Government Shutdown: Impacts on Public Health

The government shutdown began on October 1, causing thousands of government workers, programs and national parks to come to a standstill. Among these programs is the CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention). Without the CDC Americans have almost no protection or prevention against diseases and outbreaks. In the sixteen days of the shutdown the health of Americans has been threatened even more so than usual.

Many people take the CDC for granted when, for example, according to the CDC Director, Thomas R. Frieden (2013), every day outbreaks of Salmonella, Legionella and tuberculosis are being treated and researched by the CDC. In this article Frieden expresses his concern, “I did a back-of-the-envelope calculation. For every day of government shutdown, about one million emails at CDC go unread – millions of pieces of information…Our inspectors are all furloughed, but their inspected entities actually report directly to their designated inspector to say whether they’ve got a problem. No one has checked those emails”.

The CDC researches and investigates diseases we don’t yet understand or know how to cope with. By withholding of funds, the path to a cure or an answer moves farther and farther away. The CDC is really the driving force of America’s public health so we cannot afford to push these important matters aside.

Because the CDC is short-staffed and unable to quickly respond to matters with the appropriate funding, the numbers of outbreaks still climb. An outbreak in Salmonella recently has poisoned more than 300 people. Cases like these are piling up on the empty desks of the employees of the CDC until full funding is restored. The public health of America is being threatened, “For every day that goes by, there’s a less intensive investigation, less effective prevention of situations like this. If I had to use one phrase to describe what’s happening: This is a self-inflicted wound”(Frieden 2013).


References
Mckenna, M. (2014, October 13). CDC Director: In the Shutdown, ‘We Are Juggling Chainsaws’. Wired.com. Retrieved October 25, 2013, from http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2013/10/cdc-shutdown-director/