CDC Can’t Help Fix Milwaukee Schools Lead Poisoning Problem After Cuts

The Trump administration’s cuts astatine the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, led by Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the caput of the Department of Health and Human Services, person gutted captious wellness programs successful caller months. And the nationalist is dilatory learning astir the ramifications of these moves that volition marque Americans sicker and little capable to respond to threats to nationalist health.

One of the latest casualties has been the CDC’s pb poisoning effect squad astatine the National Center for Environmental Health, which tin nary longer assistance schools successful Milwaukee, Wisconsin, with their pb problem, according to a study from CBS News.

Seven buildings successful the Milwaukee Public School strategy person been recovered this twelvemonth to person concerning levels of lead, according to the Milwaukee Health Department, from some pb overgarment that’s deteriorating and pb pipes for drinking water. CBS News obtained an email sent to metropolis officials successful Milwaukee earlier this period to notify them CDC wouldn’t beryllium capable to help.

“I sincerely regret to pass you that owed to the implicit nonaccomplishment of our Lead Program, we volition beryllium incapable to enactment you with this,” Aaron Bernstein, manager of the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, said successful an email obtained by CBS News.

Lead is simply a neurotoxin and fractional of Americans are believed to person been exposed to unsafe levels of pb successful childhood, according to a survey from 2015. The property of the buildings and h2o infrastructure successful Milwaukee are portion of the problem, with astir each schoolhouse gathering successful the metropolis having been built earlier 1970, according to PBS News. Lead overgarment wasn’t banned successful the U.S. until 1978. The CDC didn’t respond to emails sent Friday, which isn’t astonishing fixed reports of wide layoffs astatine the agency.

The buildings with concerning levels of pb successful Milwaukee see Fernwood Montessori, Golda Meir School, Kagel School, Robert M. LaFollette School, Maryland Avenue Montessori, Starms Early Childhood Center, and Trowbridge School of Great Lakes. Some schools person been temporarily unopen down, with students relocated, but others person tried to effort exigency responses to the pb menace without moving kids.

CDC isn’t the lone bureau that’s been gutted recently, arsenic anyone who’s been adjacent somewhat alert of the quality since Trump took bureau knows each excessively well. USAID nary longer exists arsenic an agency, and billionaire Elon Musk is presently taking his chainsaw to the IRS and the Social Security Administration nether the guise of DOGE, the absurdly titled Department of Government Efficiency. Musk is unilaterally choosing what to money and what not to fund, a glaring struggle of involvement since helium has lucrative authorities contracts.

The cuts are unlawful since Congress unsocial has the powerfulness of the purse, but that hasn’t stopped the demolition yet. And it’s improbable to halt the destruction, arsenic kids successful Milwaukee are drinking h2o with pb successful it.