Our Ignorant Government Wants to Close the One Lab That Can Stop a New Infectious Disease Outbreak

(Permanent Musical Accompaniment to the Last Post of the Week from the Blog’s Favourite Living Canadian.)

You may not know it, but there currently are multiple major outbreaks of infectious disease in the United States. The highest profile one involves the measles. But a listeria outbreak has sickened fifty one people and killed fourteen. There are also outbreaks hepatitis A and hepatitis C, which made this story from NPR all the more piquant:

But on April 1, the outbreak investigation was brought to a halt. All 27 of the [Division of Viral Hepatitis] lab's scientists received an email from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services informing them that they were losing their jobs. Like thousands of other employees who received similar emails that day, the scientists were told they would be placed on administrative leave until June 2, after which they would no longer work for the CDC.

The email said their duties were "identified as either unnecessary or virtually identical to duties being performed elsewhere in the agency." But the kind of genetic tracing that the CDC's lab performs is not conducted by any other lab in the United States or the world, experts interviewed by NPR said. While the lab remains shuttered, ongoing investigations of current hepatitis outbreaks have been stalled, not just in Florida, but also in Oregon, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, New Mexico, Wisconsin, West Virginia and Georgia, according to CDC employees who work closely with the Division of Viral Hepatitis.

God help us all.

Scientists who specialize in infectious disease told NPR that the lab's closure puts Americans at a higher risk of contracting viral infections in the future. "More people get sick, or you don't recognize outbreaks at all, and they just continue to spread unchecked," said the Director of Infectious Disease Programs at the Association of Public Health Laboratories, Kelly Wroblewski. "That's the ultimate risk."

Although four new samples have already arrived at the lab and three more were waiting in Florida to be sent, none have been tested by the CDC, scientists at the CDC said. Epidemiologists still working at the CDC have been trying to find another place that can do the analysis but have been unsuccessful, an agency employee told NPR. "Commercial laboratories do not do this because it's not profitable," said the employee. "That's why no one really does it except for us." Without the CDC's scientists available to test the genetic material in patient samples, it will be harder for epidemiologists to confirm whether people with hepatitis C were infected in the same Florida doctor's office or somewhere else where the virus could still be spreading, CDC scientists said.

This kind of thing was big news five or six years ago, if I recall correctly.

As Sam Houston once warned the leaders of the nascent Confederate States of America:

“Let me tell you what is coming. After the sacrifice of countless millions of treasure and hundreds of thousands of lives, you may win Southern independence if God be not against you, but I doubt it. I tell you that, while I believe with you in the doctrine of states rights, the North is determined to preserve this Union. They are not a fiery, impulsive people as you are, for they live in colder climates. But when they begin to move in a given direction, they move with the steady momentum and perseverance of a mighty avalanche; and what I fear is, they will overwhelm the South.”

It took Harvard about 11 seconds to reply to the administration's decision to revoke its privileges to enroll international students, and to give the international students the option to change schools or leave the country.

From Politico:

U.S. District Judge Allison Burroughs granted Harvard’s requested restraining order just hours after the university sued the Department of Homeland Security, accusing the administration of unconstitutional retaliation for refusing to capitulate to President Donald Trump’s demands. Burroughs said the immediate restraining order was necessary because without it, Harvard “will sustain immediate and irreparable injury before there is an opportunity to hear from all parties.”

Fight fiercely, etc.

Weekly WWOZ Pick To Click: "It's Your Voodoo Working" (Samantha Fish): Yeah, I pretty much still love New Orleans.

Weekly Visit To The Pathé Archives: Here, on Memorial Day weekend, from 1924, are a gathering of Civil War veterans. Not a smile in the bunch. They earned the right to be stoic for the camera. History is so cool.

A hail and a farewell.

Happy 83rd to The Master, still on the road and heading for another joint.

Dylan took to X to wish his fellow Grammy winner a happy birthday on Monday, May 19, writing, “Happy birthday Pete. Who’s the new boss? Is he like the old boss? Have you met him yet? Say hello to Roger.”

My boys, jiving with each other. As has been my wont over the last 50-odd years, a certain Bob song rises in my consciousness and pitches a tent there for a while. This is the latest one. I needed a little ominous in my life.

And adios to Around The Horn, ESPN's signature goofball quiz show. I was one of the first people on it, back in the Max Kellerman days, and I enjoyed my short time as a panelist, especially the moment I had dumbfounding Woody Paige when I spun some fencing lore.

Discovery Corner: Hey, look what we found. From Smithsonian:

England has long claimed to be the birthplace of soccer, known around the world as “football.” However, researchers recently identified what they think was a 17th-century soccer field in Scotland. They argue the find proves football was invented in Scotland, not England. “Our discovery has serious implications for sports historians,” says Ged O’Brien, who founded the Scottish Football Museum in Glasgow and helped find the field, to The New York Times’ Franz Lidz. “They will have to rewrite everything they think they know about the origins of the so-called beautiful game.”

The quest started when they discovered a letter from Samuel Rutherford, who was a minister at a Presbyterian church in the town of Anworth in Kirkcudbrightshire, Scotland, between 1627 and 1638. In the letter, he wrote: “There was a piece of ground on Mossrobin farm where on Sabbath afternoon the people used to play at foot-ball,” per the Telegraph’s Ben Rumsby. The minister then directed churchgoers to place stones across the field, to prevent athletes from playing on it.

This is going to raise hell in the UK. I can hear the beer schooners slamming on the bar from here.

Hey, BBC, is it a good day for dinosaur news? It's always a good day for dinosaur news!

Hidden beneath the slopes of a lush forest in Alberta, Canada, is a mass grave on a monumental scale.

Thousands of dinosaurs were buried here, killed in an instant on a day of utter devastation.

Now, a group of paleontologists have come to Pipestone Creek - appropriately nicknamed the "River of Death" - to help solve a 72-million-year-old enigma: how did they die?

The bones all belong to a dinosaur called Pachyrhinosaurus. The species, and Prof Bamforth's excavation, feature in a new landmark BBC series—Walking With Dinosaurs—which uses visual effects and science to bring this prehistoric world to life. These animals, which lived during the Late Cretaceous period, were a relative of the Triceratops. Measuring about five metres long and weighing two tonnes, the four-legged beasts had large heads, adorned with a distinctive bony frill and three horns. Their defining feature was a big bump on the nose called a boss.

Could it be a disposal pit for the victims of ancient dino gang violence? They fought for the right to live then and make us happy now.

Every Memorial Day, I send out the same blessing in memory of the two Jacks—Pierce and Friedman—who went off to war: Thanks, Dad, for helping save the whole damn thing.

I’ll be back on next week for whatever fresh hell awaits. Be well and play nice, ya bastids. Stay above the snake-line and wear the damn masks, and take the damn shots, especially the boosters and the New One.

In your spare time, spare a thought for everyone touched by the earthquakes in Myanmar and Thailand, and by the tornadoes throughout the Southeast, and for everyone touched by floods in Kentucky and in West Virginia, and by the crash in Washington, and by the measles outbreak in the Southwest, and in the wildfire zone around Dallas, and in the fire zones in Los Angeles, and for all the folks in Ukraine, who stubbornly fight on, and all the folks in Gaza, and all the people in New Orleans, Las Vegas, Nashville, and Queens, who were visited by the Crazy before the year had hardly begun, and the folks in Dallas and Tallahassee, who were visited by the Crazy this week. And the people in drought-stricken north Alabama. And the folks caught in floods and tornadoes in Nebraska, and in Missouri. And the folks caught in "historic floods" in Kentucky. And in Oklahoma. And the folks in L.A., now fighting floods and mudslides exacerbated by the recent wildfires. And the folks in the wildfire zones in Pennsylvania, and in Minnesota. And the folks in Lahaina, who are still rebuilding. And the victims of the nightclub collapse in the Dominican Republic. And all the folks we regularly cited here in the year gone by, and especially for our fellow citizens in the LGBTQ+ community, who deserve so much better from their country than they’ve been getting. And for all of us, who will be getting exactly what we deserve.