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CDC to cut by 80 percent efforts to prevent global disease outbreak (2018)

97 points| uptown | 6 years ago |washingtonpost.com | reply

15 comments

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[+] RcouF1uZ4gsC|6 years ago|reply
> Countries where the CDC is planning to scale back include some of the world’s hot spots for emerging infectious disease, such as China, Pakistan, Haiti, Rwanda and Congo.

Why was the United States subsidizing China which is the world’s second largest economy and has a military budget of $228 Billion making it the second largest military spender ( https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/countries-with-the-bigge... )

[+] tlb|6 years ago|reply
To get a seat at the table for policy decisions. For example, we want them to stop sick people flying to the US. Paying for part of an operation is a common way to have some influence. Also, some deals require them to spend a fraction of it on US suppliers.
[+] peter303|6 years ago|reply
The survival of the current US administration is at risk. Especially from anti-science policies like this health one and more abstract ones like climate change.

I say "Good riddance!". We can only hope this happens in time to save more lives.

[+] kitsuac|6 years ago|reply
Why is the US apparently responsibile for this financially in the first place? For the future, will other countries join financially to up our global defenses against future outbreaks?

It sounds like the US took up a global cause on its own and when the clock ran out they didn't renew because that emergency had subsided.

Is this what was being pinned as Trump's "fault" in recent press and social media?

[+] hedora|6 years ago|reply
He did a few things to eliminate the pandemic response team in 2018. This was one of the things that happened:

https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/trump-fire-pandemic-team/

The US used to pay for this because the downsides of not doing it are higher than the cost. Also, initiatives like these increase the US’s political and economic power overseas.

[+] redisman|6 years ago|reply
Why is it so hard to think longer term? What's good for the world is often great for the United States. Catching and quarantining this in time would have saved us from lots of deaths and a almost certain recession coming up this year.