Washington D.C. – Amid continued attacks to the CDC by the Trump Administration, U.S. Senator Jon Ossoff is fighting to protect maternal health in Georgia.
Sen. Ossoff and other members of Congress are demanding the Trump Administration provide answers on the reported shutdown of a critical Maternal Health data system at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
The group is asking CDC Acting Director Susan Monarez why the Pregnancy Risk Assessment Monitoring System (PRAMS) has ceased operations, leaving states, researchers and medical providers without vital public health data.
“As a vital initiative jointly operated by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and several state, territorial, and local health departments, PRAMS plays a crucial role in collecting data to improve maternal and infant health outcomes, representing over 80 percent of all U.S. live births,” Sen. Ossoff and the group wrote. “This information is of increasing importance as the U.S. is experiencing a maternal health crisis: it has one of the highest maternal mortality rates among high-income nations, increasing rates of complications from pregnancy or childbirth, and persistent disparities in such outcomes.”
PRAMS’ abrupt shutdown comes amid a worsening maternal health crisis in Georgia, which has already one of the highest maternal mortality rates in the country.
Georgia has one of the strictest abortion bans in the country, putting women, mothers, and infants at risk.
Sen. Ossoff continues working to support the health and safety of Georgia mothers and children.
Last week, Sen. Ossoff, alongside Sen. Warnock, urged the Trump Administration to reverse course on recent decisions to indiscriminately fire critical public health employees at the CDC.
Last month, Sen. Ossoff blasted President Trump’s mass firings at the CDC.
Last year, as Chair of the Senate Human Rights Subcommittee, Sen. Ossoff convened two public hearings at which Georgia women and Georgia OBGYNs testified to the harmful impacts of Georgia’s abortion ban.
In July, OB-GYN doctors testified that women in Georgia are being denied care during miscarriages and gone into sepsis because of Georgian’s abortion ban, which they testified has hindered OGBYNs’ ability to do their jobs and could put them at risk of prosecution.
In September, two patients and an OBGYN testified in Atlanta that the State’s abortion ban is forcing Georgia women to continue high-risk and nonviable pregnancies.
Click here to read the group’s letter to the CDC.
It appears to me the Pregnancy Risk Assessment Monitoring System (PRAMS) is working well. If intermittent problems occur, there are “Excel” datasets available for downloading on the PRAMS online site. If one suspects problems, prudent actions should include periodically downloading the datasets.
Once again, The Citizen is relying on far-left opinion sources for its “news” articles. The embedded link on the “reported shutdown” of a CDC database (PRAMS) goes to Jezebel, a “sharp-edged feminist website” according to the Associated Press. “Jezebel, an incisive feminist voice since the height of the blogosphere era, is shutting down” APnews.com, 11/10/23
The Citizen’s article did not tell us why the database had been discontinued. Instead, it gives us a one-sided point of view, then dives into the backwaters of Ossoff’s abortion politics and fear-mongering.
Spoiler alert: Jezebel’s opinion piece acknowledges that the database will likely resume after a review of its methodology. And from what I can piece together, the objection to PRAMS is a 2023 addition of irrelevant questions about sexual orientation, gender identity and “class status”.
If Democrats could set aside their anti-American TDS for a moment, and take on what President Clinton did and said in the mid-90s, we’d all be working together on right-sizing the federal government and budget, and removing the inexcusable waste, fraud and abuse.
Clinton on the success of his “National Partnership for Reinventing Government” which cut 400,000 workers from the federal workforce, reduced red tape and produced budget surpluses: “We have worked to give the American people a smaller, less bureaucratic government in Washington. And we have to give the American people one that lives within its means. The era of big government is over.” Newsweek.com 2/19/25
Apparently the current president thinks so highly of the previous president’s chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan that he has employed the same chaotic template in his administration for his domestic agenda. Imagine what a little forethought would do for both of these old men!
Truth is stranger than fiction.
Musks methods are not new. Cut off everything is used commonly in IT for example. Block access to everyone to a server, service or URL. If nobody complains nobody cared about it. Kill it. Easier than trying to find out who actually uses what.
It is not appropriate for life, limb, health or national security missions. The impacts and risks are too high.