Speaker 1: Hey, everybody, and welcome back to the nonprofits. That turns
Speaker 1: out there haven't been any new reported cases of avian
Speaker 1: flu in the last four months. Kelly, can you tell
Speaker 1: us more about why that is?
Speaker 2: Well? E KnowI there might actually be a big reason
Speaker 2: for that, because since the occurrent administration has taken over
Speaker 2: leadership of the government and cut funding to the Center
Speaker 2: for Disease Control and Prevention commonly known as the CDC,
Speaker 2: their communication network that warns Americans about health hazards and
Speaker 2: disease outbreaks has apparently been shut down. They normally dispersed daily, weekly,
Speaker 2: and quarterly bulletins, and the CDC communication staff was responsible
Speaker 2: for keeping the health of Americans safe through alerts about
Speaker 2: disease outbreaks, but no communications have been issued since last March.
Speaker 2: In the meantime, the country has experienced outbreaks of measles, salmonella, listeria,
Speaker 2: and hepatitis all over the country. Now. Former and current
Speaker 2: CDC employees say this lack of communication is actually putting
Speaker 2: American lives at risk and needs to be rectified immediately.
Speaker 2: But it seems as though, at least right now, we
Speaker 2: have no way to tell if there's an epidemic breaking out.
Speaker 2: This story was broke from the MP by the MPR
Speaker 2: by Elijah Nuvolage on May twenty first, twenty twenty five.
Speaker 1: What an amazing first name that that person has, So, Kelly,
Speaker 1: you mentioned this in your intro, so I want to
Speaker 1: ask you the first thing that I thought of when
Speaker 1: I saw this was like, oh, this was budget cuts.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 1: Obviously, this was certainly the doing of DOGE in the
Speaker 1: Department Government Efficiency, which actually, by some analyses has actually
Speaker 1: cost the taxpayers upwards of one hundred billion, which means
Speaker 1: it costs about like five to seven percent of what
Speaker 1: it was promising to save. So my point being expand
Speaker 1: on this part of your opening thoughts, if you care to,
Speaker 1: how do you think those budget cuts play into this?
Speaker 2: Well, actually, I'm pretty sure they have cut into a
Speaker 2: lot of it. Dave obviously affected more than the CDC,
Speaker 2: and looking at some of the recent polling, it seems
Speaker 2: like there might be a little Pire's remorse going on
Speaker 2: for it. As you mentioned, it has cost us a
Speaker 2: lot of money in the costs that were accrued because
Speaker 2: of the budget cuts, and there's also we're building up
Speaker 2: legal costs too because of these challenges to some of
Speaker 2: these cuts. So it's been really uh, it's been a
Speaker 2: big effect on many, many different assets of aspects of
Speaker 2: the government. Sorry'm a little tongue tied. Now, this is
Speaker 2: a very important part of our government, the CDC, no
Speaker 2: matter what all you conspiracy there is say, this is
Speaker 2: our first line of defense against any modern plague. I mean,
Speaker 2: if the youbotic plague starts tomorrow, we're not going to know.
Speaker 2: And it seems like they we've been cut up. They
Speaker 2: they've completely been cut off for warning us about it.
Speaker 2: You know, I know a lot of the cuts were
Speaker 2: because of some of the leadership. Also, you know, this
Speaker 2: was done with a scalpel, as I mentioned before we
Speaker 2: started the show, and you like, I'm gonna let you
Speaker 2: say what you thought it was. I was saying it
Speaker 2: was more like chainsaw, like the normal thing. But yeah,
Speaker 2: you know, I used to joke that the brain weren't
Speaker 2: starved with that, but now I'm not so sure it
Speaker 2: was really a joke, honestly.
Speaker 1: I mean, yeah, it's it's I agree with you. It's
Speaker 1: one of those things where the importance of these warning systems,
Speaker 1: these newsletters they were sending out on a daily, weekly,
Speaker 1: monthly basis, quarterly basis to like warn like healthcare professionals
Speaker 1: about like this is the sort of like what's going
Speaker 1: on in healthcare and what you need to be prepared
Speaker 1: for in your area, because this is what those reports
Speaker 1: aren't getting out, and that's so crucial to maintaining and
Speaker 1: protecting public health, that and controlling diseases, which is the
Speaker 1: titular function of the CDC. So yeah, I'm with you.
Speaker 1: It definitely is problematic, and I the AJ for a minute.
Speaker 1: I did kind of take a position like yours at first, Kelly,
Speaker 1: where I was like, Yeah, this is certainly budget cuts,
Speaker 1: But then when I go to look into it, I
Speaker 1: landed somewhere closer to where I think AJ was kind
Speaker 1: of thinking too. So just sort of like to just
Speaker 1: kind of share your thoughts, you know the way Kelly,
Speaker 1: they just kind of open endedly. Do you think this
Speaker 1: is a budget thing or do you think there's a
Speaker 1: more direct or just a different cause for the silence
Speaker 1: from the CDC.
Speaker 3: I do have to agree a little bit that it
Speaker 3: could be partly due to the budget cuts, but I
Speaker 3: also think that from this third of the current administration,
Speaker 3: you know, nearly everyone involved in communications that the CDC
Speaker 3: was laid off. Okay, like the media communication the people
Speaker 3: that provided records to the public. The entire division of
Speaker 3: digital media was also told that the department would be eliminated,
Speaker 3: and they fired web developers, graphic designers, social media stuff,
Speaker 3: all of them. At the same time. Anyone that was
Speaker 3: left was looked out of the main social media accounts.
Speaker 3: So I don't know. I think partly Boudger cuts, partly
Speaker 3: they fucked up. But see, the CDC used to post
Speaker 3: on Facebook daily, sometimes more than once a day, but
Speaker 3: since March it's been like radio silence, absolutely like nothing.
Speaker 3: One of the last posts on their Facebook page is
Speaker 3: OURFKA Junior claiming that the Department of Hope and Human
Speaker 3: Services is going to stream align communication. You know, the
Speaker 3: CDC used to be able to publish and share these
Speaker 3: findings in a timely minor because they were not being
Speaker 3: micro managed by the Department of Health and Human Services.
Speaker 3: But now it's like everything has to go through them.
Speaker 3: The staff says that it has caused a back love
Speaker 3: of several months worth of data that should have already
Speaker 3: been probed on their social media, on their websites, on
Speaker 3: their email newsletters, as well as some direct communications to
Speaker 3: American physicians, right, like researchers laughs. It's just a mess.
Speaker 3: So I think that they, Yeah, maybe it was maybe
Speaker 3: started as a budget cut, but it just got into
Speaker 3: such a such a tankled mess that nobody can even
Speaker 3: tell now what it's about.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I agree with it. That's basically where I
Speaker 1: landed to And I agree with you up to the
Speaker 1: point where, like it was basically immediately after the inauguration
Speaker 1: at the beginning of this year, that's when things started
Speaker 1: to change and like communications started, you know, specifically started
Speaker 1: to change. But as I looked into it, it was
Speaker 1: doctor Dorothy Fink, and she was the interim Secretary of
Speaker 1: the Department of Health and Human Services before RFK Junior's confirmation.
Speaker 1: So she was appointed by the incoming president on the
Speaker 1: day of his inauguration, which is standard practice for you know,
Speaker 1: each time there's a new president, they appoint among other
Speaker 1: offices and interim you know, secretary for this office, and
Speaker 1: doctor Dorothy Fink was the appointee this year. So she
Speaker 1: made the order to halt all communications on February excuse me,
Speaker 1: January twenty first of this year, and then, like you said,
Speaker 1: two months later, the Facebook makes their last three posts
Speaker 1: at the end of March, one of them being a
Speaker 1: video from RFKA Junior saying we're going to streamline communication.
Speaker 2: So with that what they call that nineteen eighty four
Speaker 2: double speak?
Speaker 1: Bas yeah, I mean, is that not exactly what? Because
Speaker 1: that's what it is, right right, And that's exactly what
Speaker 1: I'm getting at. Because if they've you know, their their
Speaker 1: last their most recent like public social posts, which is
Speaker 1: not their most recent communication because the website is still updating,
Speaker 1: not as regularly as it used to, but still updating.
Speaker 1: So with like all of these outward communications halting so
Speaker 1: that the incoming administration can review them, two months after
Speaker 1: she halts communications, they disappear completely. So can it even
Speaker 1: like be said that they're actually streamlining communication or is
Speaker 1: that even what this is about? Do you think? Aj?
Speaker 3: Oh no, no, I don't think. I don't think it's
Speaker 3: you know, about streamlining communication, because you can't do that
Speaker 3: while keeping your staff in the loop, right and not
Speaker 3: firing pretty much out of your staff. You can do
Speaker 3: that while keeping American scientists informed so that they can
Speaker 3: make decisions that keep the American public safe, which is
Speaker 3: the main purpose of the CDC. So to see this blatant.
Speaker 3: This regard for science. You can clearly see it right there.
Speaker 3: This really makes me upset and frustrated, But I'm not
Speaker 3: really surprised by it in a sense. And the reason
Speaker 3: is because we saw this in the first term of
Speaker 3: the current administration. I don't know if you guys remember
Speaker 3: around twenty seventeen, about a year after he took office,
Speaker 3: They're much for science took place all over the United States.
Speaker 3: It was like a huge protest, like millions of people
Speaker 3: that included a large amount of scientists that were a
Speaker 3: vital part of the organizing of the protests. There were
Speaker 3: members of the movement. I mean, you rarely ever see that.
Speaker 3: You rarely see scientists like getting involved that deeply. And
Speaker 3: it started because of the disregard for science like we
Speaker 3: are seeing right now. It was like something that hasn't
Speaker 3: happened since then in such a massive way. I was
Speaker 3: the director for the Houston chapter and we had like
Speaker 3: fifteen thousand people come out and march. And the reason
Speaker 3: for that was because Houston has the largest medical center
Speaker 3: in the world. So the things that are happening in
Speaker 3: the CDC, the effects of this lack of communication can
Speaker 3: be devastating. For institutions, major institutions that contained this large
Speaker 3: amount of hospitals, clinics, laboratories, all of this research and
Speaker 3: obviously the first of the communities that they serve.
Speaker 1: Yeah, thanks, guys. I think I think that was really
Speaker 1: well said, honestly, and like we've all discussed like but
Speaker 1: among the three of us like sciences before, we're all
Speaker 1: science like folk here Kelly chief among us being published
Speaker 1: in a journal. Right, So, just with that being the case,
Speaker 1: talking on to like to the point AJ made about
Speaker 1: like this just public and systemic you could say, disregard
Speaker 1: for science and and just wonder and learning and knowledge.
Speaker 1: Would you have anything that you want to you know,
Speaker 1: kind of speak onto that from from your person.
Speaker 2: I would love to speak on that. And I think
Speaker 2: that this is, I mean, like the current administration to
Speaker 2: reaction to science, using this as a really good example,
Speaker 2: is setting the pace for this kind of reaction from
Speaker 2: the from the rest of our society. And and I
Speaker 2: don't want to be a conspiracy theorist or anything, but
Speaker 2: I do remember during the first term one of the
Speaker 2: people who did stand the organizations that did stand up
Speaker 2: to our current president was the CDC. During the COVID outbreak.
Speaker 2: So I mean, like right when he comes in day one,
Speaker 2: he starts tearing it up. That doesn't seem it doesn't
Speaker 2: actually seem like a conspiracy, does it. It seems like normal
Speaker 2: behavior for this person to me. But I don't know
Speaker 2: if I could say that or not. But I think
Speaker 2: there's been another effect that goes down the line within
Speaker 2: the CDC besides this, besides what we've talked about, and
Speaker 2: that is a lot of people were saying that they've
Speaker 2: been putting in these bulletins, but they have to be
Speaker 2: approved by the upper echelons, and they're not approving these bulletins.
Speaker 2: So these people, knowing they're not going to be approved,
Speaker 2: aren't even submitting them anymore. And that's a real problem,
Speaker 2: is that these people who are trying to tear apart
Speaker 2: the CDC are actually getting the people who are left
Speaker 2: at the CDC to not do their job properly. I mean,
Speaker 2: they've just sucked the morale out out of all the
Speaker 2: employees there, the employees that are left. Right, And going
Speaker 2: back to the initial question of the lack of science
Speaker 2: and knowledge and the interest in that, in the last
Speaker 2: few years, I've seen a little bit more with the
Speaker 2: younger kids like man, I had a kid in here
Speaker 2: today in my store that was just awesome. I wanted
Speaker 2: a hugo he was so he was so curious. I
Speaker 2: had a young girl in yesterday that was amazing talking
Speaker 2: about ultra violet. She had to be like ten years
Speaker 2: old talking about ultraviolet light, and I was like, that's
Speaker 2: really cool. And I haven't really seen that much interest
Speaker 2: in science in a long time. And it's really heartening
Speaker 2: that science is right there in everybody's living room. As
Speaker 2: long as you've got a computer or a phone in
Speaker 2: your hand, science is right there. All of science is
Speaker 2: available to you, and that's freaking amazing. But unfortunately there
Speaker 2: are people my age a little bit younger than that
Speaker 2: are still stuck in the nineties and they haven't realized
Speaker 2: that technology has moved forward, and we got to those
Speaker 2: are the people that we're having to deal with today too.
Speaker 2: And then we always had that. I talk about it
Speaker 2: all the time, the Carlon problem. George Carlin said that
Speaker 2: average intelligence isn't that smart, and half the people are
Speaker 2: dumber than that. So there's always going to be these
Speaker 2: people that reject science right because they just can't understand it.
Speaker 2: They don't get it, and it's out of their world.
Speaker 2: And that's all those people that know all that stuff.
Speaker 2: They're the elite and I don't. I'm not the elite.
Speaker 2: Screw those guys. Yeah, So I think that's it, and
Speaker 2: that attitude is becoming more or has been more prevalent
Speaker 2: since honestly the turn of the century.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I don't think I could have said that better.
Speaker 1: And the thing is, those people that you're talking about
Speaker 1: that are stuck in you know, this is just what
Speaker 1: I think, and that's just what I was taught. One
Speaker 1: of the most sinister things about this, I think, is
Speaker 1: that you have those people who demonstrantly don't don't demonstrably
Speaker 1: don't have expertise in any given field, being granted what
Speaker 1: they perceive is unchecked authority over that field, that industry,
Speaker 1: that sector, whatever it may be, and they're allowed to
Speaker 1: say that doesn't sound right to me. And if their
Speaker 1: basis for thinking that doesn't sound right is either I
Speaker 1: don't remember being taught that, either because they weren't paying
Speaker 1: attention or because they were never taught.
Speaker 2: Or that don't sound right to me.
Speaker 1: Right, or because that's not what the Bible says, or
Speaker 1: like I feel like it's probably something that's not unnatural
Speaker 1: with the top tells me exactly if that's what their
Speaker 1: basis is, there's there's basically if you first have to
Speaker 1: convince them that there may be something that they don't know,
Speaker 1: which for people who who buy into the argument from authority,
Speaker 1: that's a difficult thing to do, and especially if they
Speaker 1: find merit or if they if they use their position
Speaker 1: as a crutch to insist that they know best, which
Speaker 1: I think is a lot about what is similar to
Speaker 1: what we're seeing in a lot of of context right now.
Speaker 1: And when you have others an authority endorsing that person,
Speaker 1: it just perpetuates this false impression that not only they
Speaker 1: can and should be trusted, but that they should not
Speaker 1: be questioned. And it makes me think of these like
Speaker 1: dynastic emperors or empires that were ruled by like the
Speaker 1: emotions and the opinions of their rulers, and your quality
Speaker 1: of life can change dramatically overnight based on who the
Speaker 1: most recent murderer is, so it can be sorry I
Speaker 1: got lost in my thought. Now, you can't say that
Speaker 1: all government is based on governing the the governing party's
Speaker 1: personal opinions, but you can come to those personal opinions
Speaker 1: and those beliefs either through like science and evidence based
Speaker 1: reasoning or something more similar to like a hunch or
Speaker 1: a feeling or a misunderstanding, or like one of those
Speaker 1: methods that's just not that good for coming to like
Speaker 1: a truth based conclusion. So with that being said, a
Speaker 1: J would you say that it is important to make
Speaker 1: that distinction between like an expert and an authority and
Speaker 1: whether the opinion of one or the other has any
Speaker 1: more of a place in governance than the other, or
Speaker 1: would you would you do away with personal opinions altogether.
Speaker 3: Unfortunately, I don't think that the majority of people come
Speaker 3: to their opinion based on evidence, but whether I like
Speaker 3: feelings or you know, like I just think, or hey,
Speaker 3: you know, I just got this idea and that's my opinion.
Speaker 3: And that's that they don't even look into the actual
Speaker 3: evidence or the science of it of it. And for
Speaker 3: that reason I.
Speaker 2: Got to giggle because I thought of that. You know,
Speaker 2: my dad always wrote a Republican and that was good
Speaker 2: enough for him, So I'm going to vote Republican. But
Speaker 2: that made me laugh a little bit because that's right
Speaker 2: along with what you're saying, Right.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but that's exactly that. Yeah, And but it shouldn't
Speaker 3: really matter what your personal opinion is, you know, like
Speaker 3: whatever your belief, especially of the people running enormous departments
Speaker 3: that are in control of the entire country, like the
Speaker 3: whole department, and the current person that you know is
Speaker 3: serving this department is there to serve the public, not
Speaker 3: to serve a personal agenda. And they should listen to
Speaker 3: the scientists that are doing the science, that are doing
Speaker 3: the thing that they've spent years being trained to do, Okay,
Speaker 3: that they use the scientific method to come to all
Speaker 3: of these consensus and not necessarily just use their argument
Speaker 3: of authority to be like, hey, just because there's one
Speaker 3: scientist seems why No, like there are actually using the
Speaker 3: scientific consensus as a whole. So what I'm trying to
Speaker 3: say is, like the part that blows my mind about
Speaker 3: this is that we really know who is behind this,
Speaker 3: and we know why he is doing it. But the
Speaker 3: CDCAS communication isn't it shouldn't be just about vaccines or
Speaker 3: all of these stuff that this person is focused on.
Speaker 3: That's just such a tiny part of what they do.
Speaker 3: They deal with things like outbreaks of measles like we've
Speaker 3: had here in Texas salmonella, listeria or hepatitis AI and
Speaker 3: hepatitis C food safety. The informosts about disease prevention, and
Speaker 3: we currently have over one hundred million Americans suffering from
Speaker 3: different chronic illnesses like type two diabetes, heart disease, all
Speaker 3: types of cancers, which include childhood cancers. So the posts
Speaker 3: that they used to share on their social media weren't
Speaker 3: about any type of controversial topics. There were like information
Speaker 3: for pregnant women on how to take care of their
Speaker 3: bodies and how to take care of their onborn babies,
Speaker 3: which you know, it's one of the things that the
Speaker 3: concern relieves claim to care so much about, or you know,
Speaker 3: the reminders about cancer screenings. So the CDC is there
Speaker 3: to give recommendations from experts in their specific fields about
Speaker 3: different topics of help. But you know, I guess that's
Speaker 3: how much the American government values life. But don't worry,
Speaker 3: They're going to keep pushing depend on a fortune so
Speaker 3: that American women can forcibly give birth to more babies
Speaker 3: that then will grow up to be adults that they
Speaker 3: can talk to. Fuck right off.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, I think I think you ended up
Speaker 1: pretty nicely there. That's that's that's essentially what it is.
Speaker 1: They taking care of the society doesn't seem to be
Speaker 1: an important goal. It's it's just about creating more taxpayers,
Speaker 1: more workers, more something who knows, more believers, more believers,
Speaker 1: more Christians, soldiers in God's army or you know, whoever
Speaker 1: needs an army. Yeah.
Speaker 2: I like the way they justify it too. It was like, well,
Speaker 2: people voted for the for voted for us, so this
Speaker 2: is what must be what they want. They all knew
Speaker 2: we were idiots and they voted for us, so when
Speaker 2: we react like idiots, that must be what they want.
Speaker 1: Right, Well, we're not idiots, and neither are you of
Speaker 1: youew ers, So you should do what smart people do
Speaker 1: and check out more nonprofits.