When I read "CDC investigators quickly began hunting for a common source, sampling soil, water, and various products from in and around the four patients' homes

When I read "CDC investigators quickly began hunting for a common source, sampling soil, water, and various products from in and around the four patients' homes." I also thought of House (though it was usually his assistants invading people's homes...) I'm not sure what you mean by 'a healthcare system' (you may by thinking of the UK or Canada, I guess) but the US certainly has a large Federal health establishment; the United States Public Health Service started in 1798. The US DHHS has 79,000 employees, including a thousand researchers and a $1.2T annual budget; the CDC (of which 'Epidemic Intelligence Service', founded 1951, is just a part) is only one of DHHS' 14 agencies. I'm sure all of the for-profit hospitals in the US greatly appreciate that taxpayer-funded, non-interfering cornucopia of information. Imagine what it could do if it had the right to put educational programming on national television (ad-free, for free) ... without presidential interference.