Monday Open Thread [10.13.14]
This ought to be the talk of everyone today — with the Texas Ebola problem, we are seeing how the US Public Health system has been deliberately broken:
That chart is from a great piece in the Scientific American, showing how Public Health spending has been on the decline. The author, Judy Stone, provides some context for how Public Health considerations have been undermined over the past few years. Read the entire thing, then take a look at some of the material she provides in the links at the end of the article:
And we need to take the politics out of funding for public health and research. We need to approve a strong Surgeon General like Dr. Vivek Murthy, and not have appointments like his be derailed by the NRA and their politicians. NIH’s budget was reduced by $446 million from 2010 to 2014, and subjected to inappropriate politically motivated interference in its decision making. The CDC’s discretionary funding was cut by $585 million during this same period. Shockingly, annual funding for the CDC’s public health preparedness and response efforts were $1 billion lower for 2013 fiscal year than for 2002. These funding decreases have resulted in more than 45,700 job losses at state and local health departments since 2008. Again, it is not just the Ebola that is a looming threat. We need to worry about vaccine-preventable but neglected infections like influenza, measles, and whooping cough; the serious emerging viral infections in the US like Enterovirus-D68, chikungunya and dengue, as well as overseas MERS and bird flus, and natural disasters.
Right. No matter what your TV says, there are greater public health threats out there, including this Enterovirus which is making children sick. Get the politics out of the business of public health.
Dear Democrats, Why trying to appeal to conservative groups is a very bad hedging strategy. (Talking about the status of Democrats who voted for the Manchin-Toomey universal background amendment, here.)
That Hagan [D-NC] is the only one of the four vulnerable Democrats mentioned above who is ahead in the polls is a further indication that crossing the NRA is hardly fatal. Meanwhile, the fact that Pryor [D-AR] and Begich [D-AK] are getting nothing in return from the NRA for their votes against Manchin-Toomey is yet another suggestion that the organization’s hold on American politics is loosening, or at least narrowing. One of the reasons the NRA held such sway for so long was that it commanded support from key Democratic elected officials such as John Dingell, the veteran congressman from Michigan, who could count on being rewarded for their votes with staunch NRA support, regardless of their party label. But many of those Democrats have been leaving the scene, either via retirement (like Dingell) or electoral defeat.
And now that the NRA has become so partisan in its calculations—backing Republicans even over Democrats who have sided with it on key votes—its grip on remaining Democrats will weaken further.
Americans support background checks before buying guns by huge margins. Right? There ought to be a lesson here in getting Democrats to pay attention to their own constituencies and stop trying to innoculate themselves from some Fox News BS.
What interests you today?
Your GOP at work:
http://www.redstate.com/2014/10/13/fat-lesbians-got-all-the-ebola-dollars-but-blame-the-gop/
That is some pretty stupid stuff, but then what can we expect from people who fear and suspect science and scientists? There’s no way he’s going to understand the difference between the sort of epidemiological study he’s criticizing and lab research on vaccines, or that the study he’s criticizing costs a tiny fraction of what Ebola research would.
Yes, public health funding cuts….because polio, smallpox, herpes and AIDS have all been managed or eradicated, Americans grow complacent, and Congress thinks they found a discreet source of cuts no one will notice.
Meanwhile, we are thru the roof with resistant TB that in some states cheap hotels serve as sanitoriums where known carriers are court ordered to remain in place, while trying to be treated, or to insure receipt of treatment.
Lice in numbers is no longer reportable.
Bedbugs are enjoying the same annoyance category as a gnat
Shingles has a 600% (yes, that’s 600%) increase in occurrence since the varicella vaccine was introduced. Don’t even get me started on that 6 inch baby rattlesnake.
And they screwed public health policy by the “year round” get your flu shot here cash cow.
Without Walter Reed rising from the dead, our citizenry better be getting pretty flippin’ mad, demand travel embargoes without apology, and let the CDC et al get to work pushing this back–because death in 3 weeks trumps PC behavior, hurt feelings, and media sensationalism. Oh the funds will find them again…..thankfully, and rightfully.
Yup!
One of the things I see from the lunatic fringe — they tend to be the 9/11 truthers and blame Israel for everything and, oh by the way, the Rothschilds own everything whackos — is a movement condemning vaccination as some sort of evil plot.
Mr Geezer wrote:
The point is that not one single taxpayer dollar should have been spent on stupidity like that. We have been borrowing money, having added $7.233 trillion to the national debt since President Obama took office, like mad, and there’s no reason on God’s earth to spend it studying why lesbians are fatter than heterosexual women, or any of the thousands of other wasteful things on which the government spends money. It doesn’t matter that the study “(cost) a tiny fraction of what Ebola research would;” the problem is that someone thought this was a good idea on which to spend taxpayer dollars in the first place.
Remember Senator William Proxmire’s “golden fleece” awards? They were truly bipartisan, because both Democrats and Republicans have wasted so much money on stupid things.
And six months ago you would have been mindlessly repeating a talking point that would have claimed that Ebola was a dumb thing for us to spend money on studying since only Africans get it.
*That’s* what’s stupid here.
Actually, that’s right: until President Obama allowed two people with ebola hemorrhagic fever into the United States for treatment, there had been no known cases of the disease in the Western hemisphere, in history. Why should the American taxpayer have been paying for ebola research? Shouldn’t that have been the responsibility of taxpayers in Europe and Asia and Africa?
There we go. It would have been a futile path for research until two Americans came home to get treated for the disease; and now you want to claim that the lack of research is a problem.
The conservative pea brain at work, ladies and gentlemen!
Nope, I’m saying that it’s stupid of the Democrats to try to say that everything would have been great except for the Republicans.
Of course, I wasn’t getting my way about it anyway, since we were funding ebola research even when George Bush was President, but we shouldn’t have been.
“there’s no reason on God’s earth to spend it studying why lesbians are fatter than heterosexual women, or any of the thousands of other wasteful things on which the government spends money.”
There are lots of reasons on the earth we have, though. Your stupidity is not my problem.
One of the reasons to do this kind of research is to be ready for when something like this hits our shores. Because as long as it is easy to move around the world, our germs find it easy to move too. There was also some thought that Ebola was bad enough and tough enough to be a target for those who want to weaponize such things. Still — we were working on a vaccine, which it looks like the Canadians got to first and the two Americans who got treated here were treated with an experimental medicine developed here. If you are interested in protecting public health, you don’t start after the problem gets to your backyard. But since you don’t get out of your backyard, I get why you don’t understand this.
But this certainly should have been eligible for a Golden Fleece award — and this cost *way* more money that any study NIH was doing.
Science has always been the enemy of the conservative
“Conservative” once meant thrifty and level headed. Nowadays an upstream investment that could save billions is cut because it might accidentally help a few people of the wrong skin color.
Dana comment at 8:00 am should be put in the time capsule and marked “This is the stupidity that brought down America.”
Hear Hear dammit
Dana on September 24, 2014 at 12:37 pm
“If ISIS is a threat to the peace and security of the civilized world, then we have to take action. There are so many places where we are wasting money that we ought to be able to cut spending to pay for the bombing campaign.”
Dana on October 14, 2014 at 8:00 am
“…there had been no known cases of the disease in the Western hemisphere, in history. Why should the American taxpayer have been paying for ebola research? Shouldn’t that have been the responsibility of taxpayers in Europe and Asia and Africa?”
Make up your mind Dana, either threats exist in other parts of the world that warrant our action or they don’t. I don’t mind you being an isolationist but it sure appears that you have selective isolationism, which in my view means you are prone to flip flopping or that you have principles of convenience.
The simple fact is, Ebola is more of a threat to us in this nation than ISIS is and if you were the least bit consistent in your thought processes you would recognize that if you are an advocate of action against ISIS you most certainly would be an advocate of action against Ebola.
By the way “principles of convenience” is a euphemism for “hypocrisy” if you are intentionally doing it. If it’s not intentional, well some might just call it stupidity. Not me of course, but some might.
I cannot believe I even read what I read. So, let me see if I’m understanding what has been considered our (sic) “overinvolvement in this Ebola thing….”
Where it stands now, the US and it’s CDC, and Public Health Service probably should have only concerned itself with Lyme Disease, Rocky Moutain Spotted Fever, and the San Joaquin Valley Fever.
Well, let me take the time out now to thank the US for availing themselves of time and talent in combating yellow fever, polio, measles, oh and yes the strep throat. By golly, I know it didn’t start here–so thanks for butting in.
Sorry Dana, I tend to run for cover and scream for sanctions once a disease breaks into a first world country, and death is involved. I wholly SUPPORT the transfer of those 2 patients to the US for treatment in the VERY, RESPONSIBLE way our agencies handled this, and the depth of data and research this could provide. My distress was once a case made it to European soil, and there was death–THEN we should have gone into travel embargoes. That’s when the genie got out of the bottle.
That being said, I’ve kind of enjoyed the Panama Canal, civilizations after syphillis, and parasitic benefits being replicated on our citizens, from empirical studies in 3rd world countries benefiting research and treatment for Chrohn’s disease etc…but hey that’s just crazy me, thinking Darwin might have a point about adaptability–and our society’s need to benefit from any attack.
Psst…it’s quinine not Kool-Aid we should be drinking this round 🙂
Well how timely, my middle schooler just shared this with me…….
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rZy6XilXDZQ
> until President Obama allowed two people with ebola hemorrhagic fever into the United States for treatment, there had been no known cases of the disease in the Western hemisphere, in history.
Yes, Dana. The President himself decides who gets into the country and who doesn’t.
He’s superhuman & he personally mans every single border entry.
Are you stupid or are you just a jackass?