Most people would think that health is the critical work of health agencies, and that without a nice dose of safety that critical work is badly undermined?
Nah. Too obvious. And I am leaving out all those demonic DEI folk murdering and castrating everybody every chance they get…
Based on the public historic precedent of TIG, his is a Death Agency.
No, you wrote “all the health departments are not allowed to talk to each other”.
I was suggesting that each state has its own health department (not to mention those at the county level).
KC area at ‘extremely low risk’ of tuberculosis despite outbreak
https://www.kansascity.com/news/business/health-care/article299330444.html
In 2024 there were 65 active tuberculosis cases in Wyandotte County and 14 in Johnson County, according to the Kansas Department of Health and Environment’s infectious disease dashboard.
DB2
Tuberculosis used to be a death sentence. PBS has done its history several times. Patients often went to TB hospitals in areas like mountains where good clean air would help. Some went into remissions but usually they eventually coughed up blood and drown in their own blood.
That changed with the arrival of antibiotics. Especially streptomycin. But the bacteria developed resistance. Eventually they learned to use combinations of drugs for greater success.
TB is extremely contagious and potentially a major health problem. (My great grandmother died of consumption. And her family left the area to avoid more infection.)
Here is CDC on TB vaccine–
Sure. We’ll just make each state health department communicate with the other 49 individually. That will be so much better. (Eye roll) The lack of nationwide statistics won’t be a problem, either, especially with bird flu running through the avian population and on the verge of spreading to humans.
This is right up there on the stupidity scale with the Medicare shutdown. Probably worse, as there won’t be a public outcry about this like there was for Medicare.
—Peter
My point is that if there is an outbreak of TB in, say, New Jersey that the folks would contact those in Kansas. Professionals build networks, they know who has done work in a particular area.
Thus, I disagree with what bj wrote: “Meanwhile, all the health departments are not allowed to talk to each other…”
DB2
I’m not sure what bj meant by that. Certainly state departments can talk to each other. If they want to. Some states may choose to follow the Fed lead and stop talking to other states, or cut way back on state health departments. That puts everyone around the country at risk, not just the citizens of the individual states. Disease doesn’t respect state borders.
But he could also mean that individual Federal health agencies cannot talk to each other. Trump’s order bars “external” communication. Does that mean, for example, that NIH can’t talk to CDC? I don’t know. I don’t think anyone knows until someone tries such communication.
And to repeat, states communicating with each other is no substitute for readily available centralized information, which is what the various Federal health related agencies have been providing for many years.
This order is dumb and dangerous, and deserves no defense whatsoever.
–Peter
Neither was I, which is why I asked.
DB2
You asked a leading question - a question which implies the answer. Which you openly admitted in a later post:
So no, you didn’t really ask a question. You gave a response.
Admittedly, your implied response is correct - states can talk to each other. But - once again - that is no substitute for centralized, standardized, readily available information gathered and disseminated by the Federal government.
Since this is bordering on the political, let me be very clear about the macroeconomic effects of this policy.
There are two big risks to the macroeconomy from this information blackout. One is the obvious health risks. We already know that widespread disease disrupts the economy. I think everyone here has lived that.
The other is that if health information can be blacked out by the government, so can economic information. Sure, the Fed is quasi-independent and might continue gathering and disseminating information. But what if Treasury stopped telling us what they were doing? What if we didn’t know how much in bonds the Treasury was auctioning each week? What if we didn’t know IF there would be an auction each week? What if we didn’t have information on Federal spending? That’s a very significant portion of our economy. We wouldn’t know if there was stimulus or restraint coming from federal spending.
How does anyone make rational investing decisions in that scenario?
–Peter
That is exactly what I meant.
Yes, it was a gentle way of noting that bj was wrong, giving him an opportunity to explain and leaving open the possibility that I was wrong.
DB2
Leading questions don’t really leave open the possibility of error by the questioner. They assume the questioner is correct.
Well, yes, that is the assumption, but one can be wrong/misunderstood…
DB2
The US economy would begin to shut down. Why? They are not allowed to tell anyone about upcoming auctions, etc–so no new funding is available to generate the cash needed to pay off the old debt. No new debt issued = debt ceiling hit VERY quickly. And govt shuts down due to lack of money. They get what they wanted–GOOD AND HARD. Watch how fast THAT order gets rescinded (GGG !!!).