Posted on 02/07/2018 6:46:50 AM PST by Kaslin
Under President Obama, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention sent money and staff to distant parts of the globe while neglecting life-threatening health crises under our noses. Dr. Thomas Frieden, who headed the CDC then, is joining a chorus of globalists bashing President Trump's decision to end funding for the CDC's overseas projects in dozens of countries. Frieden charges the cuts will "endanger lives in our country." Sounds scary, but the facts prove otherwise. Trump will spend the money here instead, where it's urgently needed. As Trump searches for a new CDC director, it's time to put America first -- something the agency has neglected.
On its core mission -- protecting American health -- the CDC is an abject failure. It dithered while opioid overdose deaths topped 42,000 and obesity deaths soared to 186,000, according to the National Academy of Sciences. Obesity and opioid overdosing are largely to blame for the sudden drop in American life expectancy.
Year after year, the CDC also pays lip service to curbing hospital infections, but the common infection C. diff now kills 29,000 Americans each year. No progress there.
Add flu deaths to the toll from the CDC's subpar performance. Emergency rooms are overwhelmed during the current outbreak, and 53 children have died. The vaccine is less effective than in some past years, but the bigger problem is how few Americans get vaccinated -- only 46 percent. Dr. Peter Hotez of Baylor College of Medicine points to a "poor level of vaccine advocacy" from the federal government. "This could haunt us for the current season," he adds. Nearly all the children who died never got the vaccine. A new study shows getting it can prevent 65 percent of child flu deaths.
While the CDC neglected its mission here, Obama committed billions to build labs and train health personnel in Africa during the Ebola scare. Billions.
Obama also allocated $582 million for the CDC's Global Health Security Agenda serving 49 countries. That fund is running out, and Trump refuses to renew it. Alleluia.
The help is needed right here. The CDC intensively tracks polio, hepatitis and influenza in Pakistan, in real time, and sends teams to find unvaccinated "underserved" children. But in the U.S., data on hospital infections and other killers are years out-of-date and vaccination rates are abysmal.
A new report by the nonprofit Trust for America's Health, "Ready or Not? Protecting the Public's Health from Diseases, Disasters and Bioterrorism, finds that public health readiness is a shambles in half the states, due partly to federal funding cuts by Obama. States lack modern, equipped labs and trained personnel.
Trump's budget proposal calls for a Federal Emergency Response Fund -- $500 million in public health block grants to the states -- almost the same amount being slashed from the CDC's overseas activities.
The Zika crisis shows the need for this state funding. Early in 2016, Americans heard about Zika, a mosquito-borne virus that causes horrifying birth defects. Florida's Governor Rick Scott and county health authorities across the South begged the federal government for help eradicating the Zika-carrying Aedes Aegypti mosquitoes as summer neared. The CDC sat on its hands. Worse, the Obama administration stubbornly demanded that emergency Zika funding include $355 million in foreign aid for Latin America. Months went by before money was cobbled together to help states combat the deadly mosquitoes. Too late for some families.
A new CDC report documents heartbreaking cases of hundreds of women in Puerto Rico, Florida and Texas who gave birth to infants with severe Zika-like defects in 2016. A forthcoming report on 2017 births is expected to be even worse.
Trump needs to replace CDC Director Brenda Fitzgerald, who resigned last week. The new chief should focus on what's killing large numbers of Americans -- obesity, opioids and infectious diseases. Not curing the world.
The CDC is clueless or in denial. See my tagline straight from their website.
Obama accepted e bola patients into the US, nuff sed
The former 'Narcisisst-In-Chief' was too busy running for 'President of the World' at the U.N.
to be concerned with the diseases affecting us here in the homeland.
They can advocate for flu vaccine all they want, but I’m not getting it. I don’t have a history of flu or frequent colds. I am fairly healthy for my age. I see the vaccine as more of a risk than not getting it. Until they can convince me that they for sure no what the next flue strain will be, I won’t even consider it.
WHO's Geneva office should be moved to a more logistical location in sub Sahara Africa.
We have in no way abandoned those less fortunate as evidenced by the continued funding the USA provides. The international community is to blame for the ineffectiveness of UN sponsored disease prevention.
That is, if she’d take the job!
How about for polio? What about diphtheria, tetanus, and pertussis? Maybe smallpox? Would you consider getting those? Why?
Your post doesn't sound like you're a person that can be convinced vaccines are beneficial. If you're someone who "doesn't have a history of flu or colds," you're either very fortunate, or you don't interact with other human beings.
As of now and until they can perfect a universal influenza vaccine, it’s always going to be a bit of a crap shoot.
There are multiple strains that emerge each year, mostly in Asia and the virus has a nasty habit of mutating. It also takes time, about 5-6 months to develop each year’s vaccine so between the time the strains most likely to spread across the world are identified and the time it takes to develop the vaccine, a new strain can emerge and or mutate.
The other problem is that influenza vaccines are grown in eggs which may add to the rate of mutation especially in H3N2 but it is the only method available presently.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/10/171030134625.htm
With that being said, even if the current year’s vaccine is only 10-30% effective, it’s still better than nothing and even if you get the flu vaccine but still get the flu, chances are it will not be as severe.
I’ve been getting the flu vaccine for 5 of the last 6 years through work. The only year in the last 6 that I didn’t get the vaccine, was the year I caught the flu.
Having PhD in medical micro with emphasis on immunopatholgoy and being a Nurse Practitioner with a great interest in HIV, children’s diseases and nosocomial infections especially in the elderly, I really wanted to be a public health nurse. I think now considering the futility of the search, we might have a public health nurse functioning as a school nurse in every county, maybe. There is essentially no public health systemat this time.
I remember when the Public Health Service was readily available to almost every person in the USA. Every one was able to get information on diabetes, dieting, pregnancy, WIC, etc. Now there are no buildings with Public Heath noted on the signs.
We are so ready for a really bad plague and public heath nurses used to be the bell ringer for contagious diseases. No more.
Sad.
Well crap - lets just look at our current Flu statistics - with almost 10 weeks remaining in the traditional “flu season”, we are on-track to set records for flu deaths and total cases. The CDC and state health departments are the point on flu, both in planning, and in action when outbreaks occur.
So far, the last several years, the flu shot cocktail the CDC mandates has been off - and sometimes WAY off and nearly ineffective. Yet they push harder every year to get EVERYONE to take the flu shot.
As a pastor, I get the privilege of ministering to sick folks from my congregation (and beyond). The VAST majority of cases of the flu I have been an eye-witness to have been contracted by folks who DID get this year’s flu shot, including at least two who were hospitalized due to the flu.
Add to this - the CDC seems oblivious to the uptick in formerly near-extinct illnesses that have shown back up in the US - amazingly in conjunction with large concentrations of “immigrants” (lots of them illegal).
Doesn't that pretty much apply to ANYTHING the UN touches?
My late wife was an RN for 30 years and one off the things she talked about were the immigration physicals she was part of...Only for “legal” immigrants...
‘Course, the illegals just skip that part when they sneak into our country...Do we have any real clue what is coming into the US carried by the waves of illegal aliens?
At 67, I just finished a bout with pertussis myself...No fun...Dismantling of our public health system might be one of the things to do if overall weakening of a population was desired...After all, according to FUBO, the US is just another country, no better or worse than any other, so why shouldn’t we share in the global disease misery...?
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