by Officials in Texas tried to control the number of measles cases in the western part of the state, mainly without the help of the centers for the control and prevention of diseases, according to a new report.
Just a few days after the first measles case in Texas, the Trump administration started and ordered the Ministry of Health and Human Services to stop all public communication, as can be seen from an e -mail from KFF Health News.
Soon afterwards, the administration began with the implementation of mass decisions and sent various agencies, including the CDC, in chaos and confusion, said several CDC officials KFF Health News.
When the officials in West texas started hiking to the CDC to deal with the measurement outbreak at the beginning of this year, they were apparently met with simple answers or a complete silence of a “stressed” agency.
Katherine Wells, the director of public health in Lubbock, Texas, sent an email to her colleagues for public health: “My employees feel that we are out here alone.”
The independent the CDC asked for a comment.
Even after the administration of the administration ended in communication, CDC scientists said that “a lot of confusion and non-providers about what the communication is allowed to” give “a lot of confusion.
Social -Media Communication, which once had to be checked directly by HHS by CDC employees, said the NPR. At that time, two employees of the CDC communication said that less than half of their contributions were approved for social media.
The CDC never kept press conferences about the measles situation and published short press releases.
As a result, local officials had to rely on advice from doctors and researchers outside the government.
“The CDC had become dark,” Terri Burke, Executive Director of Immunization Partnership, a non -profit organization in Texas, told KFF Health News. “We had expected a measles outbreak, but we hadn’t expected the federal government to collapse when the goal.”
It was not until the end of February, when a six-year-old child died of measles, that a CDC scientist turned to Wells for the first time and published his first press release for measuring outbreak. In this publication, the CDC said that vaccine was the most effective way to defend itself against measles, but also to support vitamin A as supportive care.
Health experts were concerned that the CDC and HHS secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who campaigned for vitamin A, was able to tighten the problem of delaying parents in vaccine intervention.
In April, several children were treated for vitamin -A toxicity.
A CDC scientist announced KFF Health News that the department “pressed” was to include the vitamin -a line in its communication.
Another unrelented CDC officer said they tried to provide the public of scientifically supported information and at the same time agree with HHS.
Officials in Texas grew up in spring, asked the government for federal financing, personnel and more resources to combat the outbreak.
In March, the CDC sent epidemiologists to Texas to help for several weeks.
In April, a high -ranking CDC scientist brought up the state’s resource problem at a meeting of the vaccine advisory committee.
In May the Federal Government provided Texas funds.
“It is not that the CDC was criminal,” Georges Benjamin, director of the American Public Health Association, told KFF Health News. “It is the case that they had bound their hands behind their backs.”
Last week, health officers said that the measles outbreak in West texas had ended. But thousands of people, including children, were probably infected with the potentially deadly illness, and it is likely that the country will record more outbreaks, say experts.
