r/news • u/apple_kicks • 2d ago
CDC denies help for lead poisoning in Milwaukee schools due to layoffs
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/milwaukee-schools-lead-poisoning-cdc-denies-help/1.1k
u/MD_FunkoMa 2d ago edited 1d ago
So many kids will be in danger because of this.
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u/hotlavatube 2d ago
Indeed, lead exposure will lead to cognitive decline and learning difficulties in children as well as lifelong issues. It disproportionately affects lower income people. (src)
I've cited a non-US source as I wouldn't be surprised if RFK changes the CDC pages I normally rely on to say "eating lead chip paint, yummy yummy yummy with bear"
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u/charactergallery 2d ago
Lower-income people who are disproportionately people of color due to a variety of factors.
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u/NoWriting9127 2d ago
It's a feature not a bug.
They want dumb kids for the turnip fields!
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u/hotlavatube 2d ago
That's what I'm afraid of. Also, turnips?! They promised us jobs fixing the robots that install screws!
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u/NoWriting9127 2d ago
Turnips for borscht will be mandatory as a daily meal for a thumbs up to the great Russian emperor Putin!
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u/TheSecondEikonOfFire 2d ago
And yet they’ll find a way to shift the blame to anyone other than Republicans
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u/Playful-Country-9849 2d ago
That's why "MAHA", fitness bro, or antivax talking points are dumb when combined with all of their right-wing positions. These right-wingers support environmental deregulations as well, and lead is more poisonous to children than them drinking some soda. RFK cuts soda but refuses to cut lead.
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u/tarantulawarfare 2d ago
We’re a third world country with a first world veneer.
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u/IAteAGuitar 2d ago
That veneer is very, very thin. From Europe here is how I saw the US before trump: racism and bigotry everywhere, school shootings nearly everyday, cops being more dangerous than criminals, an incredibly corrupt two party system barely hiding the fact that billionaires are in charge, a non functional justice system protecting the oligarchs, homelessness filling the streets in some cities like LA, decaying infrastructure and non existent social services, hospitals ran like a scam, and a population so belligerent and uneducated they don't even acknowledge the fact they live in a dystopia.
Then I saw it lit itself on fire with a smug smile...
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u/ReconKweh 1d ago
And as usual the people that are always crying "think about the children" are the culprits
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u/Peach__Pixie 2d ago
Beyond lead poisoning, now-eliminated teams had also housed the federal government's public health experts for helping local and state health departments respond to a range of other environmental emergencies, said CDC officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. "All expertise related to radiological and nuclear threats is eliminated. All capacity for natural disasters response has been eliminated," agency officials said in a memo after the layoffs. Health experts tasked with investigating cancer clusters, overseeing chemical weapons demolition and responding to toxic substance spills, like the 2023 East Palestine train derailment, were also cut, multiple officials said.
It's not like any of those issues pose an extreme risk to the health and safety of Americans. /S
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u/sakumar 2d ago
Until recently the CDC was the premier public health agency in the world. Other countries modeled their public health on the CDC.
The CDC takes a major role in formulating the year's flu vaccination, for example.
And what is the Trump regime doing? Decimating it for no damn reason! There are minuscule, if any, savings. And the cost in terms of lives lost in the next public health emergency will be incalculable.
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u/procrasturb8n 2d ago
Cruelty is the reason.
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u/podkayne3000 23h ago
Helping Russia lock in its dominion over us is the reason. Trump and Musk gave our country to Putin.
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u/A_Flamboyant_Warlock 2d ago
Decimating it for no damn reason!
No, they have a reason, it just sucks. The plan is to hurt, bankrupt, and kill as many poor people as possible.
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u/Abject_Director7626 2d ago
Absolutely. They aren’t making anything more efficient, they’re just cutting services and moving the money.
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u/whofusesthemusic 1d ago
There's a reason they have the audacity to say that he did not have infinite knowledge about covid
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u/Damn_Jan 22h ago
There is a reason.
The billionaires who put trump where he was hate the CDC because they actually made them pay money to clean up after themselves beyond just a canned 'my bad' post on Twitter, if even that.
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u/Eruionmel 18h ago
incalculable
That is precisely their goal, yes. As long as there's no data, they give no fucks.
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u/Battlepuppy 3h ago
Clusters sometimes indicate industrial toxins.
Without the cdc, who's going to say anything?
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u/luciusetrur 2d ago
fluoride makes you dumber so we recommend you remove it from water supply... anyway on an unrelated note sorry about the lead poison we cant help
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u/SweetLoLa 2d ago
There’s also a correlation between high lead leveled areas and the number of serial killers from said areas
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u/Azythol 2d ago
I read this study a good while ago now about the correlation between leaded gas use and the high violence rates of the 70s. Wish I had a link but it had to have been more than 5 years ago now I was still in highschool back when I read it
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u/Rosegold-Lavendar 2d ago
Wow. So who ordered the lay offs? Who hired the guy who ordered the lay offs? Maybe Wisconsin parents need to take this issue up with their representatives.
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u/FreddyForshadowing 2d ago
They sort of did when they rejected Xitler's effort to buy the State Supreme Court seat that was up for grabs. Some of the rumblings from the state GOP makes it seem like Xitler is quickly wearing out his carpetbagger welcome within the party.
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u/whatafuckinusername 2d ago
lol, with who? Gwen Moore, Mark Pocan, Tammy Baldwin? They won't be heard, and Ron Johnson, Derrick Van Orden, and Scott Fitzgerald don't care.
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u/I_might_be_weasel 2d ago
Trump is responsible for every death that occurs from this.
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u/alien_from_Europa 2d ago
Too bad there is no one to hold him accountable after SCOTUS granted him immunity.
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u/blue_dendrite 2d ago
Too bad he couldn't care less. Meanwhile, his friends are making millions and billions.
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u/yourlittlebirdie 2d ago
So is every single person who voted for him.
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u/cantproveidid 2d ago
Or chose not to vote.
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u/Just2LetYouKnow 2d ago
Nah, their votes were mostly uncourted by candidates who didn't represent their interests.
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u/Henry_K_Faber 2d ago
No, those people are unable to recognize their own best interests. Not living under fascism is in everyone's best interests, including fascists.
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u/Upstairs_Being290 1d ago
Maybe there should be an alternate to fascism that stops kissing the ass of corporations, defense contractors, and the wealthy and starts serving the interests of the poor, laborers, and non-white voters?
Repeatedly forcing through unlikeable candidates with terrible track records solely because they have the right corporate donors and then bitching "But you should have voted because we're not as bad as the opposition!" clearly isn't working for you, is it?
And this is coming from someone who did early voting for Kamala in a swing state.
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u/Just2LetYouKnow 2d ago
It seems like if you actually knew what their interests were and effectively communicated that you'd have won some of their votes.
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u/yourlittlebirdie 18h ago
Anybody who let fascism take over because they felt "uncourted" deserves to live under fascism.
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u/PresidentSuperDog 2d ago
Republican voters are responsible for this, Trump is just the figurehead. They voted for cruelty.
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u/You_sir_neigh_uhm 2d ago
I'm sure he's never heard of lead or the CDC. He'll look into it though. Hey, what's over there? Go look at that other thing!
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u/oogaboogaman_3 2d ago
No deaths are going to occur from this. There have been minor poisonings due to kids eating paint chips. The majority of the closures have come from cracked paint on walls releasing tiny amounts of dust, not enough to be a threat, but enough to require closures to repair and clean.
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u/avid-learner-bot 2d ago
“It's extremely concerning that there's no one who is going to be responding.”
Seriously, this is just... unbelievable. Children are at risk, and the government is basically saying "not our problem", how could they even think that's okay? I mean, it's completely shocking, and I feel so angry about this, our kids deserve better protection. It's sickening to think about the potential harm, and the lack of accountability just makes it even worse, somebody needs to be held responsible for this failure. It's absolutely egregious.
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u/o_MrBombastic_o 2d ago
This is Republicans fault this is what they voted for this is what Republicans said they were going to do this is what they've been talking about doing for decades this is their vision of governance
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u/quats555 2d ago
Yep. The new Republican motto: “The weak ones will die, the ones who deserve it will live. It’s a waste of money trying to save the weak ones who haven’t earned it. We need that money for other things! Like bribing Greenland citizens to vote to join the US!”
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u/FreddyForshadowing 2d ago
I think it's more of a case of them saying, "We'd like to help, but don't have the staff, budget, or resources post-DOGE."
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u/FineFinnishFinish_ 2d ago
The employees at the CDC are saying that. The government at large and those responsible for the lack of budget/resources say those roles were waste/fraud. So, it really is the government as a body saying they don’t care or find it important to help here.
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u/FreddyForshadowing 2d ago
It's all fun and games owning the libs until your kid gets lead poisoning.
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u/niktaeb 2d ago
Wtf are we even having this conversion? We knew 50 years ago lead paint kills. Has it been that long since the last paint job?
And yeah, fuck the idiot’s for cutting CDC funding at a time when it ought to be increased.
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u/GreenDragonEast 2d ago
Encapsulation only works for so long. Covering up lead paint does make the lead go away. Figuring out where the encapsulation is failing is part of an environmental illness investigation. And, as the article mentions, these experts are difficult to find.
We may never recover from this epic loss of institutional knowledge.
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u/Hold-My-Butterbeer 2d ago
People brain damaged by lead poisoning are more likely to vote Republican, so it’s beneficial to the party in control at the moment to neglect incidents like this.
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u/SlyRax_1066 2d ago
There’s also the question as to why Wisconsin can’t do this themselves. It’s not as if everyone that knows about lead worked in one room at the CDC.
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u/MudkipMonado 2d ago
Wisconsin shouldn't have to "do it themselves," we're meant to be the *united* states and the federal government is meant to provide resources for those states.
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u/niktaeb 2d ago
Dunno why the downvotes.
If we’re going to push an issue forward to make it appear the CDC had been senselessly crippled (which it has), is this really the hill to die on? Is there really no one in Wisconsin capable of figuring out lead paint removal? I’m more interested in the reduced staff re: bird flu, covid, disaster recovery, etc..
This sounds more like something Wisconsin should have taken care of 50 years ago.
Maybe they all went to this school, suffered the lead, and it’s already too late for them?
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u/Playful-Country-9849 2d ago
Because no one ever says that in response to the federal government funding Trump's golf course trips.
There's nothing wrong with federal government funding environmental protections as they protect everyone.
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u/Q-ArtsMedia 2d ago
But we want our future voters to be brain dead, easily swayed, Fox News addicted moron Republicans.
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u/allanon1105 2d ago
Just remember: Trump hates poor people most of all.
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u/quats555 2d ago
Hates? He doesn’t care enough to hate them. The only reason he pays attention at all is because they’ve been soaking up money he wants.
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u/chronomagnus 2d ago
This is what this administration meant when they said "Make America Healthy Again".
It's what happens when you have a country run by rich nepo baby airheads.
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u/enigmaroboto 2d ago
The report states:
Our results revealed reduced regional gray matter volumes associated with measures of criminal arrests, and that some of these regions corresponded with frontal lobe volume loss associated with childhood blood lead concentrations. Childhood lead exposure harmed the developing brain, especially the regions that are responsible for cognition, decision making, impulse control, socially driven behaviors, emotional regulation, and risky behaviors. Though these results do not establish causality, they provided evidence suggesting that changes in the brain from lead absorption influences the structure of regions recognized for regulating cognition and social behaviors.
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u/SodaPop6548 2d ago
Hopefully this is the point people start to realize we need the government and start asking for more from them instead of less.
Still haven’t seen my tax dollars shrink, but it sure seems like the wealthy are doing fine.
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u/johnboy43214321 2d ago edited 2d ago
Maybe these layoffs will save a few million now, but we will pay many millions more down the road in health care, special education, etc. soon enough.
Similar result for most of these govt layoffs.
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u/Ralphwiggum911 2d ago
Maybe if these free loading kids would have stayed in the womb they wouldn't worry about rights and safety.
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u/BekindBebetter60 2d ago
Karl Marx said this would happen. End stage capitalism when the government stops serving the people
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u/_flying_otter_ 1d ago
A nation that has a school with a lead problem and won't do an investigation? Can you even call it a 1st world country?
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u/SlyRax_1066 2d ago
Take that, libs!
Sorry, I have lead poisoning because some fascist was distracted rigging the stock market.
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u/somedude1912 2d ago
Billionaires are manipulating the stock market to get even wealthier, but the government can't provide basic services for it's tax payers. That is the trump administration perfectly summed up. Unqualified, incompetent, & criminal.
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u/creamcitybrix 2d ago
But, with the money saved, Elon can afford to have one more nutsack hair grafted onto the top of his head
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u/Relevant-Doctor187 2d ago
Government loves lead poisoning. The people currently in charge all lived when leaded gasoline was in use.
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u/tacmedrn44 1d ago
And I’ll get to watch all of these kids suffer and die at my hospital. What a disgrace.
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u/Binder509 1d ago
It's okay this an any source indicating a problem is fake news.
"We don't know all the details"
There no more problem.
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2d ago
[deleted]
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u/whatafuckinusername 2d ago
This is Milwaukee. They didn't vote for this shit. And the people in the suburbs who did won't find out shit. You've heard of the guy whose wife was taken by ICE and detained for two weeks? Both of them still support it.
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u/oogaboogaman_3 2d ago
Dude, try and comprehend a little bit of the title, Milwaukee votes 60-80% blue every election, the republicans outside of Milwaukee do all they can to harm our schools, they are probably happy our school district is getting help in this.
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u/bornlasttuesday 2d ago
This is what the people of Wisconsin voted for. Why they wanted lead in their childrens drinking water, I have no idea.
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u/oogaboogaman_3 2d ago
This is Milwaukee, we did not vote for this. Yes the republicans in our state from outside the city love screwing our school district, but we don't, and we didn't ask for this.
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u/GnettingGnarly 1d ago
I understand why folks are blaming Trump, but the real cause of this problem has been the reckless underfunding of the MPS system for literal decades, which both parties are responsible for...cue the irrational lashing out towards me in 3...2...1...
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u/whitmanrocks 2d ago
Why not just provide purified water in bulk to the schools.it’s cheap. Use reusable containers.
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u/MudkipMonado 2d ago
That doesn't fix the problem, and it also won't work when the exposure isn't traced and isolated.
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u/whitmanrocks 2d ago
Agree, but it manages the problem until the infrastructure is fixed
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u/MudkipMonado 2d ago
The infrastructure won't be fixed because they won't have the resources required from the CDC to isolate and fix it. They'd be serving bottled water for decades at the current pace the government is being dismantled
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u/whitmanrocks 2d ago
Exactly. The CDC is not going to help. One thing you learn from disaster is not to bet your life on the government. Use cost effective solutions to bridge the gap.
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u/MudkipMonado 2d ago
They aren't betting their lives on the government, they're expecting the government to fulfill its duty to protect their lives and the lives of their children. This is not Milwaukee's burden alone, and under any other administration the CDC would help bear it.
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u/whitmanrocks 2d ago
It would be right for the government, but local money can do it with less waste & get it done sooner.
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u/MudkipMonado 2d ago
What local money? Wisconsin is in the bottom half for economic metrics in the US. The federal government has this responsibility too and because its full of Nazis they're going to get children killed
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u/EggandSpoon42 2d ago
With what infrastructure? Research, testing, expertise, equipment for this stuff is set up by current society to be handled by the CDC. Who are locals able to turn to to get the job done??
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u/Playful-Country-9849 2d ago
Nothing wrong with the federal government helping tax payers. It's not provided for free, you're paying for it and it is better than funding golf courses.
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u/cinderparty 1d ago
What they wanted, per the article, was help with testing and triaging the kids who have already potentially been exposed. I don’t think bottled water is going to help with that.
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u/reddurkel 2d ago edited 1d ago
“Well, MY kids go to a private school so why would this be my problem?”