Source: Disobedient Media

A groundbreaking March 2017 report from Slate revealed that newly released emails showed officials at the highest levels of the U.S. government were aware almost immediately that U.N. forces likely played a role in a cholera outbreak which may have killed tens of thousands. Multiple federal agencies, from national security officials to scientists on the front lines, shielded the United Nations from accountability to protect the organization and themselves. Obama’s U.N. ambassadors, Susan Rice and Samantha Power dodged the issue as the administration danced between often contradictory goals of protecting human rights, asserting American dominance, and defending an institution central to its multilateral diplomacy.

Slate’s report continued: “Six days later, a senior analyst in the CDC’s Global Disease Detection Operations Center emailed his colleagues with a less scientific concern. The CDC’s job was to provide front-line medical responders with field and lab research to back up their work. As a standard CDC reference paper put it: “When outbreaks of disease occur, there usually is an urgent need to identify the source and/or cause of the problem as a basis for control.”

CDC scientists in Atlanta were analyzing cholera samples at the time. “If the genomic data comes back indicating that this is true, we may want to have appropriate health [communication] materials ready,” Chitale wrote. “The last thing we would want is for Haitians to blame the UN soldiers in a pernicious way.”