The US has some of the highest levels of public health research (NIH) and science funding (NSF). And despite not having universal healthcare, we have I think t

The US has some of the highest levels of public health research (NIH) and science funding (NSF). And despite not having universal healthcare, we have I think the highest government funded health care spending in the world (~8% of GDP or ~2 Trillion). Part of the way to gain this funding is to label things 'associated' or 'related' in order to trigger a funding grab for your particular field of interest. NIH and NSF funding is mostly adversarial, for the most part the pot is fixed and you can win by making your case more dire than the other guy. Thus you have weird stuff like anything remotely having a connection to COVID or pregnancy getting tagged in to influence the purse strings.