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This is the type of thing that'd normally show up on CDC's Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report which has been published weekly since 1960 (my understanding is
by llamaimperative 2y ago
This is the type of thing that'd normally show up on CDC's Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report which has been published weekly since 1960 (my understanding is this is without fail).
But unfortunately the current administration has decided an ideological purification is more important than keeping the American public apprised of threats to their health.
So it wasn't published last week, and probably won't be this week either. "Politics don't matter" though ;) Bummer!
https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/ https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/
- johnnyanmac 2y agoHow is it that Trump is so timely at cutting medical resources right before the moment it is most needed? Or perhaps such outbreaks are more common than you'd expect and it's the equivalent of leaving a firewall down for a day? And yeah, I'm aware a bigger factor in this freeze was hiding the very obvious Bird Flu pandemic. Can't hide the eggs getting more expensive though.
- sieabahlpark 2y ago[dead]
- llamaimperative 2y ago> Or perhaps such outbreaks are more common than you'd expect and it's the equivalent of leaving a firewall down for a day? I think this + bad luck, really.
- throwup238 2y agoLuck is the intersection of preparation and opportunity. In this case lots of opportunity and zero preparation.
- llamaimperative 2y agoWell said!
- nejsjsjsbsb 2y agoTrump is not acting in people's best interests. Wait, just rumaging around looking for my shocked face mask. Eggs more expensive doesn't matter any more.
- sieabahlpark 2y ago[dead]
- johnnyanmac 2y agoIndeed. I'm just also find it interesting how timely some of his actions can immediately blow up on us. And yes. It really doesn't matter in the grand scheme of things but was such a common rationale for those who voted Trump. I'm shocked that he did not in fact keep a promise thst would have benefitted the working class.
- hedora 2y agoCutting resources often is the root cause for an outbreak. - SARSv2 (aka Covid-19) happened after Trump disbanded the team that contained SARSv1. - During COVID, the west suspended polio vaccination programs in developing regions, so now polio outbreaks are a thing again. - Antivaxxers in NYC caused a massive measles outbreak a few years ago. Etc, etc.
- nradov 2y agoI won't attempt to defend the administration's actions, but no team ever really contained SARS. That outbreak burned out largely for natural reasons.
- rounce 2y agoI think they’ve muddled a few things together and are in part referring to the disbanding of the NSC’s Directorate of Global Health Security and Biodefense as part of John Bolton’s NSC reorg.
- School-Cotton 2y agoCovid was spreading in many countries before the US. Off the top of my head I remember China, Korea, Italy and Spain. And no country of significant size avoided it, regardless of whether they were led by Trump or not.
- zzzeek 2y agoThe US pandemic response team that Trump fired included a significant presence working onsite in China https://www.reuters.com/article/world/exclusive-us-slashed-cdc-staff-inside-china-prior-to-coronavirus-outbreak-idUSKBN21C3NE/ https://www.reuters.com/article/world/exclusive-us-slashed-c...
- blackeyeblitzar 2y agoI hit the paywall. But if this is about the same thing I’m thinking of, one reason to be careful about the work China’s CDC was doing (at times with visiting staff from the US) is they were one (among many) source of lab leaks of SARSv1: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7096887/ https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7096887/
- avs733 2y ago[flagged]
- intermerda 2y ago[flagged]
- _yb2s 2y agoI’m an academic scientist part of a really large government funded research grant that employs hundreds of people. Last time, we had to fire half our staff immediately right up front because they said they were cutting our funding. They ended up not cutting our funding at all, but we had already fired everyone so it was lose lose- the Government spent the money but the research couldn’t be done. Just plain bad leadership.
- readthenotes1 2y agoInteresting. So you were able to see these and reports last year and all the way through January 21st this year? Because there's only been one reported car in 2025 in Kansas, I'd be surprised...
- thrance 2y ago[flagged]
- cozzyd 2y agoUnfortunately for the administration, disease is killing off hens faster than it's killing people, so demand outpaces supply.
- dalemhurley 2y agoAbsolutely, penny eggs are about to drop any day.
- ysofunny 2y agobut only because dead people don't buy eggs so it's expected lowered demand will "stabilize" prices. the numbers are what's important, people. (sorry (not sorry) for the angry sarcasm)
- hammock 2y agoHas anyone died from the Kansas outbreak? Are you scaremongering? I checked the TB mortality in the US and it was 2 per 1,000,000 cases
- btilly 2y agoI presume that the chickens are being killed due to fear of bird flu.
- cozzyd 2y agoNow, now, sick people have smaller appetites and don't eat as many eggs.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- AlotOfReading 2y agoMortality is taken over the population as a whole. You want the case fatality rate (probability of death if you're infected), which in the US is 7-9%. Globally, some countries have TB case rates >30%. TB is a very ancient, very scary disease that's co-evolved with us. It's not much of an exaggeration to say that large parts of modern medicine were invented specifically to get a handle on TB because it has historically ravaged entire populations when left untreated.
- laidoffamazon 2y ago[flagged]
- mjevans 2y ago"None of the Above" (see Bruster's Millions (Movie)) really needs to be an option...
- hammock 2y agoIt is. It’s called a protest vote, and it’s done by casting a blank ballot
- pksebben 2y ago...which does just about as much as voting (that is, precious little). If we're ever going to claw ourselves out of this (or any) mess, we need ranked choice or something like it. The giant douche / turd sandwich dichotomy needs to end, for everyone on any side of the political spectrum.
- hammock 2y ago> which does just about as much as voting Did you expect something else? No matter what system of voting we use, unless we go back to only white landowning men can vote or something (doubt we want to do that), you can’t avoid the fact that 160 million+ people vote together for President. The most viable solution looks less like changing to ranked choice and more like returning more governing power to lower levels of government (state and local) where there is less competition
- pksebben 2y agoWait, though. It's not that there are too many voters. It's that the system of voting we use doesn't connect the vox populi to the means of social control. If you're given the choice between two bad options, you aren't really given the choice. There's massive cross-aisle support for a lot of things (proper healthcare, more support for working families, lower inflation, holding the banks to some kind of standard, reducing corruption, etc.) that we could actually move the needle on if our votes mattered, but because the two parties have us between a rock (whoever we identify as our party) and a hard place (whoever the other guys are) it doesn't really matter who we vote for. Now, I'm willing to concede that what you're talking about might be a thing, but there's really no way to know until we actually fix what we have and see if that becomes a problem. We've never really tried what we're supposed to have in the modern era. Frankly, I'd like to see some format of direct democracy rather than representative. Always seemed a little like an obvious grift to me.
- throw678937 2y ago[dead]
- fingrprintr 2y ago[flagged]
- ceejayoz 2y agoThe CDC is likely to be one of the primary sources for said media on national health issues like this.
- fingrprintr 2y agoThis is a local health issue, the local equivalent is doing the work here.
- ceejayoz 2y agoDisease outbreaks have a tendency to not… stay local.
- fingrprintr 2y agoI’m sure the geniuses at the neighboring health authorities are perfectly capable of monitoring nearby conditions without falling back on federal intervention.
- ceejayoz 2y agoSo each state should have an healthcare embassy to coordinate with the other 49 states? Collecting the same data, but 50x? Maybe we can call them the “Duplicate Centers for Disease Control”. Sure sounds efficient.
- fingrprintr 2y agoYou’re missing that these centers already exist.
- 2y ago
- roenxi 2y ago> "Politics don't matter" though ;) Bummer! 1. Is there an argument here that the CDC's Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report's unbroken publication record is so important it should switch votes? 2. They probably still filled the report in, so there is a chance it eventually gets published. No need to abandon hope yet.
- vkou 2y ago[flagged]
- zdw 2y agoIt's arguable that many of them are important, we just don't know yet which ones, although some (like this one) are more likely than others.
- layer8 2y agoIt’s not exactly an outlier among the many arguments.
- llamaimperative 2y agoYes there's an argument that "having vs not-having functional contagious disease surveillance, alerting, and learning systems" can change political outcomes.
- Waterluvian 2y agoI wonder if we’d do better in discourse to stop pointing at an “administration.” It is a reflection of what a plurality, often majority, of people want.
- TylerE 2y agoLess than 31% of people voted for this administration. So no, it isn't.
- lynndotpy 2y ago[flagged]
- klipt 2y ago> the people have no power now There's always the midterms. Politicians shouldn't get too complacent if their party screws up.
- llamaimperative 2y agoDefinitely, which is why it's important to identify when politicians put the American public at risk like this. The connections between random high-level government actions don't easily map to real world outcomes for most people.
- lynndotpy 2y agoFor sure. What I meant to articulate was that the admin is the only one it makes sense to point to. Saying "the electorate is stupid!" has no utility other than catharsis, though.
- lazyasciiart 2y agoWhat else are you trying to say with “not in a position to clearly anticipate the ramifications”?
- 2y ago
- liontwist 2y ago[flagged]
- ceejayoz 2y agohttps://healthjournalism.org/blog/2023/07/medical-errors-are-the-third-leading-cause-of-death-and-other-statistics-you-should-question/ https://healthjournalism.org/blog/2023/07/medical-errors-are... > In a critical commentary, the co-editors-in-chief of the journal BMJ Quality & Safety wrote that the paper’s “headline-friendly” mortality rate — which was 10 times the rate suggested by prior studies — was so implausible that it risked undermining confidence in the entire field of patient safety research. > Yet the notion that medical errors are the third leading cause of death persists. It’s trumpeted by patient safety advocates and trial attorneys, and became a line on a TV show. News stories continue to cite it.
- liontwist 2y agoSo why doesn’t the CDC track it so we know the actual numbers? That would be good information to know. Also the academic article here is simply a response to another academic article supporting the 3rd leading cause of death: https://scholar.google.com/scholar_lookup?author=MA+Makary&author=M+Daniel&title=Medical+error-the+third+leading+cause+of+death+in+the+US&publication_year=2016&journal=BMJ&volume=353 https://scholar.google.com/scholar_lookup?author=MA+Makary&a... Which academic has it right? The study you shared is critical of the sources used in the first, but also provides no new data sources. It’s simply skeptical about the rates.
- ceejayoz 2y agoMalpractice law is complex and time consuming. Determining it to be a cause or contributor to a death isn't quite like going "yup, that's pneumonia". Studies are what we use to estimate it, and this one was a big outlier.
- liontwist 2y agoCausality itself is a complex philosophical topic. I agree it probably can’t be established. That’s why death reportings tend to use “died with X”. I understand that there is a sensitivity to ascribe liability or fault. But if someone dies in recovery from a surgery, or worse under anesthesia, that seems like something that could be identified and reported.
- TacticalCoder 2y ago[dead]
- giantg2 2y agoWouldn't this have showed up in the reports last year when the numbers were actively happening? There's been 1 case this year it says. If the ideology was what you're saying, then wouldn't they want to spread the info and blame it on the "dirty illegals" or whatever?
- dartos 2y agoOne might conclude, given how closely the current administration has been following the project 2025 plan that was floating around, that the administration paused functions pending ideological purity checks on key personnel. Ofc, one may conclude anything one wants,
- aliasxneo 2y agoThis year has been a rough start for HN. The political commentary is infecting every thread.
- foobarchu 2y agoThat's because it's an extremely big deal and affects many things discussed here.
- llm_trw 2y agoIt's because people now treat parties like they used to treat football teams.
- mindslight 2y agoIf you mean avoiding the Party so you don't get beat up for being different, then the analogy checks out.
- johnnyanmac 2y agoI don't care if Jesus himself froze the CDC. It was an o srly hasty action at best and it will unnecessarily cost some lives.
- aaron695 2y ago[dead]
- GeekyBear 2y ago> This is the type of thing that'd normally show up on CDC's Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report The resurgence of TB has been the big story in infectious diseases for a while now. Globally: > The World Health Organization (WHO) today published a new report on tuberculosis revealing that approximately 8.2 million people were newly diagnosed with TB in 2023 – the highest number recorded since WHO began global TB monitoring in 1995. This represents a notable increase from 7.5 million reported in 2022, placing TB again as the leading infectious disease killer in 2023, surpassing COVID-19. https://www.who.int/news/item/29-10-2024-tuberculosis-resurges-as-top-infectious-disease-killer https://www.who.int/news/item/29-10-2024-tuberculosis-resurg... As well as in the US: > After declining for three decades, tuberculosis (TB) rates in the U.S. have been increasing steadily since 2020, according to a new report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. It’s a disturbing trend given that 1.5 million die from TB every year, making it the world’s most infectious killer. https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/article/us-tuberculosis-tb-rates-rising https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/article/us-tuberc...
- wahern 2y ago> The resurgence of TB has been the big story in infectious diseases for a while now. It's been a big story since the 1980s, IIRC. I remember in college in the 1990s a biologist friend explaining that TB was the greatest disease threat to public health and it was being completely ignored. Frankly, it's hard to get worked up about it. Notwithstanding that it is a serious public health threat, there's a strong political rhetoric aspect to the discussion, both in the popular and professional spheres. It's unfortunate. In the 1980s and 1990s it was all about how Reagan decimated our public health infrastructure. The arguments aren't per se wrong, but it's difficult to gauge relevance and prioritization about the threat of TB given how part of the medical and scientific community seem to have been border-line crying wolf for 40 years. Discussion centers around absolute numbers. Tell me what the per capita relationship looks like, especially per capita among the populations most vulnerable to acquisition and disease, and what the long-term trends look like. I see this in a lot of other adjacent public health discussions tainted by political hand wringing, such as food insecurity, etc--lots of absolute numbers. But global populations are growing. The US, for example, grew by 80 million people, or 30%, between 1990 and 2020. That's not to deny that tuberculosis is a growing problem, but we have many problems. And the constant drum beat of alarm causes some parts of the community to (increasingly) react in counterproductive ways. From an individual moral standpoint, that's on them, but from an epidemiological and sociological perspective, maybe the professionals bear a little blame, too, at least in terms of communication. We could all do better.
- gonzobonzo 2y ago> This is the type of thing that'd normally show up on CDC's Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report which has been published weekly since 1960 (my understanding is this is without fail). > But unfortunately the current administration has decided an ideological purification is more important than keeping the American public apprised of threats to their health. Looking at the CDC's Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, this doesn't actually appear to be true. Going by that link you can read past MMWR reports, and they aren't (from everything I can see) doing weekly tracking of outbreaks, but rather publishing various articles about diseases the way a science journal would. I couldn't find anything about the Kansas tuberculosis outbreak in the most recent reports, so I wouldn't be surprised if we don't see anything about it in the next few MMRW reports.
- vtashkov 2y agoLast week it was still the job of the previous administration to publish it and it was the last administration which created the problem in the first place. Ideological purification was also what the previous administration has done quite a lot by hiring people based on their sexual preference, skin colour, gender and other irrelevant to the job characteristics.