Seventy years ago in a popular TV show called “Dragnet” two cops would knock on the door and want “just the facts”. We have lots of information floating around but what we want is “just the facts”. In today’s climate of political lies and conspirator theories, it is hard to gather the facts.
The Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) was one of the most important organizations to help the American people know what diseases or health problems are lurking around. It’s CDC’s job to evaluate a problem to see how dangerous it is, how many are harmed (morbidity), harmed a little or permanently (paralyzed or organ failure) and how many died (mortality). All kinds of problems can lead to increased morbidity or mortality from automobile accidents to gunshots to infections to processed foods to pesticides to plastics.
If the problem is felt to have significant impact on life and wellbeing, the CDC ask specialized scientists to gather information as to how to prevent the population from harm. This would include gathering basic information about how many, where they live, income levels, insurance, cost of hospitalization, rehabilitation and when appropriate vaccines, medications, and public information.
Each state has a public health system, funded by the state and following the state guidelines for everything from water purification, slime in the ice machines, sexually transmitted diseases, prevalence of dangerous infections (such as polio or whooping cough), mosquito control, etc. They provide the latest information on what to do, what vaccines are needed, what medicine would help. Public health is important to all ages and the chaos at the CDC is serious and can harm children and their families for generations.
JAMA (Journal of the American Medical Association) reported in August this year that the “US may be failing to adequately support children’s health”. They examined pediatric mortality and chronic disease in the US over the past 2 decades and compared it to 18 other high-income countries (18HIC). According to their findings infant in the US were 2.2 times more likely to die of prematurity and 2.4 times more likely to die of infant sudden death. From 2020 to 2022 youth (1-19yrs) were more than twice as likely to die as their 18HIC counterparts. US firearm deaths were 15 times higher and vehicle crashes were 2.5 times higher than the 18HIC.
Recently Texas’s infant mortality rate is 5.83 deaths per 1,000. Texas is in the lower half of states. The authors of the article, Samantha Anderer and Karen Bucher, state that the decline of pediatric health is linked to the 5 % uninsured children and the 35% with public insurance that have limited access to primary and specialists care because of poor reimbursement.
We are failing our children. We have destructive leadership at the CDC. Suggestions for improving children’s health include increasing social media protection, investing in anti-poverty measures, broadening health insurance coverage, investing in primary care and passing firearm safety laws.
American Academy of Pediatrics (aap.org) a trusted source for vaccines.
by Sally Robinson, MD Clinical Professor
Keeping Kids Healthy
Published 9/2025