Army Gen. Martin E. Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, testifies on the Defense Department's budget proposal as Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta and Robert F. Hale, undersecretary of defense, listen at the Senate Armed Services Committee in Washington, D.C., Feb. 14, 2012. DOD photo by Erin A. Kirk-Cuomo

On February 15, 2012, I had the chance to interview Mike McCord, from the comptroller’s office for the Department of Defense, with some other bloggers. He talked about the 2013 DoD budget that had just been publicly released. Others will provide a far better analysis than I can, but I would like to talk about how you build a budget for the DoD.

Two caveats: The Congress has not approved a federal budget in three years. Funding for the existence of the Federal Government has been provided by a series of continuing resolutions. In addition, in the last several decades, no budget submitted by a president to Congress has survived in any sort of intact form. The budget request that we see now, historically, will bear little resemblance to the final budget. If our Congress critters even get around to adopting a budget for 2013 [/sarcasm].
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The United States Centers for Disease Control (CDC) function as the national public health authority. Within the Centers is the Division of Vector Borne Infectious Diseases (DVBID). Its mission is to provide, at the national level, surveillance, research, diagnostic testing and assistance to state, local and foreign governments with regard to vector borne diseases. Those are illnesses carried by mosquitoes, ticks, fleas and other animals that can be transmitted to humans.

The budget for the DVBID in 2010 was $26.7 million. That line has been defunded in the Administration’s 2011 proposal, with $18.9 million added to the emerging infectious diseases area…

The American Society for Tropical Medicine and Hygiene (ASTMH) has called for restoration of the funding for DVBID. Edward T. Ryan, M.D., President of the ASTMH, spoke with me recently about this issue.

This is the division that works on dengue fever, malaria, Lyme disease, West Nile virus, spotted fever and all the other illnesses we get from bug bites.

More at Budget cuts at CDC threaten efforts on bug borne diseases