Friends,
In these deeply uncertain times, I can think of no better place to be, and no better way to work for my state and my patients, than at the frontlines of state government serving the people who need our help, especially when that help is needed most.
This week has been…a lot. Let’s get into it.
TRUMP ADMINISTRATION ATTEMPTS TO DECIMATE THE AMERICAN PUBLIC HEALTH SYSTEM
Elijah Nouvelage / Bloomberg via Getty Images file
The Trump administration has announced that it is firing 1,300 probationary workers at the Atlanta-based Center for Disease Control (CDC), representing more than 10% of its workforce. Probationary workers are those who have either started work or changed roles (e.g. received promotions) within the last one or two years, prior to having full employee rights protections.
Among those fired include 50 officers of the CDC’s Epidemic Intelligence Service. The EIS, established in 1951, has been called a “crown jewel” of the American public health system and trains the best and the brightest health leaders to identify and respond to disease outbreaks.
Here are just a few of the ways these mass firing threaten science and public health (via Omer Awan MD/MPH in Forbes):
Hinders Disease Surveillance
iStock/BlackJack3D; iStock/nopparit; CDC/Antibiotic Resistance Coordination and Strategy Unit; MSMI/Alissa Eckert; CDC/Cynthia Goldsmith; MAMS/Dan Higgins
EIS officers have historically identified and controlled important health threats like COVID-19 and Zika. Their expertise allows for rapid response to emerging infectious diseases, which ultimately prevents widespread transmission. Firing frontline workers will have devastating consequences for public and global health, and will hinder the CDC’s ability to respond to outbreaks in a timely fashion.
This comes at a time where there is no shortage of public health threats. Currently, the flu is surging in America, with up to 23 million hospital visits for the flu and at least 370,000 hospitalizations, according to the CDC. In addition, the bird flu is spreading uncontrollably in animals and has killed one man in Louisiana. An Ebola outbreak has also been reported in Africa. America and the world are in desperate need of qualified public health practitioners who can manage all of these public health threats.
Impedes Development of Public Health Leaders
The EIS fellowship is widely considered an elite public health program that develops leaders, many of whom serve in the CDC itself or go on to become leaders in state health departments. The type of expertise required to handle public health emergencies and threats cannot be developed “on the fly”. We do not just expect people to wake up and become doctors, lawyers or engineers. These types of vocations take skill, time and often require years of advanced schooling. Without formal training in important fellowship programs like the EIS, the United States may encounter a long-term deficit of qualified public health professionals who are specifically trained in investigating diseases.
Compromise Data Analysis
Maxiphoto iStock / Getty Images Plus
EIS personnel play a vital role in gathering and interpreting scientific data, which often informs public health policy and the allocation of life-saving resources. With fewer manpower and resources, the quality and timeliness of data may be hindered, resulting in suboptimal responses to health threats. Science thrives through evidence-based data and evidence-based interventions.
We live in an era where misinformation and disinformation run rampant, particularly with the ease at which it spreads through social media. It is critical now, more than ever, that EIS officers have the support of the U.S. government to gather, interpret and make important decisions based on scientific data.
Increased Healthcare Costs
Image attribution: healthpolicy.usc.edu
Despite the intention for these layoffs to reduce costs, firing CDC workers and particularly EIS personnel can actually paradoxically increase costs.
What happens when there is a potential infectious disease outbreak that results in significant transmission across the population? This may necessitate more emergency room visits, more physicians working long hours to care for patients and more life-saving interventions that would need to be implemented. All of this costs money due to hospitalizations and treatments. Keeping the CDC and EIS personnel fully staffed can actually reduce costs in the long-run by early detection and prevention of many potential public health threats.
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One thing is clear from the careless, blunt force efforts of President Trump, Elon Musk, and our new Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
Cheriss May / The New York Times
It is faster to break things than to build things, and it is easy to destroy things you do not understand or value.
Elections have consequences. We are one month into the second Trump administration, and he is doing exactly what he said he would.
AMERICAN MEDICAL ASSOCIATION 2025 OUTSTANDING GOVERNMENT SERVICE AWARD
Photo courtesy of the American Medical Association
This week, I was honored to receive an Outstanding Government Service Award from the American Medical Association.
Given the context and the political environment just described, it was deeply humbling, and I can only hope to deserve this recognition by continuing to commit myself to the work that lies ahead. In my remarks, I noted:
Photo courtesy of the American Medical Association
“One of the most important things you learn from a career in medicine is that while some things are in your control…most things are not.
But it’s how you approach the things you can control that make the difference for your patients.
You can control how much work you put in.
You can control how much you learn, and how hard you try to get better.
You can control the way you take care of people, the way you tackle problems, and to some degree you can control the settings in which you want to be part of that solution.
And so that’s why, in this moment, I’d like to exhort everyone in this room to take a deep breath, dig deep, and endeavor to do…a little bit more.
Our patients need us to do a little bit more.
Because public service is how we take care of our patients outside the four walls of the hospital.
Public service is how we take care of the patients who might not be able to get to the hospital at all.
And public service is the purest manifestation of the motivation that brought you to medicine in the first place.
What did each of us say in our interviews, when, five hundred years ago, we were applying to medical school?
‘I want to help people.’
We can’t control everything. We can’t even control most things.
But we can control what we do, we can control how hard we try, and we can control how we use our time, effort, and training for good.
Even when that work gets hard.”
Thank you in particular to my friend and mentor Congresswoman Lucy McBath, who nominated me for this honor. It’s a privilege to work with you in this fight for a healthier Georgia.
2025 BILL TRACKER
The House Republican majority passed a rule this year limiting us to sponsoring ten bills per year. (This includes resolutions, though not privileged resolutions, which are largely ceremonial. You can learn more about the specific types of legislation we file in my pre-session Town Hall here.)
As of this week, I have filed seven bills for the 2025 session. Let’s go through them in brief and see where they are in the process.
C.S. Mott Children’s Hospital, University of Michigan Health
HB 1: The Pediatric Health Safe Storage Act. This bipartisan bill requires that any firearm that could be accessed by a minor be stored securely, e.g. in a gun safe or with a similar device. Failure to do so would constitute a high and aggravated misdemeanor. (Assigned to the House Committee on Public Safety and Homeland Security. Awaiting a hearing.)
HB 2: The Safe Storage Tax Credit Act. This bill offers an up to $300 tax credit for purchase of safe storage equipment, e.g. a gun safe or a similar device. This is intended as a companion piece of legislation to HB 1. (Assigned to the House Ways and Means Committee. Awaiting a hearing.)
HB 3: Universal Background Checks. At present all individuals buying guns through federally licensed gun dealers need to go through a background check, which precludes convicted felons, people with serious mental health histories, convicted domestic violence offenders, among others, from easily buying a gun. This bill would close the loophole on this background check process by including private gun sales and transfers. (Assigned to the House Committee on Public Safety and Homeland Security. Awaiting a hearing.)
HB 4: Waiting periods for new gun purchases. This bill requires a three day waiting period for new gun purchases. Of note, Florida has a similar 3 day waiting period, which it passed in 2018 as part of a larger gun safety reform package. A version of this bill was first dropped in 2021, after the Atlanta Spa Shootings, in which a gunman purchased a firearm that morning, and by that evening had used it to murder eight people. (Assigned to the House Committee on Public Safety and Homeland Security. Awaiting a hearing.)
Getty Images
HB 83: Raising the state tobacco tax. Georgia has the second lowest tobacco tax in the nation. The national average tax for a pack of cigarettes is $1.97. In Georgia, the tax for a pack of cigarettes is 37 cents. This bipartisan bill would raise the tax to 57 cents, or one cent per cigarette. The revenue generated would then be reinvested into the public health system to treat or prevent smoking related disease. The primary goal of this bill, however, is to disincentivize smoking, particularly for younger people. (Assigned to the House Ways and Means Committee. Awaiting a hearing.)
HB 84: Raising the state vaping tax. This is a similar bipartisan bill with an analogous rationale, which proposes to raise the state vaping tax from 7% to 15% by unit volume. (Assigned to the House Ways and Means Committee. Awaiting a hearing.)
Medline Plus: https://medlineplus.gov/opioidsandopioidusedisorderoud.html
HB 326: The Nonopioid Coverage Parity Act. This bipartisan bill requires insurance companies like the State Health Benefit Plan to cover non-opioid pain treatments at rates no less favorable than the rates at which they cover opioid medications. This would help address practitioner prescription habit bias towards treatments that may be newer and come with less patient risk for opioid dependence and addiction. (Assigned to the House Health Committee. Awaiting a hearing.)
You may notice something interesting in this bill tracker, which is that none of my bills have been given a hearing yet, the first step in the legislative process allowing a bill to progress. Sadly, this is common for bills authored by members of the minority party, as the majority holds every lever of power in state government.
However, given that we are set to hear bills next week to designate cornbread the official state bread, and to designate Brunswick stew as the official state stew, I am hoping that at least some of my bills will also earn some attention and deliberation as we try to improve lives here in Georgia.
Click here to access the HB 1 Advocacy Toolkit
My priority bill is HB 1, the Pediatric Health Safe Storage Act. If you would like a quick start guide on how to help advocate for this bill, either remotely or in person, check out our HB1 Advocacy Toolkit here.
UPCOMING EVENTS
APALACHEE STUDENTS AND FAMILIES RETURN TO THE CAPITOL 2/19
Watch full video from Atlanta News First here
Two weeks ago, students and families from Apalachee High School and Barrow County came to the Capitol imploring lawmakers to make substantive gun safety reform a part of the Republican-led school safety efforts. While the Republicans have proposed an app for anonymous reporting of threats and better data sharing between schools, any measures directly related to gun violence prevention was lacking.
Their request was simple. They would like HB 1, the Pediatric Health Safe Storage Act, to be heard and voted on this year. Recall that the shooter at Apalachee High School, the deadliest school shooting in Georgia’s history, was only 14 years old when he gained access to a firearm and used it to murder four people and injure nine more.
The students and families at Apalachee are demanding action on gun violence. Two weeks after their first trip to the Capitol, they will be back to check on our work.
Join us on Wednesday, February 19th at 1:00 pm for a press event at the South Steps, where these families will speak and check whether their thoughts and prayers for us to act have worked.
HONORING JOHN AND KAY SUTTLES
Click here to RSVP for this event
Residents of House District 50 and beyond are welcome to join us at the Georgia State Capitol on Thursday, February 20th as we honor the Johns and Kay Suttles of Johns Creek with a House Resolution commending their work!
On March 7, 1965, when he was just 16 years old, Mr. John Suttles joined John Lewis and many others to cross the Edmund Pettus Bridge on their march in Selma, Alabama, a historic event which came to be known as Bloody Sunday. He has lived his life since then as a leading educator on civil rights, voting access, and the long arc of history as it bends towards justice.
1965 Spider Martin
John and his wife Kay are well known in Johns Creek, where they continue to teach high school students about the role they can play in fighting for the future we want to see. Please join us as we honor their life and legacy in The People’s House during Black History Month!
NEXT GOLD DOME BLOOD DRIVE 3/13 HIGHLIGHTS SICKLE CELL DISEASE AWARENESS
I’m proud to announce that we will be sponsoring our next Gold Dome Blood Drive in partnership with my good friend Rep. Omari Crawford!
Rep. Crawford has long been a champion for education, research, and treatment for sickle cell disease, which affects more than 100,000 patients in the United States. Of note, Georgia is one of the states with the highest prevalence of sickle cell disease, and we had the highest rate of SCD the highest number of SCD-affected newborns from 2016–2020.
Patients with sickle cell often need transfusions in crisis. Please plan to donate on Thursday, March 13th and be a sickle cell hero!
TEAM AU IN ACTION
PATIENT CENTERED PHYSICIAN COALITION ADVOCACY DAY AT THE CAPITOL
Wonderful to see so many of our friends from the Patient Centered Physician Coalition at their Advocacy Day at the Capitol this week!
This group of primary care physicians have always been incredible allies for helping us to advance some of our public health, patient-centered legislative priorities, and I was pleased to talk with them about our state tobacco tax bill, our opioid risk mitigation efforts, and to enlist their support in advancing our safe gun storage legislation!
Thank you all for your help!
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ASIAN STUDENT ALLIANCE
Here at Team Au we always make time for students, and we were so pleased this week to speak with members of the Asian Student Alliance during their Day at the Capitol!
These young Georgians had questions about conservation and affordable housing. They also had some concerns about the blatantly unconstitutional efforts of the Trump administration to repeal birthright citizenship via Executive Order.
Representing a district with many, many immigrant families, it’s difficult not to feel disheartened by the blunt and careless anti-immigrant attacks our current President continues to spew out every day. However, the energy and engagement of our youth gives me hope that a more reasoned future lies ahead.
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It has never been more important to pay attention to the work of state legislatures. Thank you as ever for your support so that we can keep doing this most important work together.
As always, please do not hesitate to reach out to our office should you need any assistance, or if you have any concerns you’d like me to address on your behalf.
It is my honor to be your voice in the Georgia House of Representatives.
In service,
