The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is facing a
funding cut of close to nine percent as a result of the budget cuts known as
sequestration. The cuts total $350 million from its $6 billion budget over
seven months.
These reduction could means that diseases
would be detected more slowly and spread more widely before public health
officials could begin efforts to contain them. This is even more
relevant coming off of a flu season in which NAHAM News tracked it spread using
CDC reports. According to a CQ HealthBeat
article,
CDC Director Thomas Frieden said that a new
outbreak of influenza, such as the H1N1 epidemic that spread a few years ago
from Mexico to the U.S. and other nations, wouldn’t be detected as quickly and
countermeasures wouldn’t be started as promptly.
There would also be 2,000 fewer disease control specialists,
which Director Frieden defined as “disease detectives and others in state and
local governments — finding and stopping food-borne disease outbreaks,
meningitis, pneumonia, flu, HIV, other critical health problems.” Additionally, recent progress in helping hospitals
lessen the degree of infection acquired in their facilities would be slowed at
a time when “superbugs” are in the news.
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