5 ms·

Half of CDC Epidemic Intelligence Service Laid Off

56 points by basementcat 2y ago

perihelions 2y ago
Additional comments, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43052910 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43052910 ("CDC cuts expected to decimate Epidemic Intelligence Service (statnews.com)", 58 comments)
cluckindan 2y ago
What a fertile ground the US becomes for Russian and Chinese agencies testing bioweapons.
- 0xy 2y ago
  Ooh I love this conspiracy theory, but who needs bioweapons when Chinese labs will leak deadly viruses through sheer incompetence?
  - egberts1 2y ago
    Especially if US funds those bioweapons. Save taxpayers money too from reduction of redundancy. :-/
throw8494499 2y ago
[flagged]
dave333 2y ago
The private health companies need to hire these folks en masse to a jointly owned company and provide a contract disease surveillance service to CDC. But they probably make more money if people get sick. The whole reason for public health spending right there.
euroderf 2y ago
This, Kennedy, attacks on Obamacare: the 1% culling the herd ? Certainly the monied class will in any scenario retain access to decent, science-based health care.
- le-mark 2y ago
  The function of “healthcare” in the US is to separate families from their generational wealth at end of life. The way the system is set up all a persons assets will be used up and depleted paying for required care Medicare does not cover (in home or assisted living). Only when a person is destitute with all their assets depleted will Medicaid kick in. The result is a transfer of wealth from individuals to the for profit health care industry. Only the wealthy have enough assets to survive this process to leave something to their heirs.
ChrisArchitect 2y ago
Title is: RFK Jr. Just Kneecapped the CDC on His First Day
egberts1 2y ago
Cautionary tale: Be sure you omit several words from your next Federal grant. Taxpayers are tightening their belt(s).
- me_me_me 2y ago
  No they are not. They gave themselves 4trilion fucking tax breaks. It's veiled shitfoolery not tightening the belt.
readthenotes1 2y ago
Why are half of CDC epidemic intelligence staff hired in 2024?
- basementcat 2y ago
  It is a 2 year fellowship. Assuming hires are uniformly distributed, it would stand to reason that approximately half were hired in the within the past year. https://www.cdc.gov/eis/php/participants/index.html https://www.cdc.gov/eis/php/participants/index.html I would be interested in hearing arguments for why it is helpful to gut the CDC’s globally recognized applied epidemiology training program
waltercool 2y ago
How is this related to Hacker News overall? No idea. People keep posting politics here with no reason. Anyways, this is a good thing if you want to clean up the mess from very long time, regardless of the party.
- basementcat 2y ago
  I would be interested in hearing arguments for why it is helpful to gut the CDC’s globally recognized applied epidemiology training program
  - waltercool 2y ago
    First of all, the way CDC works, it's just a board of directors from many pharmaceutical corporations. There are known conflicts of interest here. Secondly, USA is considered a very unhealthy in comparison to Europe and other countries, while that's mosrly related to FDA, CDC also plays a role here by promoting drugs/vaccines in cases you only need a change of habits (like eating well to minimize flu severity) Third, the way CDC dealt with COVID was unacceptable, their mixed messages about facemask, social distancing, herd immunity, reapiratory machines caused many people to die, and not because of the virus necessarily. This is a 15k people agency. And worth to mention their controversy to require social media companies to censor posts about Wuhan Institute of Virology, when we all know today it was true, and CDC was partially responsible of the COVID 19 crisis. Also their censorship of scientists who disagreed with CDC conclusions, and some of them resulted to be factual. After all of this, I do think it's fair to reform the CDC entirely. The economic impacts of their mistakes destroyed millions of business and caused many people unemployed. Even today 2025 you see few large companies struggling or going bankrupt because of their debt under COVID. You may think we had to do that to prevent COVID spread, but all current data says the opposite, and many countries who never took hard measures had same or lower spread than US. CDC had to rectify all of their errors. I have many friends who lost their jobs, VISA or green card process, because CDC was incompetent to act against a virus they previously knew, and recommended things they didn't encourage in the past (like paper/cloth masks to prevent spread of a viral virus).
    - 2y ago

56 points by basementcat 2y ago

Additional comments, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43052910 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43052910 ("CDC cuts expected to decimate Epidemic Intelligence Service (statnews.com)", 58 comments)

cluckindan 2y ago

What a fertile ground the US becomes for Russian and Chinese agencies testing bioweapons.

0xy 2y ago
Ooh I love this conspiracy theory, but who needs bioweapons when Chinese labs will leak deadly viruses through sheer incompetence?
- egberts1 2y ago
  Especially if US funds those bioweapons. Save taxpayers money too from reduction of redundancy. :-/

throw8494499 2y ago

[flagged]

dave333 2y ago

The private health companies need to hire these folks en masse to a jointly owned company and provide a contract disease surveillance service to CDC. But they probably make more money if people get sick. The whole reason for public health spending right there.

euroderf 2y ago

This, Kennedy, attacks on Obamacare: the 1% culling the herd ? Certainly the monied class will in any scenario retain access to decent, science-based health care.

le-mark 2y ago
The function of “healthcare” in the US is to separate families from their generational wealth at end of life. The way the system is set up all a persons assets will be used up and depleted paying for required care Medicare does not cover (in home or assisted living). Only when a person is destitute with all their assets depleted will Medicaid kick in. The result is a transfer of wealth from individuals to the for profit health care industry. Only the wealthy have enough assets to survive this process to leave something to their heirs.

ChrisArchitect 2y ago

Title is: RFK Jr. Just Kneecapped the CDC on His First Day

egberts1 2y ago

Cautionary tale: Be sure you omit several words from your next Federal grant. Taxpayers are tightening their belt(s).

me_me_me 2y ago
No they are not. They gave themselves 4trilion fucking tax breaks. It's veiled shitfoolery not tightening the belt.

readthenotes1 2y ago

Why are half of CDC epidemic intelligence staff hired in 2024?

basementcat 2y ago
It is a 2 year fellowship. Assuming hires are uniformly distributed, it would stand to reason that approximately half were hired in the within the past year. https://www.cdc.gov/eis/php/participants/index.html https://www.cdc.gov/eis/php/participants/index.html I would be interested in hearing arguments for why it is helpful to gut the CDC’s globally recognized applied epidemiology training program

waltercool 2y ago

How is this related to Hacker News overall? No idea. People keep posting politics here with no reason. Anyways, this is a good thing if you want to clean up the mess from very long time, regardless of the party.

basementcat 2y ago
I would be interested in hearing arguments for why it is helpful to gut the CDC’s globally recognized applied epidemiology training program
- waltercool 2y ago
  First of all, the way CDC works, it's just a board of directors from many pharmaceutical corporations. There are known conflicts of interest here. Secondly, USA is considered a very unhealthy in comparison to Europe and other countries, while that's mosrly related to FDA, CDC also plays a role here by promoting drugs/vaccines in cases you only need a change of habits (like eating well to minimize flu severity) Third, the way CDC dealt with COVID was unacceptable, their mixed messages about facemask, social distancing, herd immunity, reapiratory machines caused many people to die, and not because of the virus necessarily. This is a 15k people agency. And worth to mention their controversy to require social media companies to censor posts about Wuhan Institute of Virology, when we all know today it was true, and CDC was partially responsible of the COVID 19 crisis. Also their censorship of scientists who disagreed with CDC conclusions, and some of them resulted to be factual. After all of this, I do think it's fair to reform the CDC entirely. The economic impacts of their mistakes destroyed millions of business and caused many people unemployed. Even today 2025 you see few large companies struggling or going bankrupt because of their debt under COVID. You may think we had to do that to prevent COVID spread, but all current data says the opposite, and many countries who never took hard measures had same or lower spread than US. CDC had to rectify all of their errors. I have many friends who lost their jobs, VISA or green card process, because CDC was incompetent to act against a virus they previously knew, and recommended things they didn't encourage in the past (like paper/cloth masks to prevent spread of a viral virus).
  - 2y ago