So it was troubling to learn that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is planning to scale back efforts to prevent those very diseases. The CDC's actions come amid expectations that the U.S. will let lapse $600 million in funding to combat global outbreaks, which was appropriated in 2014 at the height of a catastrophic Ebola outbreak in West Africa. We cannot make the world safe from pandemic diseases by looking away after an emergency fades, nor by hoping that infectious diseases stay within the borders of far-away nations.