The Cost of Mistrust

9-02-2025

By Dr. Howard Friedman MD | Veteran | U.S. Army Medical Corps | Internal Medicine | HHOM LLC

Two figures sit across from each other in silence, arms folded, the air heavy with distrust—a visual reflection of how mistrust builds walls instead of bridges

A bridge once strong now sways with doubt,

Its beams of faith are wearing out.

We question voices once held dear,

Replace with rumor, rage, and fear.

Where trust dissolves, the cracks appear,

And silence fills what once was clear.

—Dr. Howard Friedman, M.D.

Introduction – The Disappearance of Trust

Trust once held this country together in ways most of us barely noticed. It was the invisible bond between doctor and patient, teacher and student, neighbor and neighbor. But today, that bond feels dangerously thin. Vaccines no longer spark medical discussion but wars of suspicion. Climate warnings are dismissed as partisan agendas. The headlines of yet another school or church shooting remind us how alienated and unsafe our communities have become.

I feel this loss personally. As a veteran, I know what it means to trust the soldier beside you—because survival depends on it. As a physician, I’ve seen how a patient’s willingness to trust can make the difference between healing and decline. Without trust, neither a battlefield nor a hospital can function. And now, I see our nation facing the same truth: mistrust poisons the system. It floods our bodies with stress, divides our communities, and leaves us vulnerable to fear and violence.

Trust is not a luxury. It is medicine. It stabilizes our health, our relationships, and our democracy. And when it disappears, the cracks are everywhere.

The Vaccine Divide

Vaccines were once celebrated as one of medicine’s greatest triumphs. Smallpox was erased from the earth. Polio, once a terror to parents, became nearly extinct. Children lived longer not because of miracle drugs or advanced machines, but because diseases that once cut life short were no longer at the door.

Now, mistrust has rewritten that story. Parents hesitate. Rumors outshout research. And we are watching children die again from measles—diseases we thought we had left behind. This is the true cost of mistrust: when confidence in science is replaced by suspicion, old enemies return.

As a physician, I’ve always acknowledged the truth—every medical intervention carries risk. Vaccines are no exception. A very small number of people may be harmed, just as some patients react poorly to surgery, anesthesia, or medication. But the numbers have never been in doubt. For every rare complication, countless lives are saved. We know this. We’ve seen it. Yet mistrust has made even facts feel negotiable.

The tragedy is not just biological but cultural. When people no longer trust doctors, public health officials, or each other, prevention collapses. What was once a shield has become a battlefield. And in that battle, it is the children who fall first. The same corrosion of trust that leaves us unprepared for storms also leaves us unprepared for our own children’s despair.

Global Warming as a Mirror

Global warming is not only a scientific crisis—it is a social one. The data are consistent: rising seas, burning forests, shifting weather patterns. Yet the debate is less about the thermometer and more about trust. People hear the warnings but ask: Who benefits from my sacrifice? Whose agenda is hidden behind the graphs?

This mistrust stalls action. While nations argue and citizens doubt, the storms don’t wait. Hurricanes batter coastlines, wildfires consume communities, and droughts parch farmland. The earth keeps delivering the evidence, but we keep questioning the messenger. It isn’t that people cannot understand the science—it’s that many no longer trust the scientists, the governments, or the corporations behind the headlines. Decades of broken promises, hidden data, and profit-driven decisions have eroded the public’s faith. So when the call now comes to change how we live, it sounds less like truth and more like manipulation. Global warming has become a mirror, reflecting our deeper fracture. It shows us that mistrust doesn’t just infect politics or medicine—it can paralyze our response to the very planet that sustains us. And while suspicion grows, the temperature rises. The cost of mistrust here is not abstract; it is measured in lives uprooted, homes destroyed, and futures diminished. Global warming teaches us a harsh truth: mistrust doesn’t just divide opinions—it endangers survival. When people lose faith in institutions, even urgent warnings become background noise. The planet burns, but we argue over motives.

The same corrosion of trust that leaves us unprepared for storms also leaves us unprepared for our own children’s despair. Which brings us to a darker symptom of mistrust: the violence that erupts when alienation hardens into rage.

Violence Born of Alienation

When mistrust festers long enough, it doesn’t just divide—it destroys. We see it in the faces of young men who walk into schools or churches carrying weapons designed for war. They are not only armed with rifles; they are armed with despair, disconnection, and the belief that no one is listening. Violence is their language because trust has abandoned them. The framers of the Constitution wrote of the right to bear arms in the context of a militia—a citizen army that could defend a fledgling nation. That was a different world. They were not imagining an age when a teenager could walk into a store, buy a weapon built for combat, and unleash it on classmates. The intent was protection, not carnage.

Notice, too, that it is rarely middle-aged men who commit these atrocities. Most violent crimes are carried out by those whose brains are not yet fully developed. Biologically, impulse control doesn’t fully mature until around age 26. Raising the age for access to weapons of war would seem like common sense—but in an era of mistrust, even common sense is seen as tyranny.

So the cycle continues. Anger finds its outlet in firepower. Communities fracture. Families bury their children. This violence is not just about guns—it is about alienation so deep that human connection no longer restrains rage. It is about mistrust so complete that the idea of belonging feels impossible. And in that vacuum, anger takes aim. If mistrust can break down families, communities, and even the nation, then we must ask: what does trust really look like, and how can it be restored?

What Trust Really Means

Trust is not blind faith. It is not pretending danger isn’t there or handing over your life without question. Trust is confidence born of consistency, honesty, and accountability. It is earned through actions that match words, and through promises kept when no one is watching.

Yet I know how fragile it is. I carry mistrust myself. Experience teaches caution: leaders who lied, institutions that failed, people who betrayed. Once broken, trust rarely comes back whole. For many of us, mistrust feels safer than risk. It shields us from disappointment, even as it leaves us isolated.

So what does it mean to trust again? It begins small. Trusting the friend who shows up when you are hurting. Trusting the physician who listens without judgment. Trusting yourself when your own body tells you the truth. These are not leaps of faith but steps—slow, cautious, real.

Trust does not erase fear, but it keeps fear from running the show. It doesn’t demand perfection, only reliability. And though mistrust may feel like armor, it is a heavy weight to carry. Trust, once carefully rebuilt, lightens the load.

At its core, trust is the opposite of alienation. It is the thread that ties us back to one another, and to our own sense of belonging. Without it, nothing holds. With it, even broken systems can begin to mend.

Closing Reflection – Rebuilding the Bridge

Rebuilding trust is not quick work. It does not come from speeches or slogans, and it cannot be legislated into existence. It begins in the smallest spaces—conversations between neighbors, honesty in medicine, accountability in leadership, listening without agenda.

We cannot undo the years of betrayal, or the cynicism bred by broken promises. But we can choose to show up differently. Each act of integrity, however small, is a stone laid in the bridge we must cross together.

As a physician, I know the body does not heal overnight. As a veteran, I know battles are not won in a single charge. And as a citizen, I know trust is the same. It takes time, patience, and the courage to risk disappointment again.

In the end, mistrust isolates, but trust connects. It is both fragile and powerful—the quiet medicine without which no family, no community, no democracy can survive. If you take one truth forward, let it be this: trust is not found—it is built. And every time you choose honesty over deception, courage over cynicism, and connection over suspicion, you are laying the foundation for a future stronger than the past.

A bridge once fallen can rise again,

Stone by stone, not if, but when.

Each hand that steadies, each truth we share,

Rebuilds the span from here to there.

Though cracks remain, the weight will bear

—If trust returns, the bridge repairs.

—Dr. Howard Friedman, M.D.

—Dr. Howard Friedman MD

Board-Certified | Internal Medicine | Veteran | U.S. Army Medical Corps

Founder of Howard’s House of Medicine (HHOM LLC)

https://www.hhomllc.com

Frequently Asked Questions:

Q: Why is mistrust so damaging to health and society?

A: Mistrust fuels stress, weakens relationships, and corrodes institutions. In medicine, it prevents patients from following treatments; in society, it blocks cooperation. The result is poorer health, fractured communities, and heightened vulnerability to fear and violence.

Q: How does mistrust affect issues like vaccines and climate change?

A: Mistrust shifts focus from evidence to suspicion. Vaccines, once celebrated, are now resisted, leading to the return of preventable diseases. Climate science is doubted, delaying action while the planet warms. In both cases, mistrust turns proven solutions into contested battlegrounds.

Q: Can trust really be rebuilt once it is lost?

A: Yes, but slowly. Trust does not return through speeches or slogans; it is rebuilt through consistent honesty, accountability, and small daily acts of integrity. Step by step, trust transforms alienation into connection and creates the foundation for healing families, communities, and nations.