RIP, CDC
By Iris French
Health is political.
It’s a statement that still baffles me. Certainly, it makes sense to a point. You own and operate your own body, shouldn’t you have a say in this? But what happens when your decisions can negatively affect others?
Sounds familiar right? Since the Covid pandemic, this type of topic has circled around lunchroom tables all the way up the White House with regards to vaccines. It ruined Thanksgivings across the country with massive blow-ups among families according to experts. Experts, meaning myself and several other friends with chronic health issues, had to forgo their slice of pumpkin pie because of vaccine hesitancy.
Health has become vastly political, with both sides of the aisle pushing an agenda to increase their own autonomy on health decisions. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has launched this issue into a whole new world with his approach to the Center for Disease Control. His new agenda, which includes massive lay-offs, budget cuts, and zero medical or science background for appointed leadership and crucial agency positions, has direct input into health policies that affect every American. Regardless of which side of the aisle you’re on, this level of politicization of health is a massive cause for concern.
The writing was on the wall back in March when the Department of Health, headed by RFK Jr., announced its drastic cuts to multiple administrations underneath it. The CDC was scheduled to lose almost 2,400 jobs with a budget reduction of more than 40%. Thirteen different departments/offices within the CDC would be effectively rendered non-functional.
It can be tough to understand exactly how these actions affect the average American or just what a government agency does for you. I’ve done my best to outline what exactly will be affected:
Viral Hepatitis Lab
Viral Hepatitis has five different strains that cause liver inflammation from mild cases to severe ones that can cause the liver to fully shut down. Early detection is very important to prevent chronic cases that can cause cirrhosis or cancer.
TB Communication, Education & Behavioral Studies Branch
Handles Tuberculosis outreach, which decimated America in the 1900’s & is making a great comeback across rural American states currently. TB is highly contagious & easy to prevent, if you know how to prevent it. 1
STD Prevention Lab & Disease Intervention Branches
I hope most folks know the importance of this without saying.
HIV Prevention
HIV, untreated, will enter the third stage known as AIDS. If COVID-19 deaths frightened you, remember that AIDS was the nightmare of the 1990s. It was the leading cause of death among Americans ages 25-44 and 2.6 million people died from it in 1999 alone. 2
National Institute for Occupational Safety & Health
This office makes it harder for your employer to kill or injure you. 3
Development & Disability, Disability & Health Promotion Branch
This branch works with local, state & national levels to promote the health & social participation among different disabled groups. 4
Division of Blood Disorders & Public Health Genomes
Health issues run in your family? If you have a genetic disorder, you very much want this division to exist. 5
Office of Health Equity/Office of Women’s Health/Office of Minority Health
If you want to argue this one, I’d recommend checking out the health outcomes for black women giving birth in America. White women die in childbirth at a rate of 14.5 per 100,000. Black women die in childbirth at a rate of 50.3 per 100,000. This is as of 2023. Why? 6
Office of Equal Employment Opportunity
Ever had a crisis over reporting something to HR? Worried about your co-workers or bosses retaliating? Asked to do something illegal? These guys are an independent agency that investigates on behalf of workers. 7
Traumatic Brain Injury Team
Football fans will know this one well but most may not know how prevalent TBI is. 69,000 deaths in 2021 were related to TBI. The older the victim is, the harder it is to determine that a traumatic brain injury was the cause. 8
National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion
Do you know anyone with cancer? Heart disease? Diabetes? Unless you live under a rock, your life has been affected by either falling into one of these categories or watching someone endure them. They’re the leading causes of death for Americans & this center works to provide interventionist strategies in every stage of life to better prevent them from being fatal. 9
Smoking Reduction
This is pretty self explanatory. Quitting smoking is difficult enough as it is, from personal experience, and vaping is exploding among young people who’ve never even touched a cigarette. It was hard enough when a cigarette made you smell terrible, but now that you can hit your local deli for “Candy Watermelon Surprise” and still get your fix, I think this is a pretty important topic. 10
National Center for Emerging & Zoonotic Infectious Disease, Discontinuing funding for Lyme Disease, Prion Disease & Chronic Fatigue Syndrome
As a Long Island native, Lyme disease was borderline a right of passage with the sheer amount of ticks that exist there. And let me tell you, it sucks. Symptoms can range from nerve pain, spinal/brain inflammation, extreme dizziness, arthritis, facial palsy, or heart problems. 11 My cousin can’t eat red meat anymore because of the flair ups it causes.
Prions are a whole other nightmare. Have you ever seen the photos of “Zombie Deer” floating around the internet? Well, that’s because of a prion disease. Trust me, if you haven’t seen the photos, it looks exactly like it sounds. And what’s super neat is that laboratory studies have shown that Chronic Wasting Disease (the scientific name for zombie I suppose) can infect human cells. 12 Prions don’t take into account political bias, so if infected meat hits your plate, you’re at risk. Which wouldn’t normally be a major issue, but don’t worry, our new head of the Department of Health & Human Services also cut about 20% of the FDA’s workforce. So far prions haven’t entered the mix, but we’ve already had a great round of literature on Radioactive Shrimp getting recalled at Walmart. 13
The important thing to take away from this list is that it only covers what happened back in March. It’s now September, seven months have passed, and I don’t think we’ve had a single week without a new, grand initiative that’s shaken the public. But what has happened is another massive shakeup at the CDC, which is nothing short of terrifying. Four key leaders at the CDC have resigned following the termination of Director Susan Monarez.
Monarez, who was eventually fired after some disagreement over who had the authority to do so, came to the position with glowing reviews from other colleagues who deemed her a non-partisan asset dedicated to public health throughout her tenure at the CDC in other positions. The four other leaders quit in protest of her firing, including the director of the National Center for Immunization & Respiratory Diseases, the director for Emerging & Zoonotic Infectious Diseases, the Chief Medical Officer of the CDC, and the Director of Public Health Data, Surveillance & Technology. 14
Their claim isn’t just that health is becoming too politicized, but that they cannot perform their role when the existing administration is weaponizing public health. Science has always been presented as fact, because well….it is. It’s documented, measured and replicable processes.
With RFK Jr.’s remarks on vaccines throughout his time as the head of HHS and during his unsuccessful presidential bid, it’s nothing short of terrifying. In June, RFK Jr. removed all 17 members of the CDC’s vaccine advisory committee with the statement that he was going to “restore public trust” in vaccines again. A former CDC director during the Biden administration, Dr. Mandy Cohen, advised that this would cast doubt on transparent public health processes that protect Americans. Dr. Richard Besser, former CDC director from the Obama administration, plainly stated that Kennedy’s move, “should erase any remaining doubt that he intends to impose his personal anti-vaccine agenda on the American people.” 15
The resignations come on the heels of new limitations put in place to narrow access to the COVID-19 vaccine. The new policy removes emergency use authorization of the COVID-19 vaccines which means the process will be lengthened to get access to it. The FDA will now be approving which groups get access to the vaccine. As of Wednesday, it will only be recommended for “high-risk” groups and seniors. But don’t worry, the CDC will now be headed by a brilliant new doctor who has all the credentials to restore American trust in public services! 16
Did you feel hopeful for a second? No? Smart! Because we’re getting Jim O’Neill, who has extensive history in the federal government as an administrative role. His college education consists of a B.A. in Humanities and, you guessed it, a M.A. in Humanities. You can’t philosophize your way into understanding how medicine or diseases work. (And just to prepare for the inevitable talking point of how Dr. Monarez didn’t have a medical degree either, her educational background was specifically rooted in infectious disease research. 17 Which feels a lot more relevant to the whole….Center for Disease Control title we had going for America.) Not to mention, he’s got deep ties with Peter Thiel, including managing a hedge fund that funded another can of worms: Palantir. 18
Now you may have feelings on the COVID-19 vaccine. Maybe you didn’t get one or maybe you weren’t sure about the science of it. I am entirely biased since my hometown was smack in the middle of the epicenter at the height of the pandemic. I trust vaccines to work, even if I don’t understand exactly how. But honestly? I also don’t understand how my car works and I trust it enough to drive 70MPH on the freeway.
But the truly important thing to ask is, who is worth placing your trust in? Regardless of your feelings on vaccines, when you look at the list of cuts above, can you really say there isn’t a division being decimated that won’t affect you or your family? COVID-19 may not have affected you or your family, but what about heart disease? Diabetes? What about your safety at work? Do you trust your boss to just make the right decision, regardless of cost?
Point blank though, do you trust someone like RFK Jr. to have your best interests at heart? The man and his team at the HHS have already been caught releasing a report that was the “gold standard” with over 500 citations. It was written by AI, and the studies cited in that report? Those didn’t exist. We can put aside his drug addiction, his mercury poisoning, his brain parasite, his recorded brain fog or cognitive issues for now. But what I can’t put aside are his heart issues. He’s diagnosed with atrial fibrillation, more commonly known as aFIB. A heart disease. He can claim all he wants that he is “cured” but there is no known cure for aFIB. 19
The average American certainly doesn’t have access to the Kennedy fortune to treat heart disease in the same way as RFK Jr. And it’s more likely than not that initiatives made by the National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention would help catch it early. But he believes that since he “beat it,” you should also pull yourself up by your dynastically wealthy designer bootstraps and do the same.
So who do you put your trust in? The people who’ve dedicated their lives to American health? Or a man who claims that Lyme disease is a result of a military weapon experiment and is cutting funding for it? 20
Your health is political. Your health is being weaponized for gains you will never see but only feel. At the end of the day, your health is all you have. It’s time we protect it.