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Undated: The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is the leading national public health institute of the United States. The CDC is a United States federal agency under the Department of Health and Human Services and is headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia.[1]
Its main goal is to protect public health and safety through the control and prevention of disease, injury, and disability in the US and internationally.[2] The CDC focuses national attention on developing and applying disease control and prevention. It especially focuses its attention on infectious disease, food borne pathogens, environmental health, occupational safety and health, health promotion, injury prevention and educational activities designed to improve the health of United States citizens. In addition, the CDC researches and provides information on non-infectious diseases such as obesity and diabetes and is a founding member of the International Association of National Public Health Institutes.[3]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centers_for_Disease_Control_and_Prevention
-- 2017 --
January 18: Trump’s CDC May Face Serious Hurdles
The nation’s public health agency is battling on several fronts, including an Obamacare repeal
In the past seven and a half years ... the CDC has been roiled by crises including government furloughs, H1N1 flu, lab safety issues and the U.S. responses to Ebola and the Haiti earthquake. The agency is also still in emergency mode as it confronts the mosquito-borne Zika virus and its related birth defects. And the hits are likely to keep on coming.
The CDC will struggle to deal with emerging threats because it does not have the cash or power to respond immediately in a crisis.... “There’s a need to establish a rapid-response fund for emergencies that has both dollars and emergency authority" ... “It’s a big problem that when there is an emerging threat, we are not able to surge as rapidly or work as rapidly as we should, because of lack of money and legislative authority. When there is an earthquake, FEMA doesn’t have to go to Congress and say, ‘Will you give us money for this?’ but CDC does.”
Any CDC director, as the face of public health, will also have to be a capable advocate for global health–funding investments. Staving off disasters around the world is the only way to protect the U.S., says Amy Pope, deputy homeland security adviser to Pres. Barack Obama. “Pandemics don’t know borders. This is not something we can solve by shoring up our borders,” she said at a public event earlier this month at Georgetown University Medical Center. “The best way to protect our homeland is to make investments around the world,” because we only know about threats if our partners around the world have the capacity to detect, respond to and control threats, she said, adding that when it comes to pandemics, plans and prior infrastructure must be in place because “we don’t have a lot of time for bureaucracy.”
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/trump-rsquo-s-cdc-may-face-serious-hurdles/
January 23: The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention quietly canceled a climate change summit scheduled for next month in Atlanta, according to E&E News, a trade publication for energy and environment professionals. The news comes a few days after Donald Trump, who wants to roll back Obama’s environmental policies, was sworn in as president.
Those scheduled to speak at the conference received an email saying the summit was canceled, according to E&E News, which obtained a copy of the email. "We are currently exploring options so that the Summit may take place later in the year," CDC officials wrote. The Verge confirmed that the summit was canceled through the American Public Health Association (APHA), one of the organizations that partnered with the CDC for the conference.
The summit’s cancellation did not surprise some former CDC directors, who told E&E News that the agency has a history of backing down from certain issues for fear of political reprisal. President Trump, who’s called climate change a “hoax” and appointed a climate change denier as the head of the Environmental Protection Agency, vowed to dismantle Obama’s environmental policies meant to lower greenhouse gas emissions.
It’s likely that CDC officials see climate change as "not an immediately winnable battle" under the new administration,
https://www.theverge.com/2017/1/23/14356968/cdc-climate-change-summit-canceled-trump-inauguration
-- 2018 --
January 31: Trump administration appoints acting CDC director
Anne Schuchat has been tapped to lead the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention following the resignation of the former director Wednesday.
Dr. Brenda Fitzgerald resigned from the role after Politico reported that she had invested in tobacco stocks after becoming the agency's director.
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/trump-administration-appoints-acting-cdc-director
January 31: The truth about those 7 words 'banned' at the CDC
Media reports last month that the Trump administration banned officials at the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention from using seven words may have been overstated, according to a government document obtained by CNN and interviews with two officials.
According to stories widely reported in the media, CDC leaders told employees that in official documents being prepared for the budget, they were forbidden to use words such as "diversity", "vulnerable" and "transgender."
The response was immediate, intense and viral.
They describe not a ban or prohibition on words but rather suggestions on how to improve the chances of getting funding.
"Nobody ever told them they couldn't use these seven words. It was just said, 'if you think these words would cause someone to jump to a conclusion, then use a substitute. But if there isn't a good substitute, then go ahead and use the word,' " said one of the officials.
https://www.cnn.com/2018/01/11/health/cdc-word-ban-hhs-document/index.html
March: Disgraced CDC Director Joins Ranks of Most Ethically Challenged Trump Appointees
With the rampant disregard for ethics within President Donald Trump’s administration, competition is fierce for the award for most egregious financial conflicts of interest among his executive branch political appointees and senior advisers. But within the public health arena, former Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) director Brenda Fitzgerald became the leading contender after the stunning disclosure — first reported by Politico on Jan. 30 — that she had purchased stock in a tobacco company after taking the helm of the agency. Within hours of the revelation, Fitzgerald was forced to resign from her post.
As the nation’s leading public health agency, the CDC is charged with saving lives and protecting people from health threats. A major focus of the agency in fulfilling this mission is preventing and reducing tobacco use — the leading cause of preventable disease and death in the U.S. Having a CDC leader invest in tobacco company stocks is strikingly incompatible with that charge.
https://www.citizen.org/our-work/health-and-safety/outrage-month-disgraced-cdc-director-joins-ranks-most-ethically-challenged-trump-appointees
May 13: Why Trump's new CDC director is an abysmal choice
The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has a new boss, Dr. Robert Redfield, who ignited controversy because of his dubious qualifications for the job and the over-the-top salary offer that came with it. Initially slated to earn $375,000 a year, Redfield faced questions from Democrats, led by Sen. Patty Murray of Washington, and last week agreed to work for $209,700 instead.
His salary offer was legally permitted under Title 42 -- meant to help attract top-flight scientists who might not otherwise be interested in the job. But this was not the case with the University of Maryland researcher: Redfield actively sought the CDC leadership position, and was vetted by the George W. Bush administration--though rejected for the post.
Redfield's early engagement with the AIDS epidemic in the US in the 1980s and 90s was controversial. As an Army major at Walter Reed Medical Institute, he designed policies for controlling the disease within the US military that involved placing infected personnel in quarantine and investigating their pasts to identify and track possible sexual partners. Soldiers were routinely discharged and left to die of AIDS, humiliated and jobless, often abandoned by their families.
https://www.cnn.com/2018/05/13/opinions/trumps-terrible-choice-for-cdc-redfield-garrett/index.html
May 18: Trump’s CDC to roll back LGBT health data collection
https://www.washingtonblade.com/2018/05/18/trumps-cdc-to-rollback-lgbt-health-data-collection-report/
August 24: Former CDC director Dr. Tom Frieden arrested on sexual misconduct allegations
Frieden, who stepped down as head of the federal agency when Trump took office, is accused of forcibly touching at least one woman.
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/former-cdc-director-dr-tom-frieden-arrested-sexual-misconduct-allegations-n903586
October 23: The director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Tuesday suggested a Trump administration proposal that would define someone’s sex at birth risked heightening stigma around transgender people.
The director, Robert Redfield, did not directly criticize the proposal. But when asked whether any such effort might hamper efforts to treat HIV, especially among transgender women, he replied: “We need to understand that stigmatizing illness, stigmatizing individuals is not in the interest of public health.”
https://www.statnews.com/2018/10/23/cdc-director-on-trump-transgender-proposal/
October 26: Trump officials have barred health experts from helping end one of the worst Ebola outbreaks in history
“There’s a fear of a Benghazi-type situation, that Americans might be targeted.”
One of the largest Ebola outbreaks in history shows no signs of slowing — and the Trump administration barred US health experts who want to help at the outbreak’s epicenter in the Democratic Republic of Congo from traveling there.
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention officials were working in Beni, the city that’s ground zero for the outbreak in eastern DRC, for a few days in late August and early September. Experts say that’s an unusually short period of time for infectious disease responses; CDC deployments usually last at least four weeks, and many run for several months.
But then the White House’s National Security Council (NSC) coordinated a government review of the security risks, involving representatives from multiple government agencies and departments. The review determined that CDC officials could not return to areas where militant attacks threaten security, including Beni. Stat News first reported on October 14 that the US had pulled out of the area.
https://www.vox.com/2018/10/25/18015780/ebola-outbreak-2018-drc-congo-security-trump-cdc
-- 2019 --
February 27: CDC data confirm: Progress in HIV prevention has stalled
The dramatic decline in annual HIV infections has stopped and new infections have stabilized in recent years, according to a CDC report published today.
The report provides the most recent data on HIV trends in America from 2010 to 2016. It shows that after about five years of substantial declines, the number of HIV infections began to level off in 2013 at about 39,000 infections per year.
“Now is the time for our Nation to take bold action. We strongly support President Trump’s plan to end the HIV epidemic in America,” said CDC Director Robert R. Redfield, M.D. “We must move beyond the status quo to end the HIV epidemic in America.”
https://www.cdc.gov/media/releases/2019/0227-hiv-prevention-stalled.html
March 14: House lawmakers who will write the next spending bill for federal medical programs criticized the Trump administration's bid to cut the budgets of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
https://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/910374
March 14: Trump’s Plan to Cut CDC Funding Likely Blocked by Senate Panel
Senators who hold the purse strings for health dollars will shield the CDC from major cuts proposed by the Trump administration.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention would see a nearly $1.3 billion cut to its discretionary funds in fiscal year 2020 to $5.28 billion from $6.56 billion under the Trump administration’s 2020 budget request. It’s part of a White House plan to cull discretionary spending across the board
https://news.bloomberglaw.com/pharma-and-life-sciences/trumps-plan-to-cut-cdc-funding-likely-blocked-by-senate-panel
March 18: The Trump administration's newly revamped advisory council on HIV/AIDS last week passed its first resolution, in support of the administration's initiative to end the HIV epidemic in 10 years.
The resolution ... calls on the administration to work with Congress to ensure the initiative is sufficiently funded until it meets the goal of ending the HIV epidemic.
President Trump's budget requested $291 million toward that effort. The funding request includes $140 million for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) for testing and prevention while "directly supporting states and localities in the fight against HIV."
Even though resources would be directed towards reducing HIV domestically, the budget called for deep cuts to the National Institutes of Health and CDC as well as global HIV/AIDS prevention efforts. It also proposed slashing Medicaid funding and ending ObamaCare's Medicaid expansion.
A leading Democratic health group is launching a national ad campaign against vulnerable 2020 lawmakers for supporting what the group calls President Trump's "blatant hypocrisy on Medicare and Medicaid cuts."
https://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/overnights/434616-overnight-health-care-cdc-most-new-hiv-infections-come-from
March 19: CDC: One-third of uninsured can't afford to take drugs as prescribed
Report looked at ways people lowered their costs
https://www.clickondetroit.com/health/onethird-of-uninsured-cant-afford-to-take-drugs-as-prescribed-cdc-report-says
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