If You Pay Taxes, Reading This Will Make You Crazy
Thr (FY) 2014 budget request by the Center for Disease Control was $ 6.6 billion.
What does the CDC do with the $ 6 billion?
According to its web site:
The CDC is the global leader in protecting Americans and people around the world from infectious diseases. Through epidemiological expertise and advanced laboratories, CDC detects and tracks a range of microbes, responds to outbreaks, and serves as an early warning system to rapidly identify new infectious disease threats…
CDC works 24/7 to ensure the security, safety, and health of the United States from threats, foreign and domestic, intentional and naturally occurring. CDC provides life-saving responses to chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear threats, as well as other disasters, outbreaks, and epidemics.
Which, I guess, may be true if you don’t count one of the most deadly microbes on the planet, Ebola. Because it did not respond to the outbreak of Ebola when it was identified in the blood stream of a man, in a Dallas hospital, who had just arrived from West Africa. I’m talking no team on the ground in Dallas, no supervision of the nurses treating the patient. Nothing.
This lack of response despite having these line items in its budget (2012 numbers):
– Quarantine (non-add) $ 25,866,000
– Healthcare-Associated Infections – PPHF (non-add) $ 11,750,000
– Workplace Wellness – PPHF $ 10,000,000
– Surveillance, Epidemiology, and PH Informatics $ 262,129,000
– Personal Protective Technology $ 16,791,000
– State and Local Preparedness and Response Capability $ 657,418,000
Public Health and Social Services Emergency Fund Transfer (non-add) $ 30,000,000.
How much of these funds were used to monitor, consult, advice the nurses in Dallas who were treating a man with deadly Ebola? $ 0.00
Reprinted with the author’s permission.
