Slashes to CDC funding could carry costly effects

Washington Monthly's Steve Benen penned an article this Monday regarding the most recent budget plan approved by the house. From the outset criticism is dispensed to both Republicans and Democrats; the former for supporting a budget proposal Benen claims is rife with "spectacular flaws"; the latter for failing to shine enough light on some of the more egregious of the proposed budget cuts. The author denounces cutbacks to infrastructure, job training, homeland security, and Head Start (a program that provides education and health services to low-income children), but the budget reductions aimed at the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) become the focal point of the piece.

The author uses an excerpt from an article by Suzy Khimm to argue that a $156 million reduction to CDC funding for immunization and respiratory diseases threatens to hamper efforts to prevent the spread of infectious diseases, citing California health officials present struggle to curb a whooping cough outbreak that has resulted in 6,400 cases.

Besides the obvious undesired health ramifications that go along with increased rates of infections and outbreaks, Benen stresses that treatment costs will end up surpassing budget savings. He states that vaccines are "one of the most cost-effective preventative health strategies." George C. Benjamin of the American Public Health Association (AHPA) characterizes the cuts as "false savings."

In a final barb against the GOP, Benen is critical of Republicans for insisting that we can afford tax cuts and wars, but we can't afford immunizations for low-income children.

The article sets out to highlight an overlooked aspect of the House budget cutbacks, and by doing so inform and invigorate readers that are opposed to the proposal as well as readers who don't have a strong opinion on the issue but might adopt one. The author's position on the issue is an appropriate one, but his arguments would have benefitted from the inclusion of more information. The opinions of public health advocates are used to support the idea that budget cuts will cost more in the long run, but there is a dearth of direct quotes or figures detailing these costs more concretely. Overall the article is effective at underscoring the major drawbacks of an extensive decrease to CDC funding, but more evidence-based arguments would have lent more substance to debate and discourse.