Kansas is currently facing one of the largest tuberculosis (TB) outbreaks in history but the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has been unable to alert the public to the extent that it could, due to former President Donald Trump's "pause" on health agency communications.
TB is a bacterial infection primarily affecting the lungs, with active cases causing symptoms such as chest pain, coughing up blood, weight loss, and chills. When left untreated, it can be fatal. TB is contagious only when symptoms are present, but people with latent TB, who do not exhibit symptoms, cannot spread the infection.
While TB was briefly overtaken by the coronavirus as the deadliest infectious disease during the pandemic, it reclaimed its top spot in 2023, claiming 1.25 million lives, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).
As of the most recent data available, 67 people in Kansas are being treated for active TB cases linked to a local outbreak—60 cases in Wyandotte County and seven in Johnson County. Additionally, 79 people in the two counties are carrying dormant, or latent, TB.
Though those with latent TB do not show symptoms and cannot transmit the disease, the WHO estimates that up to 10% of those infected may eventually develop active TB, highlighting the ongoing public health concern surrounding the disease.
The TB outbreak in Kansas was first reported in January 2024, according to the Kansas Department of Health and Environment (KDHE). Since then, two deaths have been linked to the outbreak, both of which occurred in the previous year.
However, the CDC and other health agencies have been hampered due to Trump's orders to freeze certain operations and communications at government health agencies, along with the beginning of a U.S. pullout from the WHO that has alarmed clinicians and researchers nationwide.
This week, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) halted most outgoing communications, travel, and grant reviews across its agencies, a move that even prevented National Institutes of Health (NIH) researchers from purchasing supplies necessary for clinical trials.
In addition, a broader purge of diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility programs is anticipated, including those focused on reducing health disparities and improving diversity in clinical trials. That deals a significant blow to researchers looking to understand the intricacies of disease outbreaks such as the ongoing one in Kansas.
This is especially alarming given Trump's atrocious record of handling pandemics.
Four years ago, the United States was grappling with the initial impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic. The country had entered shutdowns the month prior that had severe economic consequences, leaving businesses and industries on the brink of collapse.
Well over 1.2 million Americans have died since the pandemic began. Many of these people could have been saved had Trump's administration taken the situation seriously from the start.
Many prominent Trump surrogates have downplayed the fact that Trump raged against shutdowns, attacked healthcare professionals, frequently undermined the efforts of the White House COVID-19 Task Force, and openly pushed conspiracy theories about the virus and the vaccination campaign that were embraced by his followers, hindering the country's ability to rebound from the pandemic's economic shock.
According to a 2021 Lancet commission tasked with assessing Trump's health policy record, the U.S. could have prevented 40% of Covid-19 deaths if its death rates had aligned with those in other high-income G7 countries. The commission stated that Trump "brought misfortune to the USA and the planet" during his four-year tenure.
The commission emphasized the increasing evidence that Trump's rollbacks of regulations led to a rise in death and disease. From 2016 to 2019, annual deaths related to environmental and occupational factors surged by more than 22,000, reversing a trend of steady decline.
The negative effects of the rescinded regulations were especially pronounced in states that had been strong supporters of Trump in 2016, which were also the most impacted by cuts to health insurance coverage, as the report noted.
Many have sounded the alarm as the TB outbreak continues.
The news of the TB outbreak comes as a new bird flu strain in California has raised fears that the disease could pose a threat to humans.
U.S. officials recently reported the discovery of this virulent strain at a duck farm to the World Organization for Animal Health. This comes as the U.S. is already grappling with a growing outbreak of another bird flu strain, H5N1, which is affecting poultry farms nationwide and has spread to dairy cows for the first time.
While human cases of H5N1 have been rare and mainly limited to dairy workers exposed to infected animals, experts are concerned that the combination of H5N1, seasonal flu, and other strains could lead to new versions of the virus capable of spreading more easily among humans.
This potential for greater human transmission is driven by a process called "reassortment," where genetic material from different virus strains exchanges when hosts are co-infected.
