Brooks: Trump’s cuts dump on Minnesota’s ‘Team Diarrhea’

Sometimes, you laugh to keep from screaming.

Comedian John Oliver looked out over the smoking crater the Trump administration just gouged into Minnesota’s public health budget and spotted a program with a noble purpose and a name that is objectively hilarious: Team D.

“Now, what is Team D, you ask?” Oliver put the question to viewers of this week’s episode of “Last Week Tonight with John Oliver.” “It’s Team Diarrhea — a group of public health students who interview people who’ve had diarrhea to track food poisoning outbreaks.”

The federal Department of Health and Human Services snatched away $12 billion in grants that had already been awarded to the states – including $220 million that was supposed to fund public health services in Minnesota.

Trump’s cuts threaten programs across the state that were intended to make Minnesotans healthier, safer and less likely to experience explosive bathroom episodes.

Trump’s cuts could mean that 170 Minnesota public health workers will lose their jobs. Because our health and safety and freedom from dysentery was their job.

Team D was a collaboration between the state and students at the University of Minnesota. Together they tracked outbreaks of diarrhea and interviewed sufferers to trace outbreaks of food poisoning back to their source.

As soon as the Trump administration slashed the funding, the health department lost its student partners. The job of tracking outbreaks now falls to the state’s thinning ranks of public health workers. Bear that in mind as you tuck into your next bowl of potato salad.

Never forget that Minnesota is the namesake for an entire strain of explosive, watery diarrhea that lasts for months and resists treatment by antibiotics. Look up “Brainerd diarrhea” and then thank your local epidemiologist for their eternal vigilance against Brainerd diarrhea.

Team D will carry on as best it can without the resources it needs. Other vital public health services may not be so lucky.

The Minnesota Department of Health is still trying to tally the damage, but staffers estimate that 180 community groups across the state just lost access to federal funding.

Those federal funds, MDH says, were supposed to be heading to northern Minnesota to bolster a small team that was working to encourage MMR vaccination in three counties with the lowest vaccination rates in the state.

Those funds were supposed to be heading to a senior ride program in St. Cloud, launched after three elderly residents were hit by cars while out walking.

The cuts will hit community programs that trained trusted voices in the community — including barbers and hair stylists — to do public health outreach, offering information about everything from suicide prevention to upcoming vaccination clinics to tips on navigating the state’s health insurance website.

The Health Department used to operate a hotline to field calls from the public in search of information and resources. Since 2020, the hotline fielded more than 400,000 calls and too many emails to count. The hotline team also researched long COVID, investigated reports of whooping cough and chicken pox and shared information about everything from bird flu to vaccinations in multiple languages.

The hotline has shut down.

Nobody asked for this. Nobody petitioned the government for a chance to die of dysentery like a bad day on the Oregon Trail. But here we are.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the conspiracy-spouting secretary of Health and Human Services nobody asked for, insisted that all those billions of dollars worth of public health cuts were simply cuts to DEI programs. Out with diversity, equity and inclusion. In with dysentery, E. coli and...I don’t know. Ivermectin? Influenza? Irritable bowels?

Kennedy insisted he was “not familiar” with the programs that are actually being cut. Which seems like something you should become familiar with before you yank billions of dollars out of the hands of people who are doing the actual work of Making America Healthy Again.

Now we know. They’re going after Team Diarrhea.

Don’t let them.