If a child in New York City with fever and a rash would appear that can be measles, it should be easy to quickly confirm a blood test in one way or another. But $ 100 million in federal financing was just reduced from the Health Budget of New York City, and that included money for staff and supplies at public health laboratories.
Acting Health Commissioner Michelle Morse said Stat on Wednesday that measles are only an example of infectious diseases that New Yorkers may be more vulnerable due to cuts on the budget and policy changes by the Trump administration. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention stopped many subsidies to local departments throughout the country on 24 March, and on Tuesday the Ministry of Health and Human Services issued a dismissal report to around 10,000 employees.
“Our Public Health Lab enables us to exclude or rule in measles within a few hours,” said Morse. “This dissolution of $ 11 billion in CDC funds makes each community less safe or less protected against outbreaks of infectious diseases by vaccines, through contact tracing, through disease study to stop the spread of diseases.”
Although no decisions have yet been made about where the costs will be cut, reductions may be able to test, disease and mobilization of teams can delay to investigate whether there is an outbreak and limit the distribution if there is one, she said.
Morse has submitted a sworn declaration to support lawsuits that have been brought by 23 State Attorneys General on Tuesday, with the argument that the federal government has taken contracts that it has signed and executed with local and government agencies. She also wrote a letter to health secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. And acting CDC director Susan Monarez, in which they were asked to protect the CDC so that he can in turn protect the health of New Yorkers.
Many of the federal health workers who were fired earlier this week worked on global infectious diseases, which increased relevance in New York, Morse said. Just about every infectious outbreak that takes place, touches first and the most difficult in New York. Covid-19 was no exception and the city hurt early and hard.
“We are the most global city in the country. We are the largest city in the country. We have the largest health department in the country,” she said. “I would say that we have some of the most expert public health workers in the country. And yet, without the critical means we need to run our laboratories and other programs, we are definitely less safe.”
Morse is worried that much more financing can be lost, whether it is HIV, tuberculosis or chronic diseases. And with diversity, fairness and inclusion on the list of forbidden words, it fears for public health in general.
“The attacks on the federal government are extremely worrying,” she said. “Health is the core of public health. What we have always done has been looked at what our data has told us and what our communities told us about the impact.”
Chrissie Juliano, executive director, Big Cities Health Coalition, made a similar remark about Tuesday’s job jobs to public health.
“The money that supports this work and these employees were appropriated by the congress for specific programmatic activities,” she said in a phone call with reporters Tuesday. “What will happen to the work that is not done if you dismiss thousands of people in a dive?”
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