INTERNAL DISSENSION GROWS AT CDC
Rob Stein of the Washington Post on Sunday leads with:"The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is being roiled by internal dissension as the nation's top public health agency is facing such unprecedented threats as bioterrorism, a potential flu pandemic and the obesity epidemic, say current and former officials and several outside experts." Link Here to Article
He points to ".. the upheaval of a drawn-out restructuring, the departure of dozens of its most respected scientists, concerns about political interference and a pending budget cut of nearly $500 million" but focuses the "main source of unhappiness'" on the reorganization process known as The Futures Initiative [link] which "... has dragged on for nearly two years, leaving many employees exhausted, disillusioned and impatient." He also reports that local, state and National public officials worry that the reorganization is affecting their ability to work with the agency. Words like "crisis," "autocratic" and "unpredictable" appear throughout this 1/2 page story and I won't be surprised to see the story picked up by other media in the next few days. The tone of the article stands in marked contrast to the State of the CDC briefing given by Dr. Gerberding last month at the National Press Club.
The exits (or plans to) of an estimated 40 senior managers are also pointed to as a source of concern as are two other contextual elements: a perception that "political ideology is being substutited for science" and the FY 2006 budgets cuts proposed by the President. Link to the DHHS budget request (23 page pdf file) and a Table of all Federal programs that would either be terminated (the Youth Media Campaign, Preventive Health and Health Services Block Grants, Healthy Community Access Program) or receive major reductions in funding (state, local and hospital bioterrorism preparedness grants).
As Alfred Sommer, dean of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, said about all of this:"There's a very intense malaise and demoralization among the CDC staff. The CDC is our thin gray line when it comes to public health, and so you've got to be concerned."
Stay tuned.
3:35:49 PM 
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