Hey, everybody, and welcome back to the nonprofits. That turns out there haven't been any new reported cases of avian flu in the last four months. Kelly, can you tell us more about why that is?
Well? E KnowI there might actually be a big reason for that, because since the occurrent administration has taken over leadership of the government and cut funding to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention commonly known as the CDC, their communication network that warns Americans about health hazards and
disease outbreaks has apparently been shut down. They normally dispersed daily, weekly, and quarterly bulletins, and the CDC communication staff was responsible for keeping the health of Americans safe through alerts about disease outbreaks, but no communications have been issued since last March. In the meantime, the country has experienced outbreaks of measles, salmonella, listeria,
and hepatitis all over the country. Now. Former and current CDC employees say this lack of communication is actually putting American lives at risk and needs to be rectified immediately. But it seems as though, at least right now, we have no way to tell if there's an epidemic breaking out. This story was broke from the MP by the MPR by Elijah Nuvolage on May twenty first, twenty twenty five.
What an amazing first name that that person has, So, Kelly, you mentioned this in your intro, so I want to ask you the first thing that I thought of when I saw this was like, oh, this was budget cuts.
Right.
Obviously, this was certainly the doing of DOGE in the Department Government Efficiency, which actually, by some analyses has actually cost the taxpayers upwards of one hundred billion, which means it costs about like five to seven percent of what it was promising to save. So my point being expand on this part of your opening thoughts, if you care to, how do you think those budget cuts play into this?
Well, actually, I'm pretty sure they have cut into a lot of it. Dave obviously affected more than the CDC, and looking at some of the recent polling, it seems like there might be a little Pire's remorse going on for it. As you mentioned, it has cost us a lot of money in the costs that were accrued because of the budget cuts, and there's also we're building up legal costs too because of these challenges to some of
these cuts. So it's been really uh, it's been a big effect on many, many different assets of aspects of the government. Sorry'm a little tongue tied. Now, this is a very important part of our government, the CDC, no matter what all you conspiracy there is say, this is our first line of defense against any modern plague. I mean, if the youbotic plague starts tomorrow, we're not going to know. And it seems like they we've been cut up. They they've completely been cut off for warning us about it.
You know, I know a lot of the cuts were because of some of the leadership. Also, you know, this was done with a scalpel, as I mentioned before we started the show, and you like, I'm gonna let you say what you thought it was. I was saying it was more like chainsaw, like the normal thing. But yeah, you know, I used to joke that the brain weren't starved with that, but now I'm not so sure it was really a joke, honestly.
I mean, yeah, it's it's I agree with you. It's one of those things where the importance of these warning systems, these newsletters they were sending out on a daily, weekly, monthly basis, quarterly basis to like warn like healthcare professionals about like this is the sort of like what's going on in healthcare and what you need to be prepared for in your area, because this is what those reports aren't getting out, and that's so crucial to maintaining and
protecting public health, that and controlling diseases, which is the titular function of the CDC. So yeah, I'm with you. It definitely is problematic, and I the AJ for a minute. I did kind of take a position like yours at first, Kelly, where I was like, Yeah, this is certainly budget cuts, But then when I go to look into it, I landed somewhere closer to where I think AJ was kind of thinking too. So just sort of like to just kind of share your thoughts, you know the way Kelly,
they just kind of open endedly. Do you think this is a budget thing or do you think there's a more direct or just a different cause for the silence from the CDC.
I do have to agree a little bit that it could be partly due to the budget cuts, but I also think that from this third of the current administration, you know, nearly everyone involved in communications that the CDC was laid off. Okay, like the media communication the people that provided records to the public. The entire division of digital media was also told that the department would be eliminated, and they fired web developers, graphic designers, social media stuff,
all of them. At the same time. Anyone that was left was looked out of the main social media accounts. So I don't know. I think partly Boudger cuts, partly they fucked up. But see, the CDC used to post on Facebook daily, sometimes more than once a day, but since March it's been like radio silence, absolutely like nothing. One of the last posts on their Facebook page is OURFKA Junior claiming that the Department of Hope and Human
Services is going to stream align communication. You know, the CDC used to be able to publish and share these findings in a timely minor because they were not being micro managed by the Department of Health and Human Services. But now it's like everything has to go through them.
The staff says that it has caused a back love of several months worth of data that should have already been probed on their social media, on their websites, on their email newsletters, as well as some direct communications to American physicians, right, like researchers laughs. It's just a mess. So I think that they, Yeah, maybe it was maybe started as a budget cut, but it just got into such a such a tankled mess that nobody can even tell now what it's about.
Yeah, and I agree with it. That's basically where I landed to And I agree with you up to the point where, like it was basically immediately after the inauguration at the beginning of this year, that's when things started to change and like communications started, you know, specifically started to change. But as I looked into it, it was doctor Dorothy Fink, and she was the interim Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services before RFK Junior's confirmation.
So she was appointed by the incoming president on the day of his inauguration, which is standard practice for you know, each time there's a new president, they appoint among other offices and interim you know, secretary for this office, and
doctor Dorothy Fink was the appointee this year. So she made the order to halt all communications on February excuse me, January twenty first of this year, and then, like you said, two months later, the Facebook makes their last three posts at the end of March, one of them being a video from RFKA Junior saying we're going to streamline communication.
So with that what they call that nineteen eighty four double speak?
Bas yeah, I mean, is that not exactly what? Because that's what it is, right right, And that's exactly what I'm getting at. Because if they've you know, their their last their most recent like public social posts, which is not their most recent communication because the website is still updating, not as regularly as it used to, but still updating. So with like all of these outward communications halting so that the incoming administration can review them, two months after
she halts communications, they disappear completely. So can it even like be said that they're actually streamlining communication or is that even what this is about? Do you think? Aj?
Oh no, no, I don't think. I don't think it's you know, about streamlining communication, because you can't do that while keeping your staff in the loop, right and not firing pretty much out of your staff. You can do that while keeping American scientists informed so that they can make decisions that keep the American public safe, which is the main purpose of the CDC. So to see this blatant. This regard for science. You can clearly see it right there.
This really makes me upset and frustrated, But I'm not really surprised by it in a sense. And the reason is because we saw this in the first term of the current administration. I don't know if you guys remember around twenty seventeen, about a year after he took office, They're much for science took place all over the United States. It was like a huge protest, like millions of people that included a large amount of scientists that were a vital part of the organizing of the protests. There were
members of the movement. I mean, you rarely ever see that. You rarely see scientists like getting involved that deeply. And it started because of the disregard for science like we are seeing right now. It was like something that hasn't happened since then in such a massive way. I was the director for the Houston chapter and we had like fifteen thousand people come out and march. And the reason for that was because Houston has the largest medical center
in the world. So the things that are happening in the CDC, the effects of this lack of communication can be devastating. For institutions, major institutions that contained this large amount of hospitals, clinics, laboratories, all of this research and obviously the first of the communities that they serve.
Yeah, thanks, guys. I think I think that was really well said, honestly, and like we've all discussed like but among the three of us like sciences before, we're all science like folk here Kelly chief among us being published in a journal. Right, So, just with that being the case, talking on to like to the point AJ made about like this just public and systemic you could say, disregard for science and and just wonder and learning and knowledge.
Would you have anything that you want to you know, kind of speak onto that from from your person.
I would love to speak on that. And I think that this is, I mean, like the current administration to reaction to science, using this as a really good example, is setting the pace for this kind of reaction from the from the rest of our society. And and I don't want to be a conspiracy theorist or anything, but I do remember during the first term one of the people who did stand the organizations that did stand up to our current president was the CDC. During the COVID outbreak.
So I mean, like right when he comes in day one, he starts tearing it up. That doesn't seem it doesn't actually seem like a conspiracy, does it. It seems like normal behavior for this person to me. But I don't know
if I could say that or not. But I think there's been another effect that goes down the line within the CDC besides this, besides what we've talked about, and that is a lot of people were saying that they've been putting in these bulletins, but they have to be approved by the upper echelons, and they're not approving these bulletins. So these people, knowing they're not going to be approved,
aren't even submitting them anymore. And that's a real problem, is that these people who are trying to tear apart the CDC are actually getting the people who are left at the CDC to not do their job properly. I mean, they've just sucked the morale out out of all the
employees there, the employees that are left. Right, And going back to the initial question of the lack of science and knowledge and the interest in that, in the last few years, I've seen a little bit more with the younger kids like man, I had a kid in here today in my store that was just awesome. I wanted a hugo he was so he was so curious. I had a young girl in yesterday that was amazing talking
about ultra violet. She had to be like ten years old talking about ultraviolet light, and I was like, that's really cool. And I haven't really seen that much interest in science in a long time. And it's really heartening that science is right there in everybody's living room. As long as you've got a computer or a phone in your hand, science is right there. All of science is
available to you, and that's freaking amazing. But unfortunately there are people my age a little bit younger than that are still stuck in the nineties and they haven't realized that technology has moved forward, and we got to those are the people that we're having to deal with today too. And then we always had that. I talk about it all the time, the Carlon problem. George Carlin said that average intelligence isn't that smart, and half the people are
dumber than that. So there's always going to be these people that reject science right because they just can't understand it. They don't get it, and it's out of their world. And that's all those people that know all that stuff. They're the elite and I don't. I'm not the elite. Screw those guys. Yeah, So I think that's it, and that attitude is becoming more or has been more prevalent since honestly the turn of the century.
Yeah, I don't think I could have said that better. And the thing is, those people that you're talking about that are stuck in you know, this is just what
I think, and that's just what I was taught. One of the most sinister things about this, I think, is that you have those people who demonstrantly don't don't demonstrably don't have expertise in any given field, being granted what they perceive is unchecked authority over that field, that industry, that sector, whatever it may be, and they're allowed to
say that doesn't sound right to me. And if their basis for thinking that doesn't sound right is either I don't remember being taught that, either because they weren't paying attention or because they were never taught.
Or that don't sound right to me.
Right, or because that's not what the Bible says, or like I feel like it's probably something that's not unnatural with the top tells me exactly if that's what their basis is, there's there's basically if you first have to convince them that there may be something that they don't know, which for people who who buy into the argument from authority, that's a difficult thing to do, and especially if they find merit or if they if they use their position
as a crutch to insist that they know best, which I think is a lot about what is similar to what we're seeing in a lot of of context right now. And when you have others an authority endorsing that person, it just perpetuates this false impression that not only they can and should be trusted, but that they should not
be questioned. And it makes me think of these like dynastic emperors or empires that were ruled by like the emotions and the opinions of their rulers, and your quality of life can change dramatically overnight based on who the most recent murderer is, so it can be sorry I
got lost in my thought. Now, you can't say that all government is based on governing the the governing party's personal opinions, but you can come to those personal opinions and those beliefs either through like science and evidence based reasoning or something more similar to like a hunch or a feeling or a misunderstanding, or like one of those methods that's just not that good for coming to like
a truth based conclusion. So with that being said, a J would you say that it is important to make that distinction between like an expert and an authority and whether the opinion of one or the other has any more of a place in governance than the other, or would you would you do away with personal opinions altogether.
Unfortunately, I don't think that the majority of people come to their opinion based on evidence, but whether I like feelings or you know, like I just think, or hey, you know, I just got this idea and that's my opinion. And that's that they don't even look into the actual evidence or the science of it of it. And for that reason I.
Got to giggle because I thought of that. You know, my dad always wrote a Republican and that was good enough for him, So I'm going to vote Republican. But that made me laugh a little bit because that's right along with what you're saying, Right.
Yeah, but that's exactly that. Yeah, And but it shouldn't really matter what your personal opinion is, you know, like whatever your belief, especially of the people running enormous departments that are in control of the entire country, like the whole department, and the current person that you know is serving this department is there to serve the public, not
to serve a personal agenda. And they should listen to the scientists that are doing the science, that are doing the thing that they've spent years being trained to do, Okay, that they use the scientific method to come to all of these consensus and not necessarily just use their argument of authority to be like, hey, just because there's one scientist seems why No, like there are actually using the
scientific consensus as a whole. So what I'm trying to say is, like the part that blows my mind about this is that we really know who is behind this, and we know why he is doing it. But the CDCAS communication isn't it shouldn't be just about vaccines or all of these stuff that this person is focused on. That's just such a tiny part of what they do. They deal with things like outbreaks of measles like we've had here in Texas salmonella, listeria or hepatitis AI and
hepatitis C food safety. The informosts about disease prevention, and we currently have over one hundred million Americans suffering from different chronic illnesses like type two diabetes, heart disease, all types of cancers, which include childhood cancers. So the posts that they used to share on their social media weren't
about any type of controversial topics. There were like information for pregnant women on how to take care of their bodies and how to take care of their onborn babies, which you know, it's one of the things that the concern relieves claim to care so much about, or you know, the reminders about cancer screenings. So the CDC is there to give recommendations from experts in their specific fields about different topics of help. But you know, I guess that's
how much the American government values life. But don't worry, They're going to keep pushing depend on a fortune so that American women can forcibly give birth to more babies that then will grow up to be adults that they can talk to. Fuck right off.
Yeah, I mean, I think I think you ended up pretty nicely there. That's that's that's essentially what it is. They taking care of the society doesn't seem to be an important goal. It's it's just about creating more taxpayers, more workers, more something who knows, more believers, more believers, more Christians, soldiers in God's army or you know, whoever needs an army. Yeah.
I like the way they justify it too. It was like, well, people voted for the for voted for us, so this is what must be what they want. They all knew we were idiots and they voted for us, so when we react like idiots, that must be what they want.
Right, Well, we're not idiots, and neither are you of youew ers, So you should do what smart people do and check out more nonprofits.