An Agency You’ve Never Heard of Is Helping Keep You Alive
It’s called the Epidemic Intelligence Service, an arm of the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention:
Since its creation in 1951, the service has become a bulwark in the nation’s defense system against disease, often acting as the public’s emergency room. Its doctors have helped identify Legionnaires’ disease, Lyme disease, and toxic shock syndrome from superabsorbent tampons; stop outbreaks of diphtheria and other diseases before they could spread uncontrollably; discover the deadly Ebola and Lassa viruses; and trace paralyzing cases of polio to defective batches of the Salk vaccine.
Too many people have lost sight of the fact that “public health” originally was designed to combat those diseases and conditions that were infectious or spread through the public system (e.g. sewer). This is also a prime example of the original mission of public health.
In recent years there has been an attempt to include such conditions as obesity and heart disease under the umbrella of public health. For instance, the health reform bills provide funding for farmers’ markets, bike paths and jogging trails in an attempt to change behavior. Yet these conditions do not fit neatly into the model of diseases that are easily combated collectively.
Where were these guys during the Swine Flu craze? It seems like public officials had absolutely no influence on the spread of the virus.
Maybe there really are some public goods in health care.