With the nation’s attention focused on terrorism lately, it’s amazing how many – and how fast – resources can be marshalled when the leadership wants them to be. Take the Centers for Deases Control and Prevention, for instance.
The CDC is rearranging virtually its entire structure to address anthrax. Labs have been commandeered and hundreds of scientists reassigned. Normally, several dozen personnel respond to a major disease outbreak, but about 500 people – almost 6% of all CDC employees – have been “redeployed” to anthrax “for the foreseeable future.”
No one rational, least of all myself, would dismiss the anthrax threat as unimportant; however, what about perspective? From October 4 to November 28, CDC has identified 23 Bacillus anthracis cases, 11 inhalational and 12 cutaneous (skin), with 5 deaths. “All (other patients)…have been discharged and continue to recover; no new cases have been reported,” CDC notes in its Morbidity & Mortality Weekly Report.
The anthrax response has been disproportional to the impact. In the same period, almost 2,000 people died of AIDS; indeed, 70 people die in an average week from the flu! Even inhalational anthrax is easily cured when caught early, and cutaneous isn’t that serious. Our government spends about $2.2 billion total annually on HIV/AIDS, but suddenly bottomless wells of funding are appearing for anthrax activities.
As Americans become fixated on anthrax primarily because it excites the imagination, real health problems are neglected. Effective prevention efforts, in particular, go wanting. There is a national security concern for the U.S. and the rest of the world in disease: it is the deadly neglect of the triumvirate HIV, TB, and intestinal diseases.
This article appears in December 21 • 2001.