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96 Global Health NOW: Foundering CDC Awash in Troubles; How Displacement Erodes Global Health Security; and When Fear Goes Viral September 2, 2025 CDC staff and supporters outside of the agency's headquarters. Atlanta, Georgia, August 28. Dustin Chambers/Bloomberg via Getty Foundering CDC Awash in Troubles    The ouster of its director, resignations by top staff, and massive cutbacks to programs threaten to overwhelm the U.S. CDC, causing some to question whether the vaunted public health agency will survive.      Updates: 

• Nine former CDC directors who served Republican and Democratic presidents called a slew of actions by Robert F. Kennedy Jr. 鈥渦nacceptable鈥� yesterday.  

• The Trump administration tapped investor and HHS deputy director Jim O鈥橬eill to be CDC acting director, . O鈥橬eill, who had worked at HHS for six years, will try to calm the waters, but it鈥檚 unclear whether the director is expected only to follow the secretary鈥檚 instructions, former FDA official Peter Pitts said. 

• Outside groups are stepping in to fill the void left by changes at the CDC by disseminating health information, managing data that could otherwise disappear, and launching other efforts, . But former officials warn it may take decades to restore the U.S. public health infrastructure, . 

The Quote: 鈥淚f you chop off the heads of the agencies because they didn鈥檛 pledge to go along with you, despite what the science says, then you鈥檙e eroding public health from the foundation,鈥� Cleveland鈥檚 public health director David Margolius told the Times. 

Related:  
RFK Jr deputy named CDC acting director as confusion surrounds COVID vaccine availability 鈥�     What chaos at the US CDC could mean for the rest of the world 鈥�     Trump demands drugmakers 鈥榡ustify鈥� COVID treatment success 鈥�   GLOBAL HEALTH VOICES EDITOR'S NOTE Professors: GHN Can Help You    We often hear from professors and teachers who love to use GHN as a teaching tool鈥攎aking it assigned reading and using it as a conversation starter: 

• Get your students thinking, talking, and debating global health issues. 

• Show real-world applications to complement textbook studies. 

• Spark ideas for new projects and collaborations. 

Bonus: While more media are shifting to paywall models, GHN is still free. We also provide gift links for many paywalled articles. And we鈥檝e increased the amount of opportunities we share鈥攊ncluding webinars, fellowships, and networking events that can give your students a boost.     How you can help keep GHN strong and free: Please show your support by spreading the word with students, colleagues, and friends and sharing our free subscribe link: . And let us know when you do, or if you have suggestions to help us improve. 鈥�Dayna  DATA POINT

1 billion+
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People living with mental health disorders, per new WHO data, with conditions such as anxiety and depression highly prevalent in all countries and communities, affecting people of all ages and income levels, and inflicting immense human and economic tolls. 鈥� The Latest One-Liners    Police in Kenya fear the starvation cult linked to hundreds of deaths in 2023 is active again, with dozens of new graves of suspected victims found recently near Mombasa; officials believe that followers of cult leader Pastor Paul Mackenzie Nthenge escaped police raids and have revived the practices.       PAHO is urging countries to bolster surveillance, medical management, and vector-control against chikungunya and Oropouche viruses; 14 Americas countries have reported 212,000+ chikungunya cases this year鈥攄own from last year, but the most-affected countries are seeing not just the Asian genotype circulating previously, but also the East/Central/South African genotype.     An analysis of 1,000+ cardiovascular clinical trials between 2017 and 2023 found that although women鈥檚 participation has been improving in some areas, they are still consistently underrepresented in trials on arrhythmia, coronary heart disease, acute coronary syndrome, and heart failure.     Spouses tend to share psychiatric disorders, per a massive study in Nature Human Behaviour of ~15 million people in Taiwan, Denmark, and Sweden that shows the trend increases with each decade, across cultures, and generation.   U.S. and Global Health Policy News PAHO Targeted in New Round of US Funding Cuts 鈥�     Trump plans a hefty tax on imported drugs, risking higher prices and shortages 鈥�     EPA insider鈥檚 policy reversal could shift PFAS cleanup costs from industry to taxpayers 鈥�   
Can RFK Jr. take COVID vaccines off the market? Here's what vaccine law experts say 鈥�  
RFK Jr. links SSRIs and mass shootings. What does science say? 鈥�     Legal adviser warns NIH not to kill 900 grants a second time 鈥�   GLOBAL HEALTH VOICES MIGRATION How Displacement Erodes Global Health Security    The 鈥渙verlooked and underfunded鈥� crisis of intra-African migration is leading to burgeoning health security risks, as growing populations are forced to live for years in overcrowded informal settlements鈥攚ith little to no health care access.  
By the numbers: 80% of African migration occurs within the continent, accounting for 46% of global displacements.  

• 38.8 million people were displaced in Africa between 2015-2024. 

Dangers in the gaps: Many of these people are denied care due to 鈥渕edical xenophobia鈥濃�攁nd are often excluded from a country鈥檚 disease surveillance and prevention efforts鈥攈eightening outbreak threats, like the 2024 mpox resurgence in the Democratic Republic of Congo.    Call to action: Migrant-inclusive health systems, improved surveillance, and cross-border disease control are all critical in mitigating risks.       EPIDEMIOLOGY When Fear Goes Viral 
Epidemiologists have traced the transmission of a different sort of contagion: rumors.     Case in point: Historians have long been puzzled by The Great Fear, a wave of panic and upheaval that spread in France in 1789, helping to fuel the French Revolution.  

• The basis and spread of the rumors have long been up for debate. A group of researchers turned to epidemic modeling for answers. 

• Using documents like letters and historical road maps, the researchers created a detailed diagram of the rumors鈥� movements, likening the path to a 鈥渢ransmission network for an epidemic,鈥� one researcher said.  

Data-driven history: , uses epidemiological tools to better understand social upheaval鈥攁nd the spread of misinformation.    OPPORTUNITY QUICK HITS Landslide in Sudan wipes out village and kills 1,000 people 鈥�     'Let鈥檚 sleep early so we don鈥檛 feel the hunger': humanitarian workers in Gaza struggling in midst of famine 鈥�     Do State Referendums on Abortion Work? 鈥�     The Right to Care: A Feminist Legal Victory That Could Change the Americas 鈥�     Tanzania: A Meal, Then a Pill - How Tanzania's Campaign is Transforming Child Health 鈥�  
In Austria, Government Health Care Can Look a Bit Like a Spa 鈥�  
Don't let a selfie be the end of you 鈥�   Issue No. 2780
Global Health NOW is an initiative of Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

Contributors include Brian W. Simpson, MPH, Dayna Kerecman Myers, Annalies Winny, Morgan Coulson, Kate Belz, Melissa Hartman, Jackie Powder, and Rin Swann. Write us: dkerecm1@jhu.edu, like us on and follow us on Instagram and X .

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More than a billion people worldwide are living with mental health conditions, according to new data released by the World Health Organization (WHO) on Tuesday.