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Abbreviated Pundit Roundup: Weird Science [1]
['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.']
Date: 2025-02-16
We begin today with Amy Maxmen for KFF Health News on the critical nature of missing CDC influenza data as some of the data that we do have access to seems to indicate that the U.S. is going through a record-breaking flu season.
Flu has been brutal this season. The CDC estimates at least 24 million illnesses, 310,000 hospitalizations, and 13,000 deaths from the flu since the start of October. At the same time, the bird flu outbreak continues to infect cattle and farmworkers. But CDC analyses that would inform people about these situations are delayed, and the CDC has cut off communication with doctors, researchers, and the World Health Organization, say doctors and public health experts. “CDC right now is not reporting influenza data through the WHO global platforms, FluNet [and] FluID, that they’ve been providing information [on] for many, many years,” Maria Van Kerkhove, interim director of epidemic and pandemic preparedness at the WHO, said at a Feb. 12 press briefing. [...] A critical analysis of the seasonal flu selected for distribution through the CDC’s Health Alert Network has stalled, according to people close to the CDC. They asked not to be identified because of fears of retaliation. The network, abbreviated as HAN, is the CDC’s main method of sharing urgent public health information with health officials, doctors, and, sometimes, the public. A chart from that analysis, reviewed by KFF Health News, suggests that flu may be at a record high. About 7.7% of patients who visited clinics and hospitals without being admitted had flu-like symptoms in early February, a ratio higher than in four other flu seasons depicted in the graph. That includes 2003-04, when an atypical strain of flu fueled a particularly treacherous season that killed at least 153 children.
Lizzy Lawrence and Matt Harper of STATnews report that government-wide layoffs have now hit the Food and Drug Administration.
It wasn’t immediately clear how many FDA employees were affected, nor how many parts of the agency may be involved. Some of those cut worked in the FDA’s Center for Devices and Radiological Health, one of the people said. The layoffs are part of a purge of probationary employees that started Friday, and included staff at the National Institutes of Health and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Senior officials were told that 5,200 probationary employees were to be let go across the Department of Health and Human Services, which includes the FDA, NIH, and CDC. Around 1,300 workers at CDC were set to be impacted. A number of contract workers at CDC and across HHS have also lost their jobs over the past few weeks. The administration, aided by Elon Musk’s U.S. DOGE Service, has aggressively trimmed the federal workforce since Trump’s inauguration last month. Federal workers have been encouraged to leave via a buyout offer, return-to-work order, and the threat of limited legal protections.
Jerod MacDonald-Evoy of the Arizona Mirror reports that Arizona cattle and milk has tested positive for the presence of the H5N1.
The Arizona Department of Agriculture announced Friday that bird flu had been detected in milk produced by dairy cows in Arizona. Arizona is one of approximately 12 states that have had confirmed cases of avian flu that are being monitored by federal, state and local health officials. There is no evidence of human-to-human transmission of the virus in Arizona or anywhere else and risk to the public is considered low. In a press release Friday, the Agriculture Department announced that a dairy herd in Maricopa County has been put under quarantine after the virus was detected in milk they produced. None of the cattle in the herd have displayed symptoms, they said. Transmission of the virus from cattle or birds to humans is low, though people who interact with cattle are at a higher risk. A recently released federal study found that bird flu infections of veterinarians appear to have been underreported and gone undetected.
Katherine J. Wu of The Atlantic comments on the continuation of the erasure of much of American science by the Trump Administration.
..The dismantling of USAID has halted clinical trials abroad, leaving participants with experimental drugs and devices still in their bodies. Last week, NIH announced that it would slash the amount its grants would pay for administrative costs—a move that has since been blocked by a federal judge but that would substantially hamper entire institutions from carrying out the day-to-day activities of research. The administration is reportedly planning to cut the budget for the National Science Foundation. Mass layoffs of federal workers have also begun, and two NIH scientists (who asked not to be identified for fear of professional repercussions) told me they participated in a meeting this morning in which it was announced that thousands of staff across the Department of Health and Human Services would be let go starting today. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has now become the head of that department, after two confirmation hearings in which he showed a lack of basic understanding of the U.S. health system and a flagrant disregard for data that support the safety and effectiveness of various lifesaving vaccines. (The White House did not return repeated requests for comment.) [...] Science can be polarizing, especially in times of crisis: During the worst days of the coronavirus pandemic, people fought intensely over the validity of data, and who counted as an expert. And new presidents frequently shift federal priorities, including scientific ones, as is their prerogative—George W. Bush, for instance, defunded certain types of stem-cell research. But generally, those changes have been “much smaller in scale and much more targeted,” Alexander Furnas, a policy researcher at Northwestern University who studies how the government has funded science, told me. Funding for science has also, historically, had strong bipartisan support: Furnas and his colleagues have found that Republicans have appropriated more money to science than Democrats have in the past 40 years. Now the government is experimenting with just how much it can renegotiate its relationship with science. The new administration seems unlikely to abandon science in its entirety—research into space exploration or artificial intelligence may well continue without friction and even flourish under Trump’s leadership. In an executive order released yesterday, the White House reaffirmed its commitment to tackling chronic disease, a priority of Kennedy’s. But the new administration can pursue certain sectors of science, and talk up scientific values, while still diminishing the research enterprise as a whole. Science and government are now weeks into what will likely be a prolonged battle over how research can and will be done in the United States.
Damien Gayle of Guardian reports that climate breakdown is raising the prices of coffee, cocoa, and other food products.
In an apparent confirmation of warnings that climate breakdown could lead to food shortages, research by the consultancy Inverto found steep rises in the prices of a number of food commodities in the year to January that correlated with unexpected weather. Several authorities declared 2024 the hottest year on record , a trend towards higher temperatures that seems to be continuing into 2025 . Inverto said a long-term trend towards more extreme weather events would continue to hit regional crop yields, causing price spikes. The highest price rises were for cocoa and coffee, up 163% and 103% respectively, due to a combination of higher than average rainfall and temperatures in producing regions, according to the research. Sunflower oil prices increased by 56% after drought caused poor crop yields in Bulgaria and Ukraine, which also continued to be affected by the Russian invasion. Other food commodities with sharp year-on-year price rises included orange juice and butter, both up by more than a third, and beef, up by just over a quarter.
Errol Louis reports for New York magazine that Black political leaders in New York City are soooooooooo over Mayor Eric Adams and his issues.
Robbie Gramer and Paul Mcleary of POLITICO Europe report an exclusive that Russia-Ukraine peace talks are set to begin in Saudi Arabia, apparently without the participation of Ukraine or NATO allies.
The U.S. officials said that National security adviser Mike Waltz will join Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Steve Witkoff, the president’s Middle East envoy, in the coming days to start talks on ending the war. However, Trump’s special envoy for Ukraine-Russia talks, retired General Keith Kellogg, will not be in attendance, the officials said. The officials also said there are no plans for representatives from other major European powers to join the talks. That could rankle NATO allies which have publicly urged President Donald Trump to ensure they have a seat at the negotiating table. The meeting could mark a major moment in Trump’s quest for a peace process, and would also mark the first major meeting of Russian and Ukrainian representatives since the onset of the war in 2022. Mike McCaul, a Republican lawmaker from Texas, confirmed the plans for Waltz and Witkoff to join Rubio in Saudi Arabia to start talks between the two warring sides during an interview at the POLITICO Pub on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference.
Bonesaw diplomacy complete with high fives and faux brotha man handshakes? That’s where we are nowadays, I guess.
Finally today, Yale University professor of history Timothy Snyder writes for his “Thinking About…” Substack comparing Hitler’s claims against and treatment of Czechoslovakia in 1938 with Russian President Vladimir Putin’s treatment of Ukraine today.
Hitler denied the legitimacy of the Czechoslovak state. As German chancellor, he systematically denied that it had a right to exist. Although its leaders were democratically elected, he claimed that they had no right to rule. Because its people spoke various languages, he claimed that there was no such thing as a body of Czechoslovak citizens. Hitler argued that Czechoslovakia itself was artificial, the result of a historical turning point that never should have happened, the settlement after the First World War. He claimed that the existence of national minority gave him the right to intervene in Czechoslovak politics. In May 1938, he ordered his army to make preparations for a quick strike on Czechoslovakia. He also activiated his agents inside the country. On September 12th Hitler gave a rousing speech to Germans about the entirely fictional extermination of the German minority in Czechoslovakia. We know what comes next: Britain and France, together with Germany and Italy, decided in Munich on September 30th that Czechoslovakia should cede crucial border territories to Germany. These were the most defensible parts of the country. Czechoslovakia’s leaders, although they were not consulted, chose to accept the partition of their country. [...] Putin denied the legitimacy of the Ukrainian state. Although its leaders were democratically elected, he claimed that they had no right to rule. Because its people spoke various languages, he claimed that there was no such thing as a body of Ukrainian citizens. Hitler argued that Ukraine itself was artificial, the result of a historical turning point that never should have happened, the collapse of the Soviet Union. He claimed that the existence of national minority gave him the right to intervene in Ukraine politics. At some point in 2021, he ordered his army to make preparations for a quick strike on Ukraine. He also activated his agents inside the country. In a series of speeches that December, Putin provided pretexts for a coming invasion of Ukraine. Here the timeline turns in a different way. Something happened in early 2022 that few people beyond Ukraine expected to happen. Ukraine’s leaders chose to resist. Though President Zelens’kyi was generally expected to flee to a foreign capital and form a government in exile, he remained in Kyiv. His position was stronger than it might have seemed. Although it was a new state and little known to the European powers, Ukraine was a democracy and an industrial power. It had one of the best arms industries in Europe, and its commanders had a plan to allow Russian forces to penetrate and then to surround and destroy them. Although the wise heads in Moscow and Washington expected the Russians to reach Kyiv in three days, in fact the Russians were defeated at Kharkiv and Kyiv, although they made meaningful gains in the southeast. By the end of 2022 Ukraine had taken back about half the territories Russia took in the first weeks of the war. European public opinion turned against the aggressors. Appeasement of Russia became difficult. Russia was forced to bring troops from other sectors, and then to seek help from China, Iran, and North Korea.
Try to have the best possible day everyone!
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