STAT Says Public Health Data Needs to Stay Boring, Even When Politics Intervenes

# STAT Says Public Health Data Needs to Stay Boring, Even When Politics Intervenes

A STAT opinion piece argues that the most important thing about infectious-disease reporting is also the least glamorous: it has to be boring, consistent, and resistant to politics. In Make infectious disease data boring again, former CDC officials Anne Schuchat and Demetre Daskalakis say that public health depends on shared definitions and standard reporting processes, especially when outbreaks make every delay and inconsistency more dangerous.

The piece responds to a dispute over how Pennsylvania's measles-related deaths were counted and whether the CDC should accept the state's determination without additional political filtering. The authors say states normally follow established case definitions and notification procedures when reporting notifiable diseases to the CDC, with input from epidemiologists, scientists, and the Council of State and Territorial Epidemiologists. In their view, that process is what gives national and state data meaning.

Their larger warning is that once politics enters the counting process, trust erodes quickly. The authors say disease response depends on the ability to compare data across jurisdictions and over time, and that this becomes harder if federal officials appear to apply different standards depending on the state involved. They link the concern to rising measles cases and falling vaccination rates among kindergarteners, arguing that the public-health system needs clarity rather than argument.

The article also revisits the 2025 Texas measles outbreak, saying that Texas followed standard reporting procedures when it reported two deaths and that CDC support followed, including vaccines, technical assistance, and field help. The authors use that example to contrast what they see as a routine reporting process with the Pennsylvania dispute, which they describe as politically charged.

Their criticism is not only procedural. They say misinformation about vaccines and treatment has already complicated the measles response, and they argue that public health leaders should be reinforcing established science instead of amplifying unproven treatments. The piece says the CDC should be explaining why vaccination matters rather than becoming embroiled in arguments over whether a death counts in the national dashboard.

The article is also a reminder that disease surveillance is a cooperative system. States investigate cases, notify the CDC, and rely on the agency for laboratory support, contact tracing, data management, and in some cases on-the-ground field response. If that collaboration weakens, the national picture becomes less reliable.

The authors make clear that their concern is not theoretical. They say their own attempts to correct misinformation inside CDC were often routed through political leadership and may have gone unread. That experience shapes the tone of the piece, which is less a partisan argument than a plea for institutional consistency.

For readers outside public health, the message is straightforward. Outbreak control depends on data that people can trust. That means the counting rules cannot change depending on the political climate, and the national dashboard cannot become a place where leaders decide which facts are convenient. In an outbreak, boring is not a weakness. It is a public good.