Fact Check Update: Revisiting a Claim About the CDC’s Global Health Security Funding

Did the CDC reduce funding for epidemic preparation?

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Recently, the Dispatch Fact Check looked at a claim by Hillary Clinton that Donald Trump had cut CDC funding. While this was not true overall — despite the president’s proposed budgets containing cuts for the CDC, the bills that actually passed Congress included funding increases — Clinton had also claimed that Trump “cut back on this program of overseas vigilance” and we described that phrase as a truthful claim.

Since then, several outlets have published fact checks claiming that the CDC had not cut funding to overseas efforts to ward off pandemics. FactCheck.org ran a piece calling claims similar to Clinton’s “false” based on interviews with the CDC—though the claims they investigated were a bit more specific, as some public figures, including Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, had stated that the CDC cut its work in foreign countries from 49 to 10 nations. 

We decided that the confusion warranted further reporting.

In February 2014, 10 countries led by the United States and the CDC launched a five-year initiative called the Global Health Security Agenda. The world had experienced a number of epidemics in the preceding 15 years, from SARS in 2002 to Ebola in 2014, and, realizing that epidemic control needed to be a global effort, the countries came together  to ensure that the world would be better prepared for future infectious diseases. The United States provided funding and non-monetary support from the start. The funding was made possible through a five-year emergency package given to the CDC and the United States Agency for International Development during the Ebola epidemic that ran out in September 2019.

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  1. Chase Choate

    All I read in this article was incredibly large dollar amounts being throw around to combat/prevent a global pandemic, with little or nothing show for it.

    The CDC stands for the Center for Disease control !!! Based on their ability to control the outbreak of the disease that is Corona, it seems as though the whole entity failed at the reason for its existence. It begs the questions, why does the US need to spend money on this bureaucracy in the first place ?

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    cheerio

    Even if everything had stayed in place, I don't think the necessary people in DC would have listened and acted with any sense of urgency as they have a disdain for experts, fact-based risk scenarios and emergent threat protocols authored by previous administrations.

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    Aylene Wright

    Thanks so much for both this in-depth fact check, and having the integrity to revisit your prior conclusions. Sadly, neither are common these days.

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    Pat Riot

    Finger pointing aside, we can all expect billions and billions to flow into programs like this *now*...

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  5. Jeff

    And what effect would this variable have upon the current state of affairs, especially with the originating country’s misconduct?

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  6. Tom Buford

    Facts count, so thanks. As usual, investigation leads to less than dramatic conclusions. Hopefully we can eventually get to the real questions: what is the global threat of pandemic based on assessment of relevant conditions, what is the interest of the U.S. (purely altruistic or are does a pandemic pose a threat to the American populace), and how do we wean ourselves from the easy and petty dismissal of those with whom we disagree and engage in meaningful discussion of real policy issues.

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    Jeff

    Why are we training epidemiologists gratis in China when they have biosafety Level-4 labs of their own such as the Wuhan Institute of Virology? That indicates a high degree of sophistication within their healthcare apparatus. At the least, we should have been fairly compensated for our efforts. On the other hand, in countries without sophisticated health services the ability to help with Ebola, for instance, speaks for itself.

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  8. Pay W

    And this is why spending $100 was worth it. The level of reporting on a re-check fact check is incredible and really speaks to the quality of journalism on this site. Thank you!

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    Earl King

    And yet China lied to the world. CDC funding had nothing to do with that. Unless Fact Check thinks welding residents in to their apartment buildings is something the CDC should pay for.

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  10. dan

    As with so many "fact checks," the context is important. A program that was set to expire after five years being called a "cut" with the purpose to denigrate the opposing political side may be a factually accurate representation but poorly conceived as a "gotcha."

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