Death By a Single GOP Cut?

[n2doc]

The scary consequences of slashing the CDC's immunization funding.

— By Suzy Khimm


Mon Mar. 21, 2011 12:01 AM PDT

In the past year, California has experienced the worst whopping cough outbreak in more than 50 years, an epidemic that has killed 10 infants and resulted in 6,400 reported cases. But even as the state's public health officials have struggled to curb the disease, Republicans in Congress have proposed slashing millions in federal funding for immunization programs. Public health advocates warn that these cuts threaten efforts across the country to prevent and contain infectious and sometimes fatal diseases. And they add that lower vaccination rates could eventually result in more outbreaks that endanger public health at a major cost to taxpayers.

The House GOP's 2011 budget would chop $156 million from the Centers for Disease Control's funding for immunization and respiratory diseases. The GOP reductions are likely to hit the CDC's support for state and local immunization programs, the agency's ability to evaluate which vaccines are working, and its work to educate the public about recommended vaccines for children, teenagers, and other susceptible populations. The CDC especially focuses on serving lower-income families who receive vaccines at state and local health offices and community health clinics, rather than a private doctor's office.

"When there's less money, fewer kids get vaccinated," says Dr. Georges Benjamin, executive director of the American Public Health Association, which is currently lobbying against the proposed budget reductions. And, Benjamin adds, the GOP cuts could end up making vaccines make less readily available at a time when both the cost and quantity of recommended vaccines are going up. Children of the working poor who don't qualify for Medicaid may have a harder time getting vaccinated against measles or the flu. Public health officials "may not be able to purchase enough vaccines for the whole population...You will have to pick and choose," says Amy Pisani, executive director of Every Child By Two, an immunization advocacy group.

What's more, proposed funding cutbacks could make it more difficult for public health officials and advocates to get the word out to both doctors and patients about the vaccines that certain at-risk groups should be receiving, according to Len Novick, executive director of the National Foundation for Infectious Diseases, a public health non-profit. Smokers might not be aware that they should receive a pneumococcal vaccine, and senior citizens that they should get vaccinated against shingles, according to new recommendations from the CDC. And the reductions could also undercut the federal agency's efforts to educate lower-income, uninsured communities about which vaccines they should be receiving. "When parents lose their jobs and their health-care, they don't always know where to go for freebies," says Catherine Martin, executive director of the California Immunization Coalition, a state-based advocacy group.

more
http://motherjones.com/politics/2011/03/gop-budget-cdc-vaccines-cut

[Mz Pip]

1. Pray you don't get sick.

Another faith based solution to preventative medicine.

[orwell]

2. Sounds like...

..."death panels" to me...

[DCKit]

3. The Pro-Lifers Strike Again. nt

[fasttense]

4. Yeah, we can pay for another war but not to keep us healthy.

Don't you love how our taxes go to pay for bombs but not to keep us healthy so we can still pay those bills.

[taught_me_patience]

5. Isn't an ounce of prevention worth a pound of cure?

These are the stupidest cuts imaginable and will lead to much higher costs down the road. Idiots.