"Facing that rising tide, the mothership of the country’s public-health system is floundering, in no small part because of a Republican effort to reduce its funding. In 2017, the GOP’s attempts to repeal Obamacare often proposed raiding or eliminating the Prevention and Public Health Fund, which constitutes a major piece of the CDC’s budget. While repeal never passed, it put CDC on the defensive, where it’s likely to remain: Trump has also targeted the fund for cuts.
"What’s more, facing a loss of funding for its international infectious-disease efforts—there appear to be “no new resources” on the horizon—the agency is set to cut back its global health-security program by as much as 80 percent. In a hotter, more connected world, when global pandemic seems all the more likely, the CDC is shrinking from the world.
Paradoxically, the failure of global diseases like Ebola and Zika to establish beachheads in the United States after sustained panics has often been used as rationale for pulling the agency back and slashing its proactive public-health funds. But renewed austerity, along with controversy in leadership, could set the CDC up for failure precisely at the moment when it is needed most."
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