A little check-in before you read today’s post:
Who do you blame for the rise in Cyclospora cases?
Did you lock in your answer? Carry on.
As I wrote in National Geographic yesterday, a tidal wave of Cyclospora infections is making people poop their pants all over the eastern half of the US. As of this writing, Michigan has seen more than 3,762 cases in just the past couple of weeks. (For context, the highest number of cases ever recorded nationwide before this year was 4,700 in 2019.)
Lots of people on the internet have a ready-made explanation for why: Trump gutted public health, and now we're paying for it.
It's a clean story. To anyone paying attention to the damage DOGE cuts and RFK Jr.’s revenge fantasies have done to public health, it feels right. But in this case, it's mostly wrong.
I've documented some of the actual harms of this administration's approach to public health, and I'm not interested in giving anyone a pass. That’s exactly why this is worth getting right: The setup for this outbreak was decades in the making. Blaming DOGE doesn't just misdiagnose the problem — it lets the real culprits slip out the back door.
Here’s what you can blame on DOGE, and what you can’t:
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