Chop chop chop chop
Maybe the CDC isn’t the right branch of government to slash? Maybe disease control is not actually a bad thing?
The Trump administration slashed hundreds of employees at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention — including dozens of workers crucial to public health safety — as the country grapples with a potential “quad-demic,” according to reports.
As part of an effort led by the Department of Government Efficiency, which billionaire Elon Musk heads, thousands of probationary workers within the Department of Health and Human Services were told they were being terminated over the weekend, including 1,300 at the CDC.
According to NBC News, those departures included around two dozen workers at the Laboratory Leadership Service, a two-year fellowship program that trains scientists to address public health threats.
So Musk and Trump want disease to spread unchecked?
Other axed workers include half of the Epidemic Intelligence Service program, CBS News reported. EIS is another two-year fellowship program that trains health care professionals to become “disease detectives,” investigating public health threats, identifying their cause, and implementing control measures.
Trump and Musk want to stop investigating public health threats, identifying their cause, and implementing control measures? They want public health threats to go unnoticed, unidentified, uncontrolled?
As of Friday, the Trump administration planned to gut the CDC by 10 percent, slashing 1,300 probationary employees, the Associated Press reported. The Department of Health and Human Services is expected to see more than 5,200 cuts to its 80,000-person workforce, the outlet reported.
Also: don’t you dare get vaccinated, and don’t even think about wearing a mask. Peasants.
The destruction of the Epidemic Intelligence Service is an astonishing loss, even in global terms. The percentage of top American disease researchers to pass through it is remarkable – and there really is no comparator. Certainly nothing close in the US now. From world-leading to laggard in one generational stroke.
Trump and Musk joining forces is like the Emperor Nero going on tour with Mad King George. Could be that they believe that the theory that bacteria and viruses etc cause disease is just a hoax foisted on trusting, gullible Americans by a medical establishment just out to feather its own nest: like the climate hoax cooked up by greedy scientists just in it for the research grants.
Or, as the ancient Greeks were fond of saying, “those whom the gods would destroy, they first make mad.”
That’s a droll opening line. Well done.
Well, JFK Jr is not big on the germ theory of disease, so it fits with that.
@ #3: You are most welcome.
@ #4: RFK Jr?
I wonder how much of this is a holdover from his first tenure. Covid arose in his last year, meaning the CDC and EIS in particular would have been all over him about what actions he should take. Not only would they have nagged him incessantly, but the actions that were taken were greatly irritating to him and Musk alike. I bet a large fraction of this is motivate by grudge.
Holms, not to mention the indictments and investigations…and apparently Musk has also been subjected to some investigations by lowly government employees who don’t realize he doesn’t have to follow any rules.