A former FBI official warned that the Trump administration "dismantled" the teams responsible for handling new strains of a virus now alarming experts and the world.
"The hantavirus situation should serve as a wake-up call," Frank Figliuzzi, a former high-ranking FBI official, told Harry Litman on his podcast on Thursday.
"Did you know that the actual unit created to deal with new strains of hantavirus research, including the strain that we're seeing right now, has been dismantled?" Figliuzzi asked. "Gone, fired."
Hantavirus is a fatal virus with no cure. Experts have been sounding the alarm about the virus' spread as passengers aboard an infected cruise ship have been dying during the last few weeks.
On top of that, "the unit that handles cruise line health inspections no longer exists. DOGE came in, Robert Kennedy Jr. came in and got rid of these seemingly indiscriminately."
Figliuzzi added that "thousands" of epidemiologists who could help the U.S. prepare and respond to the hantavirus "are gone!"
He explained that "We do have a national security vulnerability when you look at the Centers for Disease Control and related HHS agencies," and about "80 percent of senior roles throughout the CDC agencies are vacant" because of the Trump administration cuts.
"That puts us at risk of not only the next big pandemic, which I guarantee is coming," Figliuzzi said. "But also, God forbid, an actual state-sponsored or terrorist-sponsored bioattack."
