🚨 Breaking: U.S. Government Fiscal Update

Recent financial reports reveal a massive gap between the U.S. government’s assets and liabilities. The national debt is over $39 trillion, and obligations for programs like Social Security and Medicare are growing fast.

This is bad. and I'm more than a little concerned that this isn't making more news, though I'm not surprised. (Sandy and politics are drowning out everything else, no pun intended) 

According to this NPR report, Malaria is up to 40 cases in Greece, thanks to cuts in health spending resulting from the dire fiscal crisis. I don't have long, so I'll try to brief... (and I'll go back to add links backing up some of these claims, they exist, i promise!)

This is a great example of a) "social spending," such as health is always one of the first places to feel the burn of cuts when fiscal crisis hits, b) these cuts are dangerous, not only in the long term (education grows productivity and progress, and you have to be healthy to go to school and work!), but as the example shows, in the short term, c) preventive measures (bed nets, spraying for mosquitos, treating a few cases quickly before they spread) are the best tools we have for handling health budget crises in the long term, but we continue to cut spending that makes us end up spending more and more. 

What's even scarier, is the example of the re-emergence of an infectious disease in a place that had previously been under control (note, I realize malaria was never fully eradicated or eliminated). Before I started studying public health, or listening to my friends who have traveled around the world in places where infectious disease is a horrifying part of daily life and struggles, or before I read Laurie Garrett's book, The Coming Plague, I didn't have a proper appreciation for how scary infectious disease can be. By scary, I don't even mean the disease, though horrifying, itself can be- I mean the absolute rapidity with which the disease morphs into even deadlier, drug resistant forms, and spreads among hosts (people, animals, water, etc.) This is a fantastic introduction for those who want to understand more about not only the biology of infection and history of disease emergence (examples of ebola and AIDS, to name a few), but also the politics of treating these diseases.  Garrett astutely outlines how politics can be even more of an impediment than technology in treating and stopping infectious diseases. 

As the US is facing its own huge financial crisis, I worry about the negative health effects we will see arise. Surely, our situation is not the same as Greece, geographically, politically, or policy/infrastructure-wise (ACA is changing some things, but not much specifically with regard to preventing infectious disease, though if anyone knows specifics please inform me!).