The news warns about the dangers of cancelling vital research on infectious diseases during times of global crisis, highlighting the Trump administration's decision and its potential consequences.
The most vicious casualty of the DOGE era will forever be the forward-thinking, preventative measures that were sacrificed and slashed so a handful of barely legal-to-drinkcould pretend to save the government a few bucks … that we then immediately funneled into new forms of waste, ultimately saving nothing.
The Iran War, for instance, cost in its first few days the same amount that an organization like USAidworldwide. The big problem is, when you’re cutting things like research and prophylactic preparation, that you’ll never know quite how necessary those things might be untilof research centers studying an obscure “Andes virus” strain of the rodent-borne hantavirus, who could have known that by May of 2026 the disease in question would be splashed over global headlines following a deadly cruise ship outbreak?
But that’s just the thing: Responsible countries fund such research with the knowledge that it may or may not end up being of paramount importance. Stupid countries network, established with the goal of preventing future pandemics.
The network of globally based research centers was launched five years earlier with a total of $82 million in funding “to collect and characterize mosquito-borne viruses and other pathogens that could jump from animals to people. ” One of the specific centers within it, the West African Center for Emerging Infectious Diseases,when they were contacted by groups of researchers in Argentina hoping to secure funding to include the Andes virus among those being studied.
They successfully applied for a pilot award and achieved that funding to study the same strain of the hantavirus that recently killed three cruise ship passengers and infected a handful of others, including at least one U.S. citizen, only to then be cut off from those funds. The National Institutes of Health had reportedly planned to renew funding to the network in 2025, until word came down from on high that we would instead be axing all 10 of the research centers.
Athat the research of the centers “has been deemed unsafe for Americans a not a good use of taxpayer funding. Current agency priorities do not support this work.
” Not explained: What was meant to be “unsafe” at any of the research centers, something that RFK Jr.’s Department of Health and Human Services refused to comment on to the journalAs is so often the case, the scientific community objected at the time to the slashing of novel research into potentially deadly diseases that could be implicated in future outbreaks or pandemics, only to be roundly ignored by those signing the checks. Kris Smith, a CREID postdoctoral researcher from Washington State University who was working in Kenya,“I’m disappointed that this and other research aimed at identifying and preventing future pandemics has been deemed unsafe and useless.
”the cancelation of their work was “incredibly short sighted,” saying that “If we can detect and stop a virus where it starts, that directly makes America and American citizens safer. ” Now, like Cassandra, he has to sit back and watch his prediction come to pass.
In the case of this specific hantavirus strain, research into the Andes virus would have been particularly critical given that we really, beyond the fact that it is far more deadly on average than a disease like COVID-19. It is the only known form of hantavirus that has been documented spreading from human-to-human, unusual in a disease that is typically spread by contamination from rodent feces.
Scientists have no clue as to the vector by which the Andes virus actually spreads from person to person; whether it solely involves direct exposure to bodily fluids or whether it can spread through aerosol droplets or survive on surfaces for an extended period of time. The research funded by CREID would have been directly studying modes of transmission that are not well understood, for a virus that has rarely had outbreaks.
As a result of that research’s cancelation, we are measurably more poorly prepared for this moment than we would have been otherwise. It’s as simple as that.
“The continuation of the CREID program will help to further reduce response times to emerging infectious disease threats, improve pathogen discovery pipelines, and enhance regional capacity for data-driven public health interventions,”The Trump administration, however, had other plans. After all, why bother studying a disease that isn’t currently killing any Americans? Why study
Trump Administration COVID-19 Pandemic Vigilance Toward Infectious Disease Research On Andes Virus Research On Hantavirus Epidemiological Catastrophe Marco Rubio Misguided Government Spending
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