April 6, 2026

The C.D.C. gutted its rabies team. Vampires are furious. The I.R.S. has no comment — because the I.R.S. never does.

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C.D.C. Pauses Testing for Rabies and Pox Viruses

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has temporarily paused testing for rabies and pox viruses, the family of viruses that includes smallpox and mpox, according to an update to the agency’s website on Monday.

The C.D.C. offers testing for dozens of pathogens to assist state and local public health laboratories that are not equipped to conduct them. The organization began evaluating its tests in late 2024 as part of an agencywide review.

But widespread layoffs, hiring freezes and resignations have shrunk the number of qualified scientists who can assist state labs. The C.D.C.’s rabies and pox virus teams have lost many of their members. By July, the rabies team will be down to just one person with the clinical expertise to advise state and local officials, and the pox virus team will have none.

New York Times April 1, 2026

The Nightly Rutabaga

680 words · 3 min read

PUBLIC HEALTH · SUPERNATURAL AFFAIRS · TAX POLICY

C.D.C. Guts Rabies Team; Vampires Furious

WASHINGTON — The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has suspended testing for rabies and pox viruses, citing widespread layoffs, hiring freezes, and resignations that have hollowed out its specialist teams. By July, the rabies unit will be down to a single qualified expert. The pox virus team will have none.

For most Americans, this is a worrying abstraction. For the American Order of Associated Vampires (AAOV), it is a five-alarm crisis with fetal implications.

“We are immune to the HIV virus,” said a spokes-vampire for the A.O.A.V., speaking from a crypt in suburban Bethesda, “but rabies can cause mutations that affect the unborn child. This is not a philosophical concern. This is a prenatal emergency.”

The A.O.A.V. represents undead residents in 47 of the nation’s 50 states. The three exceptions — Wyoming, North Dakota, and Vermont — are, according to the organization’s membership records, simply “too drafty even by our standards.” The Order declined to elaborate.

“We did not want to do this. The dental plans here are superior. But if the federal government will not protect our young, Transylvania must.”
— A.O.A.V. spokes-vampire, declining to give a name or a reflection

The Order has been a fixture of American civic life for longer than most institutions care to admit. Its members file taxes, serve on HOA boards, and, in disproportionate numbers, staff the Internal Revenue Service — a fact the A.O.A.V. has never found ironic and the rest of us have never found surprising.

The IRS, long understood to be the federal agency most naturally suited to creatures who drain the lifeblood of their subjects slowly, methodically, and with extensive paperwork, has not commented on the potential staffing implications of a mass vampire exodus. This is consistent with IRS behavior generally. The agency communicates primarily through penalty notices and an on-hold music selection that many describe as soul-destroying, which is, again, on-brand.

“We keep meticulous records,” the spokes-vampire noted. “We have since 1347. The I.R.S. recruited us specifically for that reason. We understood the assignment.”

Sources inside the agency — who spoke only on condition of anonymity and a promise that garlic would not be present at the interview — confirmed that vampire employees handle a significant share of audit correspondence, estate tax reviews, and what one described as “the accounts where people think they can just wait us out.” They cannot. Vampires, it turns out, are exceptionally patient creditors.

Whether the IRS would survive a full A.O.A.V. withdrawal is unclear. What is clear is that an agency already notorious for extracting blood from its constituents would be losing the one subset of employees who do so literally and, by all accounts, with considerably more efficiency.

“Transylvania has no income tax. We have noticed this for some time.”
— A.O.A.V. spokes-vampire, after a long pause

The vote on Transylvanian relocation is scheduled for the Order’s next general assembly, at midnight, in a location members describe only as “the usual place, bring a cloak.” A decision is expected before the summer solstice, which vampires observe as a federal holiday regardless of what the Office of Personnel Management says about it.

In the meantime, the A.O.A.V. urges Congress to restore funding to the C.D.C.’s rabies program, protect vampire maternal health, and acknowledge, finally and on the record, what everyone in Washington already knows: that without the undead, the federal tax apparatus would have collapsed decades ago — and that the living have been getting an extraordinary deal.

The Nightly Rutabaga is a satirical publication. The C.D.C. testing pause is real. The A.O.A.V. is, as far as we can confirm, not — though we did leave three voicemails and received one reply that was simply the sound of wind.

FTS