USA Federal Strategic Plan on Vector Born Disease - have your say

The US Department of Health and Human Services invites comments and suggestions on the National Strategy for the Prevention and Control of Vector-Borne Diseases.

The plan represents the federal government’s priorities for addressing vector-borne disease threats, such as mosquitos, ticks and fleas. It lists five goals and 19 strategic priorities.

The deadline to receive emailed comments is midnight Eastern Time on December 21.

you can read more here -
https://www.lymedisease.org/comment-hhs-vbd-strategy/?fbclid=iwar04vtlphc9dudrfb9dyd0k6_pjsydnwaglawrl9byxylbrm72c7j7bggtg

the policies and plans implemented in the USA will trickle down to the rest of the world and affect all of us - as currently the CDC is seen as a leader in health policy - but i don't know if comments are taken from around the world - i suspect not.

so if you are in the USA and want to have your say - please do comment
as a population of suffering people we rarely get a chance to have our say so i do feel we should make our voices known when we get a chance.

i am happy to help anyone wanting to make a comment

I read the document
After all the time, work, expert presentations, public comments etc that has gone into this effort so far, I find what has been presented as “strategic objectives” very disappointing indeed.

Allow me to explain:
Typically, a strategic objective needs to be something specific and measurable and time bound. It should be aspirational - a challenge that will galvanise people into action.
When JFK stood before Congress on May 25, 1961, and proposed that the US "should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to the Earth."

That was a strategic goal. It is very specific, it has end points that are measurable, and it has a time limit.
By contrast what we see in the Department of Health and Human Services document is typically vague bureaucratic speak without measurable endpoints.
For example: “○ Strategic Priority 4: Develop, maintain, and distribute non-commercial diagnostic resources to facilitate VBD testing.”

What does that even mean?
Where is the “finish line” so it will be clear when the goal is achieved?
By when will this be achieved?

I assume this is supposed to represent the need for effective testing for tick born diseases.
Should the strategic goal not therefore be along the lines of:
“Develop diagnostic tests with better than 99% specificity and sensitivity for the 10 most common vector borne diseases in the USA - and make them available to public health services at scale in all states within 5 years.”

In my view all of the goals in that document are similarly vague and need to be rewritten, as they are they are not specific enough, not measurable and not time bound to be effective.

Honestly – any manager at even mid-level in the commercial world would expect to have wishy washy goal statements such as those given back to them for rewriting with gruff feedback.

Next is the topic of responsibility and incentives.

Who has responsibility for achieving these goals and what happens if they do / or do not get achieved?
If the answer is essentially nothing, everyone still gets to keep their jobs and keep taking their salary and there will just be a few more committee meetings.
Then, even if all of the goals were re-written properly, I would say you have a recipe for very little to change in the next 5 years.

The public elect the people who make policy and are responsible for executing it and it pays them equivalate wages to the commercial sector to do that work. It’s not a free meal ticket. So why do we tolerate a total lack of measurability and accountability from these people.

Lyme disease is a serious issue. People are dying from Lyme every day, many hundreds of thousands live in ongoing pain and suffering and financial hardship, due to the lack of action on effective tests and effective treatments.

Goals MUST be measurable and Individuals MUST be made accountable or it’s a waste of time and money, only serving the politicians who can say “look, we are doing something over here” and hope few will look deeper to see how little is really getting done.

here in the states they just released a new breed of mosquitoes. it was supposed to genetically make the species weaker but the new mutation has made them able to hibernate longer , has made able to survive longer between feedings and made them bigger . honestly i wouldn't be surprised if they are preloaded with new viral varients to unleash on the public . so the above news is kinda of a joke or necessary for the powers at be to get more bs funding for a "plan" thats set up to fail....guess im sounding like pessimist when it comes to policy on vector borne diseases....

yes cdc site says florida and texas but found this article in california.

https://californiahealthline.org/news/article/rural-california-hatches-plan-for-engineered-mosquitoes-to-battle-stealthy-predator/amp/

i dont think it that takes long to travel long distances or spread vectors to traveling animals ...