Washington D.C. – With now 18 Americans being monitored after exposure to hantavirus, Donald Trump and his CMS administrator, Dr. Oz, brushed off questioning today about “infectious disease experts who say they’re worried the country may not be prepared to deal with hantavirus because of all the HHS funding and staffing cuts”.
“It’s just not true,” insisted Oz, who is known for his tenuous grasp of reality at best.
But leading public health experts disagree with Trump and Dr. Oz, sharing concerns raised by Protect Our Care about the deeply shortsighted decisions by Trump and RFK Jr. to shortchange mRNA research and to fire thousands of key health department staff – leaving the nation less able to handle the next public health crisis. Why? Because they’d rather spend tax dollars on White House ballrooms, wars, and billionaire tax breaks than on public health infrastructure.
MEDIA ROUNDUP:
- USA Today: Experts worry ‘we are not prepared’ for pandemic under Trump, RFK Jr.: “It’s very much, we hope, under control,” President Donald Trump told reporters when asked if he had been briefed on the virus. But some said his remarks don’t instill confidence. […] Preparedness concerns have been fueled by the administration’s history of actions that medical experts say weaken public health, from spreading health misinformation to Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. ending long-standing childhood vaccine recommendations. Public trust in health institutions also eroded in the response to the COVID pandemic – spanning both Trump’s and former President Joe Biden’s administrations – which included communication missteps that former officials have publicly reflected on. […] Kayla Hancock of Protect Our Care, a health care advocacy organization, also shared worries that the Trump administration has left the nation susceptible to public health threats.
- New York Times: Hantavirus Response Shows How Trump Cuts Have Compromised U.S. Preparedness:Because of deep staffing cuts the Trump administration has made to the C.D.C. and other health agencies, the government has far fewer people to respond to outbreaks, from trainees and contractors who can be deployed to do boots-on-the-ground epidemiology to senior leaders who can coordinate responses across the U.S. government and elsewhere. And because President Trump withdrew the country from the World Health Organization, the United States does not receive regular information from member states about emerging health threats.
- Associated Press: Experts wonder ‘Where is the CDC?’ as hantavirus outbreak unfolds: No quick dispatching of disease investigators. No televised news conference to inform the public. No timely health alerts to doctors. In the midst of a hantavirus outbreak that involves Americans and is making headlines around the world, the U.S. government’s top public health agency, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, has been uncharacteristically missing in action, according to a number of experts. […] The current situation comes after 16 tumultuous months during which the Trump administration withdrew from the WHO, has restricted CDC scientists from talking to international counterparts at times and embarked on a plan to build its own international public health network through one-on-one agreements with individual countries. The administration has laid off thousands of CDC scientists and public health professionals, including members of the agency’s ship sanitation program.
- NOTUS: Acting CDC Director Responds to Criticism Over Government’s Hantavirus Response: As international fears about the virus intensified, some leading infectious-disease researchers raised issues about the U.S. response to the outbreak, calling out what they described as a “concerning” lack of coordination between partner agencies. […] “A lot of the things you would like to see, we haven’t seen,” Carlos del Rio, the former president of the Infectious Diseases Society of America, told reporters Thursday morning at a briefing hosted by the organization. Del Rio expressed concerns about what he characterized as the CDC’s lack of involvement in directly assisting the WHO, an important partnership that was typical in past international disease outbreaks.
- Newsweek: Hantavirus arrives as health officials sound alarm on Trump admin readiness: Yet, a group of health officials have warned that the institutional capacity to respond to even a contained outbreak has been severely compromised. The CDC has lost roughly a quarter of its workforce over the past year, according to an analysis by KFF, with more than 3,000 employees cut or departed. The agency has cycled through four different directors or acting directors in barely a year. Jeanne Marrazzo, CEO of the Infectious Diseases Society of America, said in a call with reporters on Thursday that it was unusual the CDC had still not posted a Health Alert Network notice on the outbreak. The notices are typically used to warn healthcare providers and the public about emerging health threats. She warned that cuts imposed by the Trump administration could hamper the agency’s ability to respond to the outbreak.
- NBC News: U.S. departure from WHO could hinder hantavirus response: With its departure, the U.S. terminated all funding to the WHO, pulled its staffers from WHO offices and severed participation in WHO committees and working groups. Some experts now worry that the WHO can’t draw fully from the CDC’s resources and expertise to respond to the outbreak.
- The Bulwark: But Seriously, How Nervous Should We Be About Hantavirus?: THE ABILITY TO ASSESS this hantavirus outbreak so quickly is testimony to the sophisticated international infrastructure now in place for disease surveillance and response. … The worry now—for Marrazzo and so many of her counterparts here and abroad—is that the infrastructure is losing American support, thanks to Trump. … PEPFAR was among the programs that Trump hit with a stop-work order shortly after taking office, temporarily freezing funds and disrupting activities with little notice.
- Raw Story: ‘The wrong leader’: Ex-White House doctor has scorching smackdown for RFK Jr.: Dr. Jonathan Reiner, former cardiologist to Vice President Dick Cheney, unleashed a serious criticism of Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. over his lack of response to a recent rodent-borne illness outbreak. … “RFK Jr has yet to address the hantavirus outbreak,” Reiner wrote. “As leader of the massive US health enterprise he should be out front reassuring the American public about the threat, and our response capabilities. But he’s spent a career casting doubt on the safety and efficacy of vaccines and the risk of a variety of viral illnesses. He’s the wrong leader for HHS.”
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