While most of today’s news involves plutocrats at play, out here in the country, the administration’s cruel bungling of the nation’s public health is sickening—literally. In Maine, the largest HIV outbreak in the state’s history is raging in Penobscot County, which includes Bangor, the state’s third-most populous city.
According to The Boston Globe, Penobscot County, which typically sees only two new HIV cases a year, has reported 30 new infections since October 2023—the biggest outbreak in Maine’s history. At the end of September, public health experts in Maine requested support from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), citing a “significant public health concern,” according to state documents obtained by the Globe.
Normally, in situations like this, the federal government would step in to provide all the support local public health officials need to keep from being overwhelmed. But in this case, the expected response fell victim to bureaucracy and politics. After initially approving Maine’s request, the CDC put it on hold on October 9.
“Travel isn’t authorized during the government shutdown,” said Emily Hilliard, a spokesperson for the Department of Health and Human Services, which oversees the CDC, in response to a request for comment. The decision to pause deployments of support teams—called Epi-Aids—leaves Maine and other states with public health emergencies in limbo. This is yet another consequence of what has become the longest government shutdown in history.
State officials are planning for the team’s arrival after the shutdown ends, but they’ve also been told that if the team didn’t deploy in October, it might not be available until February. Federal authorities wouldn’t say how many Epi-Aid deployments are currently on hold, or whether such pauses have happened during previous shutdowns.
If I were in city government, I’d pass a resolution immediately declaring the president Bangor’s Man of the Century—and pass an appropriation to buy him a golden crown. That seems to be the only thing that works anymore. Jesus, these people.
Dr. Tom Frieden, who led the CDC during the 2013 shutdown, said the agency didn’t stop deploying staff during that two-week funding gap. “We could respond to outbreaks,” he said. “It certainly did include travel.” For decades, Epi-Aids have been readily available for health emergencies—both domestic and international—and are dispatched dozens of times each year.
“If the state asks for help, CDC always gives help,” said Dr. Demetre Daskalakis, the CDC’s former director of the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, who resigned in protest over Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s management. “It is pretty scandalous to me that CDC is not sending an Epi-Aid that Maine has asked for.”
As always, this administration’s atrocious handling of the Bangor outbreak is just one part of an ongoing public health crisis. The pause on Epi-Aids comes as the Trump administration plans to decimate the CDC’s HIV prevention program. This year, the National Institutes of Health terminated nearly $800 million in HIV research grants.
Interestingly—and nauseatingly—the president’s first administration was fairly strong on HIV research and prevention. Things only changed after the election, when “Captain Roadkill and his Howling Commandos” were put in charge at HHS.
Whatever the reason, the situation on the ground in Bangor is grim and getting worse. “What changed in these people’s minds?” said Dr. John Brooks, who led an Epi-Aid deployment to a similar HIV outbreak in Indiana a decade ago. “It’s such an unfortunate loss to take our eyes off this condition.”
What changed, indeed.
https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/a69414316/hiv-outbreak-maine-cdc/