<h2>BURDEN OF CARE</h2>
Alzheimer&#8217;s is a <a href="https://www.alz.org/media/HomeOffice/Facts%20and%20Figures/facts-and-figures.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">devastating brain disease</a>. It doesn&#8217;t just rob sufferers of their ability to think, remember, and reason. It also places a massive burden on families, caregivers, and the <a href="http://act.alz.org/site/DocServer/2012_Costs_Fact_Sheet_version_2.pdf?docID=7161" target="_blank" rel="noopener">economy</a>.
And as people in the United States live longer, far more of them will be stricken with the disease, according to a <a href="https://www.alzheimersanddementia.com/article/S1552-5260(18)33252-7/fulltext">new report</a> from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Within 40 years, the number of people in the United States with Alzheimer&#8217;s disease will <a href="https://health.usnews.com/health-care/articles/2018-09-20/us-alzheimers-cases-to-nearly-triple-by-2060">almost triple</a>, from about 5 million to nearly 14 million.
That&#8217;s not simply due to population growth. The overall proportion of Americans with Alzheimer&#8217;s disease will jump from about 1.6 percent to an estimated 3.3 percent by 2060, according to the report, which was published Wednesday in Alzheimer&#8217;s &amp; Dementia: The Journal of the Alzheimer&#8217;s Association.
<h2>SILVER LINING</h2>
There&#8217;s a bright side to this news. According to a <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/media/releases/2018/p0920-alzheimers-burden-double-2060.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">CDC press release</a>, the &#8220;increases are a result of fewer people dying from other chronic diseases and surviving into older adulthood when the risk for Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias increases.&#8221;
In other words: we&#8217;re better at treating other diseases, so we&#8217;re inadvertently increasing the size of the population susceptible to Alzheimer&#8217;s. Since we obviously don&#8217;t want to slow down that progress, then, we&#8217;re going to need to make <a href="https://futurism.com/bill-gates-investing-alzheimers-research/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Alzheimer&#8217;s research</a> a priority.
Right now, there&#8217;s no cure for Alzheimer&#8217;s, and the only way we know to prevent it is through <a href="https://www.alz.org/alzheimers-dementia/research_progress/prevention" target="_blank" rel="noopener">healthy lifestyle choices</a>. We&#8217;re going to need to do better than that if we want to avoid a future in which the burden of the disease weighs even more heavily on our strained economy and healthcare system.
READ MORE: <a href="https://health.usnews.com/health-care/articles/2018-09-20/us-alzheimers-cases-to-nearly-triple-by-2060" target="_blank" rel="noopener">U.S. Alzheimer&#8217;s Cases to Nearly Triple by 2060</a> [U.S. News]
More on Alzheimer&#8217;s: <a href="https://futurism.com/bill-gates-investing-alzheimers-research/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Bill Gates Just Announced a $100 Million Initiative to Defeat Alzheimer’s</a>

Americans are living longer. That will mean more people with Alzheimer's.

Health & Medicine

The number of Americans with Alzheimer's disease will increase from 5 million to nearly 14 million by 2060, according to a new CDC report.

Americans Are Living Longer. That Will Mean More People With Alzheimer’s.

Within 40 years, the number of Americans with Alzheimer's will almost triple, the CDC predicts.

<h2>DOGHOUSE</h2>
Look, we get it. Puppies are adorable. All you want to do is let them lick your face. But the next time you&#8217;re tempted to buy a cute canine from a pet store, ask yourself whether it&#8217;s worth spending the next few days on the toilet.
According to <a href="https://www.statnews.com/2018/09/20/antibiotics-resistant-bacteria-puppies-people/">STAT</a>, more than 100 people contracted an antibiotic-resistant diarrheal disease after they came into contact with pet store puppies. The reason, epidemiologists suspect, is that healthy dogs had been treated unnecessarily with antibiotics, which probably helped make the bacteria develop resistance.
<h2>PLAGUE PUPS</h2>
On Friday, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) published a damning <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/67/wr/mm6737a3.htm?s_cid=mm6737a3_w" target="_blank" rel="noopener">report</a>. It linked puppies at six unnamed pet store chains to 118 cases, between 2016 and 2018, in which humans contracted the nasty microbe Campylobacter jejuni. <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC356901/">Studies are vague </a>about how the bacteria spreads from dog to human, but it probably has to do with dogs&#8217; mouths and poop.
The CDC researchers found that the shops were giving antibiotics to almost all puppies. In about half the cases, it was a preventative (read: unnecessary) measure, not a treatment for an actual canine illness.
<h2>BACTERIA TANK</h2>
<a href="https://www.cdc.gov/media/releases/2016/p0503-unnecessary-prescriptions.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Over-prescription</a> of antibiotics (in humans and in other species) is a key factor driving <a href="https://futurism.com/a-world-without-antibiotics-the-un-has-elevated-the-issue-of-antibiotic-resistance/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">antibiotic resistance</a>. The more bacteria encounter antibiotics, the greater chance the microbes will develop a resistance to them.
“Antibiotics should only be used to treat illness, not to compensate for poor practices — whether it’s trucking dogs long distances and having poor hygiene in the process along the way,” Matthew Wellington, antibiotics program director for public interest advocate U.S. Public Interest Research Group, <a href="https://www.statnews.com/2018/09/20/antibiotics-resistant-bacteria-puppies-people/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">told STAT</a>. “These are lifesaving medicines that should only be used to treat sick animals or sick people.”
So, while pet stores managers might think it&#8217;s a solid short term plan to ply puppies with antibiotics to keep them healthy, it&#8217;s exacerbating a problem that could plague humanity for years to come.
READ MORE: <a href="https://www.statnews.com/2018/09/20/antibiotics-resistant-bacteria-puppies-people/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Puppies Are Making People Sick — and It’s People’s Fault</a> [STAT]
More on antibiotic resistance: <a href="https://futurism.com/a-world-without-antibiotics-the-un-has-elevated-the-issue-of-antibiotic-resistance/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">A World Without Antibiotics? The UN Has Elevated the Issue of Antibiotic Resistance</a>

Stores are treating pups with antibiotics, even when the dogs aren't sick.

Pet store puppies are spreading antibiotic-resistant bacteria

CDC officials have traced an outbreak of the antibiotic-resistant bacteria Campylobacter jejuni to pet-store puppies unnecessarily prescribed antibiotics.

Pet Store Puppies Are Spreading Antibiotic-Resistant Bacteria

Another good reason not to let random dogs lick your mouth.

<h2>The Unspeakable Seven</h2>
Outrage erupted on December 15 after <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/cdc-gets-list-of-forbidden-words-fetus-transgender-diversity/2017/12/15/f503837a-e1cf-11e7-89e8-edec16379010_story.html?utm_term=.712e1c0f0e59" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The Washington Post reported </a>that the White House sent the <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)</a> a list of <a href="https://futurism.com/cdc-forbidden-words-science-based/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">seven words</a> it was forbidden from including in official documents for next year&#8217;s budget. The seven words in question are “evidence-based,” “science-based,” “vulnerable,” “entitlement,” “diversity,” “transgender,” and “fetus.”
In the days since, the CDC and the <a href="https://www.hhs.gov/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS)</a> have denied that the list of words constituted a ban.
&#8220;As I have said previously, there are no banned, prohibited, or forbidden words at the CDC — period,&#8221; said CDC Director Brenda Fitzgerald in a statement to Futurism. &#8220;I want to emphasize to anyone who may believe otherwise that we continue to encourage open dialogue about all of the important public health work we do.&#8221;
Fitzgerald also affirmed the CDC&#8217;s position to employees in an email that was later posted to Twitter.
“As part of our commitment to provide for the common defense of the country against health threats, science is and will remain the foundation of our work,” Fitzgerald wrote in the email. “CDC has a long-standing history of making public health and budget decisions that are based on the best available science and data and for the benefit of all people — and we will continue to do so.”
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500">
You may be understandably concerned about recent media reports alleging that CDC is banned from using certain words in budget documents. I want to assure you that CDC remains committed to our public health mission as a science- and evidence-based institution.
&mdash; Dr Brenda Fitzgerald (@CDCDirector) <a href="https://twitter.com/CDCDirector/status/942454357274124290?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">December 17, 2017</a></blockquote>
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In the statement sent to Futurism, Fitzgerald noted that the confusion arose from &#8220;a staff-level discussion at a routine meeting about how to present CDC’s budget.&#8221; She added, &#8220;It was never intended as overall guidance for how we describe and conduct CDC’s work.&#8221;
An <a href="https://www.statnews.com/2017/12/17/cdc-chief-science-forbidden-words/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">HHS official told STAT</a> that it was inaccurate to characterize the words as &#8220;banned.&#8221; The official said the list was presented during a 90-minute briefing on December 14 as part of a suggestion to use words and phrases that &#8220;might be more likely to win support for the CDC’s budget in the current Congress.&#8221; The idea is that favorable word choice could help <a href="https://arstechnica.com/science/2017/12/after-firestorm-cdc-director-says-terms-like-science-based-are-not-banned/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">ease the budget&#8217;s passage</a> through Congress.
<h2>Censoring Science?</h2>
The report of the banned words naturally raised some concerns about censorship from the White House. Given that <a href="https://futurism.com/trumps-skinny-budget-slashes-funding-for-health-energy-and-environmental-agencies/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">the Trump administration</a> and <a href="https://futurism.com/see-how-congress-proposed-budget-will-affect-the-future-of-science-research/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">the current Congress</a> have often appeared <a href="https://futurism.com/epa-website-purged-of-climate-change-information-to-align-with-trump-administration-claims/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">outwardly anti-science</a>, scientists and members of the public alike expressed concerns that this &#8220;ban&#8221; was an attempt to suppress science for political reasons.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500">
Dear <a href="https://twitter.com/POTUS?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@POTUS</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@realDonaldTrump</a> &#8211; science is the foundation of public health. The <a href="https://twitter.com/CDCgov?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@CDCgov</a> CANNOT fulfill its charge without using evidence-based and science-based approaches. <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/CDC7words?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#CDC7words</a>
&mdash; Lacy Fehrenbach (@lacyfm) <a href="https://twitter.com/lacyfm/status/941899871199432704?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">December 16, 2017</a></blockquote>
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Even if the list of words does not constitute a ban, it could still have an effect on scientists. They may be more inclined to hold off on proposing research on topics that include these banned words and are, therefore, considered politically risky, such as abortion or the intersection of race and public health factors.
&#8220;The words that we use ultimately describe what we care about and what we think are priorities,” Sandro Galea, dean of Boston University’s School of Public Health, <a href="https://www.apnews.com/4822db4cac9249dfb46280095e078970/A-CDC-ban-on-'fetus'-and-'transgender?%27-Experts-alarmed" target="_blank" rel="noopener">told the Associated Press</a>. &#8220;If you are saying you cannot use words like ‘transgender’ and ‘diversity,’ it’s a clear statement that you cannot pay attention to these issues.&#8221;
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500">
Banning the language scientists can use?
It&#39;s dangerous. And familiar.
&quot;When fanaticism is bubbling up around us &#8211; then, habits of thought familiar from ages past reach for the controls. The candle flame gutters. Its little pool of light trembles.&quot; &#8212; <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/CarlSagan?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#CarlSagan</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/CDC7words?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#CDC7words</a> <a href="https://t.co/Nf56gyGb6A">https://t.co/Nf56gyGb6A</a>
&mdash; Nick Sagan (@nicksagan) <a href="https://twitter.com/nicksagan/status/942060735391203328?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">December 16, 2017</a></blockquote>
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This chilling effect has already been observed among climate scientists in response to the Trump administration&#8217;s outward positions on climate change and decision to <a href="https://futurism.com/the-union-of-concerned-scientists-just-denounced-the-man-trump-selected-to-run-nasa/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">appoint climate skeptics</a> to key science positions.
In January 2017, before Trump was even inaugurated, Buzzfeed reported that <a href="https://www.buzzfeed.com/peteraldhous/trump-chilling-effect?utm_term=.ogDzjGOXX#.yvVjNQ4ww" target="_blank" rel="noopener">the CDC preemptively cancelled</a> the Climate and Health Summit, reportedly out of concerns that the incoming president would shut it down.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500">
Take it from someone who grew up in a dictatorship: they erase words before they erase people. <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/CDC7words?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#CDC7words</a>
&mdash; Meredith Talusan❄️ (@1demerith) <a href="https://twitter.com/1demerith/status/942091356448714752?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">December 16, 2017</a></blockquote>
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Freedom of speech is a pillar of democracy, and banning certain words or topics from conversation is <a href="https://imrussia.org/en/nation/763-totalitarianism-and-freedom-of-speech" target="_blank" rel="noopener">a hallmark of totalitarianism</a>. In recent history, even banning unpopular words, such as when <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/16/world/middleeast/israels-efforts-to-limit-use-of-holocaust-terms-raise-free-speech-questions.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Israel weighed banning</a> the word &#8220;Nazi,&#8221; has been met with serious pushback.
Any restriction of speech should be met with questions. Even a &#8220;suggestion&#8221; made to win Congressional support could endanger the progress of science and reshape the standards of our democracy.

"Science is and will remain the foundation of our work."

CDC Director: There are no banned words at the CDC. Period.

The CDC denies it was sent a list of "banned words" to exclude from budget documents, instead calling the words "suggestions" for omission.

/Centers For Disease Control And Prevention

Health & Medicine

Americans Are Living Longer. That Will Mean More People With Alzheimer’s.

Health & Medicine

Pet Store Puppies Are Spreading Antibiotic-Resistant Bacteria

Health & Medicine

CDC Director: There Are No Banned Words at the CDC. Period.

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