Infectious disease threats test public health

Driving the news: Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins told reporters Thursday during a roundtable with ranchers in Texas that the CDC had activated an emergency plan for potential human infestations of New World screwworm.

• The USDA is leading the response to animal infestations. Officials say they have detected four cases in calves in Texas and one in a dog in New Mexico.
• Rollins argued the Biden administration failed to prepare for a response after the threat re-emerged in Panama in 2023 and spread north. She denied it had anything to do with DOGE cuts and said the USDA has "120 full-time staff focused on this issue — a 1,000% increase."

Yes, but: Harvard Medical School professor Aaron Kesselheim tells Axios the DOGE cuts that removed USAID and USDA monitoring programs are "direct contributors to the current problem" and greatly affect "our ability to respond to it and mitigate future impacts."

• American Public Health Association executive director Georges Benjamin tells Axios the cuts are "catastrophic" to both the USDA and responses to disease outbreaks like bird flu, which he says "is still not being properly managed."

State of play: The CDC's emergency measures were announced as infectious disease experts met for a briefing on preparations for large events this year, with respiratory pathogens including COVID and measles among the biggest concerns.

• Krutika Kuppalli, an associate professor at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center and one of the briefing speakers, tells Axios New World screwworm, Ebola and hantavirus are very different threats that share a common theme.
• Early detection and response "are far less costly than managing a large outbreak or agricultural crisis after it occurs," she says.
• Benjamin says that health officials face "significant challenges" from earlier funding cuts in responding to all three threats and that it's likely the U.S. will see "at least" one Ebola case — as it did during the 2013-2016 outbreak that resulted in the death of a Dallas man.

What we're watching: Kesselheim says cuts proposed in President Trump's 2027 budget "as a group are unprecedented and would devastate essential research and government capacity to respond to emerging infectious diseases as well as other threats to the health of the American people."

• The budget proposes cutting $5 billion from the National Institutes of Health, $15.8 billion from the Department of Health and Human Services, and over $100 million from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, which the administration said "pushed radical gender ideology onto children."
• While Congress would have to approve Trump's budget, personnel cuts have diminished disease surveillance capacity at federal, state and local levels, Benjamin says. Less funding means health officials are not "anywhere near" as prepared as they were previously.

The other side: The Trump administration argues the proposed funding reductions would eliminate duplicative programs and improve efficiency across federal health agencies.

• Representatives of the administration did not immediately respond to Axios' Thursday-afternoon request for comment.

The bottom line: Kuppalli says the next major threat may not be a pathogen we know about, citing climate change, global travel, population growth, and encroachment into wildlife habitats as drivers of emerging threats.

• Benjamin says "because we've taken away our ability to rapidly identify a real threat into the community, and rapidly respond to it, that's what's going to catch us."