January 31, 2025 at 10:25 a.m.

Trump’ disease control suspension - not at this time


Dear Editor,

MMWR

The Center for Disease Control, or CDC, is a very important government agency.

They do research on contagious diseases, help to develop vaccines and preventative measures, and monitor the rates of infection in the country. Their work is essential to keep Americans healthy and protected from contagion.

President Trump has issued an executive order suspending all communications from the CDC pending approval from the new political appointees in line for senate approval. This includes information provided to our citizens and health care providers, including a weekly report, the MMWR, that is critical to doctors wanting to understand what infections are going around. He is also telling the agency that they should not communicate with other countries, and has pulled the US out of the World Health Organization.

He has done this at an extremely dangerous time. A serious infection, Avian Influenza, is taking hold in the domestic bird population resulting in many poultry flocks having to be euthanized to try to stem the spread of this virus. This is one reason that the price of eggs has been going up. The virus has also begun infecting dairy herds, and there have been human infections resulting from exposure to milk in dairy workers.

This could be a disaster for our Wisconsin dairy industry, as well as a potential health risk for us all.

It is in the nature of viruses to mutate to become more effective, and it seems only a matter of time before human to human transmission starts happening, if its not already occurring. This is an impending human disaster if we don’t take effective measures to understand and put effective public health measures in place.

Vaccination rates for infectious diseases are dropping. We have not eradicated polio, measles, whooping cough, and other serious childhood diseases, we just haven’t seen them largely because of vaccination. When a group decides against vaccination, there is a predicable reemergence of disease. Multiple examples exist, this is reality and not a scare tactic. We have lost the collective memory of how severe these diseases are, how our parents and grandparents lived in fear of polio, and how the infant death rate for whooping cough was around 10%.

We need to rely on experts to defend us from these scourges. Those who would call the CDC part of the ‘deep state” are ignoring the fact that our survival depends on expertise, not on the whims of political appointees.

Unfortunately, this is happening at a time when public trust in institutions is at a low point, fostered to a large extent by spreading of misinformation. Its unclear where its all coming from, but the president has shown himself to be particularly vulnerable to accepting opinions that have little basis in reality.

The phrase ‘do your own research’ should mean gathering information from trusted sources grounded in science, so that we can better understand the facts. Reading a tweet or a Facebook post, or sadly, listening to a comment from our president, does not suffice as research. We politicize these important questions at our peril.

Responsible citizens need to stand up for truth. Sadly, they seem few and far between among our current flock of politicians that we have put in charge of our safety.

Sincerely yours,

Paul Biere, M.D.

Dodgeville, WI

DODGEVILLE

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