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Speaker 1: Welcome to Wellness Unmass. I'm doctor Nicole Sapphire and this

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Speaker 1: is your weekly Rundown. Well, it has been quite the week.

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Speaker 2: We have seen incredible historic things happening. One thing that

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Speaker 2: we also saw coming out of the Middle East piece

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Speaker 2: deals are the return of the remaining hostages.

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Speaker 1: There have been recounts of malnutrition, starvation, targeted starvation, for

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Speaker 1: psychological terror. It's going to take a long time for

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Speaker 1: these hostages to recover, but I am happy that they

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Speaker 1: are receiving the medical care they need and they are

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Speaker 1: home and they are on their way to recovery. We're

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Speaker 1: going to talk about two other things for this week's

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Speaker 1: Weekly Rundown. Earlier this month, chaos hit the Centers for

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Speaker 1: Disease Control and Prevention when roughly thirteen hundred employees were

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Speaker 1: abruptly laid off. This included epidemiologists, immunization experts, and many

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Speaker 1: receiving notices. While the government is still navigating a shutdown,

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Speaker 1: but within days the back Jusha Swift facing mounting pressure,

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Speaker 1: federal health officials have reversed course, reinstating about seven hundred

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Speaker 1: of those positions, but still leaving roughly six hundred people

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Speaker 1: without jobs. Now the administration has since called the incident

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Speaker 1: a coding error, but whether or not that's true, the

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Speaker 1: consequences clearly are undeniable. For days, key programs, including the

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Speaker 1: Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, the CD's flagship for outbreak tracking,

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Speaker 1: were effectively paralyzed. The reason this is a problem is

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Speaker 1: because we're actually having outbreaks, record breaking outbreaks here in

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Speaker 1: the United States, specifically when with measles. As of October,

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Speaker 1: the United States has recorded over fifteen hundred confirmed measle

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Speaker 1: cases this year. This is the highest total number in

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Speaker 1: more than two decades. Outbreaks are spreading across Utah, Arizona,

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Speaker 1: South Carolina, and largely amongst the unvaccinated communities, and we're

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Speaker 1: seeing a rise in unvaccinated communities in the Arizona Utah

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Speaker 1: border region. Health departments have confirmed more than ninety linked cases.

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Speaker 1: In South Carolina, they had to quarantine one hundred and

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Speaker 1: fifty unvaccinated students after they were exposed to measles. Now,

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Speaker 1: that's an entirely different conversation about whether some of the

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Speaker 1: quarantine parameters are a bit too harsh, but needless to say,

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Speaker 1: that is what we do right now because we don't

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Speaker 1: want measles to continue to spread. If you remember, measles

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Speaker 1: was declared eliminated nd US back in two thousand, that

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Speaker 1: means that we stopped continuous transmission. It doesn't mean that

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Speaker 1: the virus disappeared.

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Speaker 2: It's actually one of the most contagious pathogens known. A

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Speaker 2: single infected person can spread it up to ninety percent

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Speaker 2: of nearby unvaccinated people. The tragic part is we know

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Speaker 2: how to prevent it. The measles, MOMPS and rubella vaccine

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Speaker 2: has been shown effective at preventing transmission and severe illness

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Speaker 2: from measles, Yet the national vaccination rate among kindergarteners has

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Speaker 2: fallen from ninety five percent to just under ninety three

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Speaker 2: percent in recent years. Now, I know this two percent

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Speaker 2: dip doesn't really seem like that big of a deal,

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Speaker 2: But when the vaccination rate dips, measles finds its way

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Speaker 2: back in, and we're living that right now. So both

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Speaker 2: of these stories, the CDC shakeup and the measles resurgent,

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Speaker 2: I mean, they certainly go hand in hand. The conversation

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Speaker 2: right now regarding vaccines specifically MMR is causing a lot

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Speaker 2: of confusion when institutions appear disorganized or obviously politically influenced.

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Speaker 2: We saw a lot of that during COVID confidence in

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Speaker 2: their guidance weekends. And when people lose trust, they're going

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Speaker 2: to hesitate in following health recommendations and vaccinating their kids

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Speaker 2: and even in believing what the data tells them. So

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Speaker 2: public health really runs on two things, resources and credibility.

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Speaker 1: We can rebuild the former, but the latter is going

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Speaker 1: to take years. So when it comes to the CDC,

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Speaker 1: the shakeup. Listen, I get it, we're in a government shutdown.

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Speaker 1: We just have to make sure that we're putting our

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Speaker 1: best face forward.

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Speaker 2: Because people are already in a state of flux and

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Speaker 2: confusion and skepticism coming out of COVID. The CDC really

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Speaker 2: needs to dot their eyes, cross their t's and really

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Speaker 2: get it together because the amount of measles cases and

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Speaker 2: whipping cough cases and others that we're seeing in the

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Speaker 2: United States, I can tell you it's scary, and we

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Speaker 2: do not want to take ourselves back several decades we

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Speaker 2: have progressed.

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Speaker 3: So let's get it together, people, Let's get out of

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Speaker 3: this government shutdown. Let's put our best foot forward. When

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Speaker 3: it comes to the CDC and the HHS, and do

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Speaker 3: everything we can to regain that public trust because unfortunately,

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Speaker 3: the resurgence of measles is a very harrowing situation that's happening,

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Speaker 3: and we don't want to see it getting worse.

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Speaker 1: I'm doctor Nicole Sapfire. This is well in this unmass

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Speaker 1: weekly Rundown. I hope you have a great weekend and

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Speaker 1: we will see you soon. Make sure you listen on

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Speaker 2: iHeartRadio wherever you get your podcast us, and I'll see

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Speaker 2: you next week.