Diseases return that the United States had spent decades controlling or eliminating, Real infrastructure gets dismantled while the loudest voices obsess over skin color, Bacteria doesn't read identity politics.

Real infrastructure gets dismantled while the loudest voices obsess over skin color and centuries-old grievances.

For generations, the United States built public health systems that protect every American—regardless of race, ethnicity, or political affiliation—from diseases that once devastated families and communities.

That protection wasn't accidental. It was built through decades of investment in laboratories, disease surveillance, vaccination programs, food safety, mosquito and tick monitoring, border and international health partnerships, scientific research, and experienced public health professionals.

Critics argue that recent cuts to public health funding, reductions in scientific staffing, weakened disease surveillance, and rhetoric that undermines confidence in vaccines and public health institutions have increased the risk of diseases returning that the United States had spent decades controlling or eliminating.

Consider what those decades of work achieved:

• Malaria eliminated as an endemic disease (1951).

• Screwworm eradicated from the United States (1966).

• Polio eliminated from the United States (1979).

• Measles eliminated (2000).

• Rubella eliminated (2004).

• Congenital rubella syndrome eliminated (2004).

• Nearly three decades of national testing and surveillance for cyclosporiasis.

• Decades of investment in public health laboratories.

• Decades of disease surveillance.

• Decades of vaccination campaigns.

• Decades of food safety monitoring.

• Decades of mosquito and tick surveillance.

• Decades of pandemic preparedness.

• Decades of international cooperation to detect and contain outbreaks before they reached U.S. borders.

• Decades of taxpayer-funded scientific research.

• Decades of experienced epidemiologists, laboratory scientists, veterinarians, physicians, and public health professionals quietly protecting the public.

These systems rarely make headlines because prevention is, by its nature, invisible. When they succeed, people simply don't get sick.

Meanwhile, many political debates become consumed by racial resentment and identity-based conflict. Every policy dispute is framed through the lens of race while the less visible work of maintaining essential public infrastructure receives far less attention.

Diseases don't check your ancestry before infecting you.

Viruses don't care which side of the culture war you're on.

Mosquitoes don't fly by identity.

Bacteria don't read identity politics.

Parasites don't vote.

Science doesn't stop being true because it's politically inconvenient.

Public health, like bridges, dams, clean drinking water, and power grids, is infrastructure. You only notice it when it fails.

It took generations to build these systems. They can be weakened far more quickly than they were built.

Infectious diseases exploit gaps in vaccination, surveillance, staffing, funding, and public trust—not political ideology.

Whatever our disagreements about race, politics, or culture, maintaining the nation's public health infrastructure should remain a shared priority because infectious diseases threaten everyone.