Don’t Wait for the Next Crisis: Restore Our Health Security Now

I am writing to urge you to take immediate, bipartisan action to restore funding and operational capacity to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). The abrupt dismantling of these programs is a self-inflicted wound to our national security and economic stability. We are seeing the consequences unfold in real-time. While agricultural officials struggle to contain dangerous outbreaks like the New World screwworm in Texas, our early-warning systems against human diseases are simultaneously being stripped bare. The current Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Uganda has been significantly complicated by the loss of American-supported surveillance, logistics, and rapid-response infrastructure. By cutting off the global health networks that USAID once managed, we have left our ports of entry blind to incoming human pathogens and surrendered our ability to stop these crises at their source. Modern biosecurity is not an ideology; it is infrastructure. In an interconnected world, the fastest vector for disease is not a physical land border, but our international airports and high-volume shipping ports. By cutting off the early warning system provided by USAID and slashing the CDC’s domestic reach, we have left our ports of entry blind. We are choosing to react to catastrophes after they arrive on our doorstep, rather than stopping them at the source through the cost-effective surveillance networks we spent decades building. This is a matter of common-sense governance, not partisanship. Every day we go without coordinated data-sharing networks and local public health grants is a day our economy and our population are left exposed to unnecessary risk. I am calling on you to: 1. Unfreeze and restore obligated CDC public health grants that support our local health departments, which are currently stripped of the resources needed to protect our communities. 2. Prioritize the restoration of global health surveillance networks administered by USAID to act as our first line of defense against incoming pathogens. 3. Re-engage with robust, multilateral frameworks for data sharing (like the World Health Organization) to ensure America is never isolated or left in the dark when the next global health threat emerges. We cannot afford to be reactive when the cost of prevention is a tiny fraction of the cost of a full-scale crisis. I expect you to prioritize our nation’s health security by restoring these vital institutions immediately.