Public Health News | Measles outbreak in tiny TX county

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UNC gets 350 million a year from NIH for Research
2024 figure is
  • University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill $559,512,811
 
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To what end?



“… A U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention official, John Nkengasong, sent a memo to senior leaders at the agency on Sunday night telling them that all agency staff who work with the WHO must immediately stop their collaborations and “await further guidance.”

Experts said the sudden stoppage was a surprise and would set back work on investigating and trying to stop outbreaks of Marburg virus and mpox in Africa, as well as brewing threats from around the world. It also comes as health authorities around the world are monitoring bird flu outbreaks among U.S. livestock. …”
 
“… President Trump last week issued an executive orderto begin the process of withdrawing the U.S. from WHO, but that did not take immediate effect. Leaving WHO requires the approval of Congress and that the U.S. meets its financial obligations for the current fiscal year. The U.S. also must provide a one-year notice.

… “Stopping communications and meetings with WHO is a big problem,” said Dr. Jeffrey Klausner, a University of Southern California public health expert who collaborates with WHO on work against sexually transmitted infections.

“People thought there would be a slow withdrawal. This has really caught everyone with their pants down,” said Klausner, who said he learned of it from someone at CDC.


“Talking to WHO is a two-way street,” he added, noting that WHO and U.S. health officials benefit from each other’s expertise. The collaboration allows the U.S. to learn about new tests and treatments as well as about emerging outbreaks — information “which can help us protect Americans abroad and at home.”

A U.S. health official, who was not authorized to talk about the memo and spoke on condition of anonymity, confirmed the stoppage. …”
 
My wife's ex- is an epidemiologist for the state. He can't get data from anyone outside the state because of laws that require information to be routed through the CDC (probably for normalization and transparency). So he's trying to track diseases that can come into the state from multiple other states, but he can't get any data about it. It's like trying to predict the weather in NC on the basis of NC reported weather data and radar alone. It doesn't work.

This is utter madness and people just need to give it more attention.
 
My wife's ex- is an epidemiologist for the state. He can't get data from anyone outside the state because of laws that require information to be routed through the CDC (probably for normalization and transparency). So he's trying to track diseases that can come into the state from multiple other states, but he can't get any data about it. It's like trying to predict the weather in NC on the basis of NC reported weather data and radar alone. It doesn't work.

This is utter madness and people just need to give it more attention.
There's WAY too much happening right now to give attention to everything that deserves it, and that's a vital part of the plan.


Miller is also calculating that he will succeed by what the Times describes as "flooding the zone" — that is, by doing so many outrageous things that Trump's political opponents will simply grow exhausted and give up fighting.

"He believes that those he regards as Mr. Trump’s enemies — Democrats, the media, groups like the American Civil Liberties Union and portions of the federal bureaucracy — are depleted and only have so much bandwidth for outrage and opposition," writes the Times. "Mr. Miller has told people that the goal is to overwhelm them with a blitz of activity."
 
There's WAY too much happening right now to give attention to everything that deserves it, and that's a vital part of the plan.


Miller is also calculating that he will succeed by what the Times describes as "flooding the zone" — that is, by doing so many outrageous things that Trump's political opponents will simply grow exhausted and give up fighting.

"He believes that those he regards as Mr. Trump’s enemies — Democrats, the media, groups like the American Civil Liberties Union and portions of the federal bureaucracy — are depleted and only have so much bandwidth for outrage and opposition," writes the Times. "Mr. Miller has told people that the goal is to overwhelm them with a blitz of activity."
And what exactly is the endgame with all this? Is it just pure evil? I swear it's like Trump is a real supervillan and is just trying to do everything to destroy the country before he dies.
 
Edited for gift article link

When bird flu first struck dairy cattle a year ago, it seemed possible that it might affect a few isolated herds and disappear as quickly as it had appeared.

Instead, the virus has infected more than 900 herds and dozens of people, killing one, and the outbreak shows no signs of abating.

A human pandemic is not inevitable, even now, more than a dozen experts said in interviews. But a series of developments over the past few weeks indicates that the possibility is no longer remote.

Toothless guidelines, inadequate testing and long delays in releasing data — echoes of the missteps during the Covid-19 pandemic — have squandered opportunities for containing the outbreak, the experts said.

In one example emblematic of the disarray, a few dairy herds in Idaho that were infected with bird flu in the spring displayed mild symptoms for a second time in the late fall, The New York Times has learned.

In mid-January, the Department of Agriculture said that no new infections in Idaho herds had been identified since October. But state officials publicly discussed milder cases in November.

That a second bout of infections would produce milder symptoms in cattle is unsurprising, experts said, and could be welcome news to farmers.

But reinfections suggest that the virus, called H5N1, could circulate on farms indefinitely, finding opportunities to evolve into a more dangerous form — a “high-risk” scenario, said Louise Moncla, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Pennsylvania.

“You could easily end up with endemically circulating H5 in dairy herds without symptoms, obscuring rapid or easy detection,” Dr. Moncla said.
 
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If a larger outbreak were to erupt, the federal stockpile holds a few million doses of vaccine against bird flu. But the vaccine might need updating to match an evolved form of the virus. In either case, officials would have to scramble to produce enough for the population at large.

The C.D.C. recommends treatment with the antiviral Tamiflu, but studies have shown that the drug does very little to ease illness.

Underlining concerns among many experts is that Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who would lead the federal health and human services department if confirmed, was a vocal critic of Covid vaccines and has said the bird flu vaccines “appear to be dangerous.”

Even if the second Trump administration embraces vaccine development, as the first one did when Covid bore down, it’s unclear how many Americans would roll up their sleeves for the shots.
 
Now all domestic aid/grants are halted. So if your lab relies on an EXISTING/ALREADY AWARDED federal grant it is not clear if or when the next grant disbursement will be made.
 
Now all domestic aid/grants are halted. So if your lab relies on an EXISTING/ALREADY AWARDED federal grant it is not clear if or when the next grant disbursement will be made.
Purely anecdotal, I had to drive my Mom to an appointment at a Duke medical facility in the Triangle Monday morning.

The drive was from SW Orange County to Page Road in the RTP (Hwy 54 to the Chapel Hill By-Pass to 54 East to I-40 to Page Road). We left about 8:57 and made it to Page Road by 9:25.

Absolutely no traffic. The usual mild back-ups at Manning Drive, the exit off the By-pass onto 54 East and that congested section b/t the By-pass and I-40 didn’t exist. No congestion on I-40.

On the return trip (left the medical building at 11:55), there was no traffic. It wasn’t pandemic-like empty roads; but, there was no congestion.

I was wondering where everyone was. We’re a crapload of UNC, Duke, and RTP researchers and staff staying home?
 
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