Act signed by Biden on Jan. 4, 2023, provided for an 8.9% increase in the CDC’s $8.5 billion 2023 budget. His proposed 2024 budget would provide the CDC with an additional $2.4 billion! The purpose of the new spending is to ensure the CDC is “prepared to respond to any public health threat.” This justification prompts the question of the agency’s past priorities. How does an agency that has plainly failed in its mission get rewarded with an enormous expansion of its resources? This “failing up” would never happen in the private sector.

More pandemics are ahead of us, whether they are bioweapons from geopolitical adversaries or naturally occurring infectious diseases that can kill millions. Without a rapid and extensive reform of the nation’s public health establishment, which seems too ready to forget its failures of the last three years, Americans will be at more risk than ever.

Carl Schramm is a professor at Syracuse University and a member of the COVID Crisis Group. He headed the Kauffman Foundation for entrepreneurship from 2002 to 2012. His most recent book is Burn the Business Plan (Simon & Schuster) 2018.