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Drudge Retort: The Other Side of the News
Thursday, May 21, 2026

AS AN EBOLA outbreak rages in central and East Africa, public health workers say that the response has been stymied by the Trump administration's cuts to foreign aid and global health organizations. "We are no longer able to get some supplies," Amadou Bocoum, Democratic Republic of Congo country director for the anti-poverty nonprofit CARE, tells WIRED. "Because of that, we are not able to react immediately." WIRED spoke to more than half a dozen global health experts who described how the Trump administration's move to shutter the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), amid other funding cuts, has created a strained, increasingly fragmented disease prevention and response system in the lead up to this Ebola outbreak, one in which a severely reduced workforce already struggles with burnout.

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In February 2025, as Elon Musk's so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) dismantled USAID, the billionaire told Trump administration officials that DOGE had "accidentally" cut funding to Ebola prevention and then restored it. However, as WIRED reported at the time, lifesaving work on Ebola and other infectious disease prevention was not restored. DOGE also slashed the CDC, causing another key global health player to atrophy. In April 2025, the Trump administration instructed a US National Institute of Health facility tasked with studying Ebola to stop its research.

Heckuva job, stinky.

#1 | Posted by reinheitsgebot at 2026-05-21 05:53 PM | Reply

If Ebola establishes itself here, Trump won't do anything about it. He'll hide, and the rest of use will mourn two-million-plus dead.

Oh, he might use the new pandemic as a reason to cancel the midterms. That's funny, in a way.

#2 | Posted by Zed at 2026-05-21 06:21 PM | Reply

He's already starved 100's of thousands of children to death in Africa to give tax cuts to himself and his friends.

How much else can he do for the people of Africa?

#3 | Posted by Corky at 2026-05-21 06:37 PM | Reply

Some MAGA lunatics in the blogosphere began spewing nonsense about the hantavirus problem, similar to their COVID conspiracies. I won't waste your time with their drivel.

With this self-inflicted wound, the incompetent Trumpf junta is in charge, so these cultists will lay blame on Joe Biden or the Democrats for the Ebola outbreak.

POTUS Joe Biden's (D) failure was not disease control. He will be credited with many accomplishments, but history will blame him and his otherwise competent administration for two things:

1) Not reining in blood-thirsty ICC-indicted war criminal Benjamin Netanyahu from liquidating Palestinians in Gaza. On Monday 4 Nov 2024, the Palestinian death count in Gaza at the hands of the IDF was least 43,374 human beings, mostly women and children; another 102,261 were wounded or maimed;

2) Being unable to convict Dummkopf Trumpf or at least neutralizing him by releasing the Epstein files which would have exposed him as a pedophile, thereby eroding his support and keep him in litigation for four years rather than on the campaign trail.

Otherwise, the Democrats did a great job from 21 Jan 2021 to 19 Jan 2025.

#4 | Posted by C0RI0LANUS at 2026-05-21 07:07 PM | Reply

The WHO has been criticized by SoS (et al) Rubio.

After a critique from Rubio, WHO defends work on Ebola response
www.statnews.com

... Countries have the responsibility to detect outbreaks, agency officials noted

World Health Organization officials on Wednesday mounted a defense of their response to the new and worrisome Ebola outbreak centered in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, after U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the agency was "a little late" in identifying infections.

WHO authorities stressed that their role is to offer technical and operational help to national health agencies, which have primary responsibility for detecting the spread of diseases under international rules.

"We don't replace the country's work," Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, WHO's director-general, said at a press briefing. "We only support them."

Tedros said Rubio's remarks "could be from lack of understanding of how IHR works, and the responsibilities of WHO and other entities," referring to the International Health Regulations, which set out countries' obligations during health emergencies. ...


#5 | Posted by LampLighter at 2026-05-21 07:13 PM | Reply

@#5 ... WHO authorities stressed that their role is to offer technical and operational help to national health agencies, which have primary responsibility for detecting the spread of diseases under international rules. ...

WHO helps the national agencies, but those national agencies have the responsibility for the detection of the spread of a disease.

Once that detection is ascertained, then WHO steps in to help.

Pres Trump has critically crippled that detection ability with his DOGE campaign.

And now the world is seeing the effects of Pres Trump's decisions.

#6 | Posted by LampLighter at 2026-05-21 07:16 PM | Reply

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