An Epidemic of Absurdity

Hello My Dear Friends! While the media continues it's panic inducing coverage of the Ebola outbreak, the political finger pointing is flourishing. I, as much as anyone, hate to ruin a good story with actual facts but.....Let's start with the most obvious. Ebola is NOT an epidemic. not by a long shot. The definition of an epidemic is 15 infections per 100,000 people per week. There are just over a billion people in West Africa. If Ebola were an actual epidemic, that would mean that 150,000 people per week would be infected. To date, less than 10,000 people have been confirmed with the disease. Sadly, 4500 of those people have died. My point is, it's an "outbreak" not an epidemic. It IS very serious. It is NOT a serious threat to you or me. On average, 36,000 people die from the Flu, in this country, each year, Please don't lose sleep over either statistic. What you should lose sleep over are the people in charge of protecting us. Now, with that said, in this season of pre-election do-do slinging, I've heard many politicians claim that Republican spending cuts to the CDC are the reason they were "unprepared" for this threat. LOL! The CDC has an annual budget of $10 Billion dollars. The National Institutes of Health get about $30 Billion a year. While they attempt to blame their utter incompetence on funding cuts, consider this:
Last year the NIH spent $3.2 million on a study focused exclusively on getting monkeys drunk. To date, the CDC has spent $15 Billion dollars to "convince Americans to make healthy choices".  The NIH gave $90 million to China to study a parasite common to China, not America. The CDC has spent $2.87 million dollars on a study of "Why Lesbians Are Fat". They based that study on their belief that "three-quarters of lesbians are obese". That study is on-going so, stay tuned.  They spent $22 million on an agriculture study that was identical to one conducted by the Department of Agriculture "just to be sure". Shall I continue?
$1.5 million on four obscure sex studies including "mood arousal and risk taking", "sexual habits of older men" and "San Francisco's Asian prostitute population".
$7.6 million of the "Disease of Guns".
$676,000 on how sex workers spread STDs.
$423,000 examining the "barriers to correct condom use"
$181,000 How cocaine enhances Japanese Quail
My Friends, these are the people charged with protecting us. These are the same people who accidentally mailed active anthrax and stored bubonic plague in an unlocked closet. These are the same people who accidentally mixed a deadly strain of the Bird Flu with an innocuous flu strain and mailed it to an unsuspecting outside lab. So, yes, let's blame this latest fiasco on funding cuts.