Category: CDC

Dr. Mandy Cohen’s first year as Director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention


23 July 2024 

PROFILE  Mandy Cohn: public health advocate and CDC director

“My North Star has been about building healthier communities”, Dr. Cohen said. “Sometimes that’s about access to doctors and hospitals and sometimes that’s about larger issues, and how we build healthier communities where we live, work, play, and pray.” That goal has motivated Cohen throughout her career. “I loved being a physician, but I’m always thinking about the broader context in which my patients live.” [Full article here.]

 

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US plan to shield science from “inappropriate influence”

Volume 401, Issue 10375
11 February 2023 

 

WORLD REPORT  The Biden administration is launching a new initiative on scientific integrity in federal agencies following multiple lapses. Susan Jaffe reports from Washington, DC.

Just a week after Joe Biden was sworn in as president in January, 2021, he created a multi-agency Task Force on Scientific Integrity to restore “trust in government through scientific integrity and evidence-based policy making”…Last month, the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy released A Framework for Federal Scientific Integrity and Practice, a follow-up to the task force’s 2022 recommendations that provides a blueprint for implementation. [Continued here.] …

US CDC begins agency-wide changes after pandemic failures

Volume 400, Issue 10365
19 November 2022 

 

WORLD REPORT  An independent review made several recommendations for improving the public health agency. Susan Jaffe reports from Washington, DC.

The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is on a mission to reorganise and modernise itself, so that its mistakes during the pandemic will not happen again. The aim is to make the nation’s leading disease detective more nimble and accountable, and fortify its role as public health protector. But although some changes have been made, progress will be limited without support from Congress. [Continued here.] 
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Califf takes the helm at the US FDA, again

Volume 399, Issue 10330
19 March 2022 

WORLD REPORT   Robert Califf will have to face several controversial health issues in his second tenure as commissioner. Susan Jaffe reports from Washington, DC.  

Califf takes over amid a lull in the COVID-19 pandemic and an array of hotly debated issues 9 months before a congressional election. The
election results could shrink, if not eliminate, the Democratic majority President Joe Biden needs to propel his health agenda, including the relaunched cancer moonshot and the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health that would accelerate the development of medical treatments. [Plus new COVID-19 tests and treatments, opioid misuse, accelerated approval process, abortion pill conflict, continued here.] 
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The next steps for US vaccine mandates

Volume 399, Issue 10323
28 January 2022 

 

WORLD REPORT   As the Supreme Court blocks one of the Biden Administration’s plans to raise COVID-19 vaccination rates but approves another, Susan Jaffe looks at the next steps.

President Joe Biden’s efforts to encourage the most reluctant Americans to get fully vaccinated against COVID-19 have hit one legal roadblock after another. About one in four adults have still not received either the two-dose or single regimen of the vaccine, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. However, the path to greater vaccination uptake is shrinking as federal courts muddy his Administration’s pro-vaccine message, cases of infection driven by the Omicron variant continue to rise in many parts of the country, and the president’s popularity ratings fall. …In the first of two rulings on Jan 13, the Supreme Court decided 6–3 to block the Biden Administration’s mandate for private companies with more than 100 employees to require weekly COVID-19 tests for employees who have not been fully vaccinated. ,,,Yet in a pair of lawsuits the court heard along with the employer mandate cases, the court came to the opposite conclusion. In a 5–4 decision, they upheld the Biden Administration’s requirement of vaccination for 10·4 million workers at 76 000 health-care facilities that treat patients covered by the government’s Medicare or Medicaid health insurance.[Continued here.] 

 

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New 9/11 casualties strain health-care programme

Volume 398, Issue 10304
11 September 2021

 

On this 20th anniversary of the September 11th attacks, first-responder Terence Opiola won’t be attending any memorial events. “I’ll go to church and pray that people remember and understand that it’s not over,” he said. “We’re losing people every week.”

Now a funding shortfall threatens the World Trade Center Health Program, which provides free medical monitoring and treatment for Opiola and increasing numbers of other 9/11 survivors and first responders.  [Full story here.]…

Biden’s first legislative victory: $1·9 trillion for COVID-19

Volume 397, Issue 10279
20 March 2021

WORLD REPORT US President Joe Biden’s first legislative triumph will fund the COVID-19 response and economic recovery, and address social determinants of health. Susan Jaffe reports from Washington, DC. 

By narrowly approving a massive COVID-19 response and economic relief package last week, Democrats in Congress handed President Joe Biden his first legislative victory after only 50 days in the White House. The US$1·9 trillion, 628-page, American Rescue Plan Act is a signature achievement so monumental that it has been compared to President Lyndon B Johnson’s sweeping Great Society legislation that raised many Americans out of poverty, with a safety net of social and health services, including the Medicare and Medicaid insurance programmes.

…As the government begins to roll out these benefits, Biden promised “fastidious oversight to make sure there’s no waste or fraud, and the law does what it’s designed to do. And I mean it: we have to get this right… because we have to continue to build confidence in the American people that their government can function for them and deliver.” [Full story with “where the money goes” sidebar here.]

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What Happens to Nursing Home Workers Who Missed COVID-19 Vaccinations?

by Susan Jaffe | AARP | March 26, 2021

COVID-19 has rampaged through nursing homes and other long-term-care facilities, leaving a death toll near 180,000 and counting. So when the first coronavirus vaccines became available at the end of last year, nursing home residents and staff were first in line, given top priority along with emergency responders and health care providers.

The federal government paid CVS and Walgreens to offer three vaccination clinics for residents and staff at nearly every nursing home in the U.S. That effort, called the Pharmacy Partnership for Long-Term Care Program, wraps up this month.  So how do new nursing home residents and workers who missed the onsite clinics get vaccinated now? For residents, plans are in the works to make sure they get the shots. But so far, many of those plans don’t include the staff members who care for them. [Continued here.]…

New leadership at the US CDC

Volume 397, Issue 10270
16 January 2021

 

WORLD REPORT Rochelle Walensky, an infectious diseases expert, promises to provide transparency, accountability, and restored trust at the embattled organisation. Susan Jaffe reports from Washington, DC.  [Full story here.]

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Rochelle Walensky: New Director of the US CDC

Volume 397, Issue 10271 
14 January 2021
PROFILE  Rochelle Walensky 

A highly respected researcher, Walensky has published nearly 300 papers, many focused on the cost-effectiveness of HIV interventions and aimed at improving patients’ care. “I call the research that I do policy motivating”, Walensky says. One example is a 2006 landmark study showed that advances in HIV treatment in the USA added nearly 3 million years to patients’ lives.[Full story here.]…

US election 2020: research and health institutions

Volume 396, Number 10259

24 October 2020

 

WORLD REPORT   How will the NIH, CDC, and FDA change if President Donald Trump wins a second term or if his Democratic challenger, Joe Biden, defeats him? Susan Jaffe reports from Washington, DC. 

Whoever wins the presidency needs to “restore the CDC and improve it by letting [scientists] know that they will have an opportunity to do the best science and make the best recommendations…” says James Curran, dean of the Rollins School of Public Health at Emory University in Atlanta. [Continued here.]…

US election 2020: public health

Volume 396, Number 10256

3 October 2020

 

WORLD REPORT   In the race for the White House, where do US President Donald Trump and his Democratic challenger, former Vice President Joe Biden, stand on public health? Susan Jaffe reports from Washington, DC. 

Analyzing the candidates’ plans to address the opioid epidemic, gun violence, women’s health, global health and COVID-19.

Unlike more conventional presidential candidates, Trump does not intend to issue formal policy proposals or position papers. With less than 5 weeks remaining before the election, his campaign says he will share “details about his plans through policy-focused speeches on the campaign trail”. …Joe Biden’s campaign has released a total of 51 policy proposals outlining how he will accomplish his goals if he wins in November. [Continued here.]…

Media reports reveal political interference at the US CDC

Volume 396, Number 10255

26 September 2020

 

WORLD REPORT  News accounts say that Trump administration officials wanted to edit and approve COVID-19 studies and publish guidance without the usual scientific review. Susan Jaffe reports.

After news stories about attempts by members of the Trump administration to manipulate COVID-19 reports published by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and over-rule its scientists, one top official is taking a sudden leave of absence for health reasons. Another’s government contract has abruptly ended. The 2-month absence of Michael Caputo, chief spokesman for the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), comes after he claimed that a CDC “resistance unit” seeks to undermine Trump. He and an adviser reportedly demanded the right to revise and approve COVID-19 studies published in the CDC’s highly respected Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report journal.  [Continued here.]…

Coronavirus Stresses Nursing Home Infection-Control Practices

I-TEAM IN-DEPTH   |    CONNECTICUT HEALTH INVESTIGATIVE TEAM   |  MARCH 12,2020

As coronavirus cases increase, posing heightened risks to the elderly, nursing homes will face growing scrutiny from state health inspectors.

In Connecticut and nationally, complying with federal infection-control requirements is a challenge for some nursing homes. Between 2017 and 2019, 145 of Connecticut’s 217 nursing homes – or about 67 percent – were cited for infection-control violations, according to a Conn. Health I-Team analysis of data from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS). [Continued here, with list of nursing home infection violations.]

 

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Decisions to be made on US gun violence research funds

Volume 395       Number 10222     8 February 2020   
WORLD REPORT  The National Institutes of Health and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention will decide how to spend new federal funds later this year. Susan Jaffe reports from Washington, DC.
After a hiatus of more than two decades, Congress and President Donald Trump agreed to add funding for gun violence research to the federal budget in December. With grants expected to be awarded in September, the priorities for research and its potential impact are crucial for halting the US’s record-breaking gun-related death toll. [Continued here.]   
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Will Trump snuff out e-cigarettes?

Volume 394       Number 10213     30 November 2019   
WORLD REPORT President Trump promised to ban flavoured e-cigarettes, but 11 weeks later, they are still on the shelves. Susan Jaffe reports from Washington. 
When US President Donald Trump announced a plan on Sept 11 to prohibit the sale of most flavoured electronic cigarettes, more than 450 people in the USA had a mysterious lung disease associated with vaping, and six had died, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The ban would be finalised within 30 days, said Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar.
The number of cases of the lung disease has since soared to 2290, as of Nov 20, in 49 states, Washington, DC, and the US Virgin Islands. 47 e-cigarette smokers (vapers) have died, according to the CDC. However, as this report went to press, officials from the Trump administration would not disclose when the promised ban would be issued.
…The decision [to implement] a nationwide ban is up to President Trump. “It is a chain of command”, said Robert Califf, a professor of cardiology at Duke University School of Medicine and the FDA commissioner under Trump and former President Barack Obama. “The commissioner reports to the Secretary of Health and Human Services [HHS]and the secretary reports to the president. FDA policies are de facto policies of the Executive Branch, so if the HHS secretary or president chooses to do so, they can intercede.”  [Continued here]  
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Doctors arrested in US crackdown on illegal opioids

Volume 393, Number 10182      

27 April 2019       

 

WORLD REPORT   The multiagency operation hit five states and led to the arrest of 60 people. Perpetrators face up to
50 years’ prison sentence if found guilty. Susan Jaffe reports.

Arrests of 31 doctors, pharmacists, and other health care professionals for allegedly prescribing and distributing illegal opioids affected some 28,000 of their patients. That’s why Department of Justice officials are working with state health departments, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Department of Health and Human Services to help patients by “… bringing enforcement and [opioid addiction] treatment closer together…than ever before,” says Benjamin Glassman, the US attorney for the southern district of Ohio. [Continued here.]
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USA sets goal to end the HIV epidemic in a decade

Volume 393, Number 10172   

16 February 2019       

 

WORLD REPORT   The unexpected announcement in the State of the Union address could set the start of a realistic agenda to end HIV/AIDS in the USA, provided funds are secured. Susan Jaffe reports.

Nearly an hour into his 90 min State of the Union address, President Donald Trump called for a government-run health-care programme “to eliminate the HIV epidemic in the United States within 10 years”.

Although the president has promised to get rid of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) along with its health insurance marketplaces and Medicaid expansion, these and other policies did not appear to dampen his enthusiasm. [Continued here.]…

Funding redirected to pay for immigrant detention centres

 Volume 392, Number 10157   

27 October 2018

 

WORLD REPORT   A plan to expand immigrant children detention centres requires money from medical research and
health programmes. Susan Jaffe, The Lancet‘s Washington correspondent, reports.

Trump administration officials told congressional leaders last month it will transfer as much as US$466 million from cancer research, meals for older adults, preschool for toddlers, HIV/AIDS prevention, and other initiatives that are central to the agency’s mission to protect Americans’ health. “These transfers are only a temporary solution to the sad consequence of a broken immigration system”, said HHS Deputy Secretary Eric Hargan. [Continued here.]
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Gun violence research in the USA: the CDC’s impasse

Volume 391, Number 10139   

 23 June 2018

 

WORLD REPORT   Months after the Trump Administration said that there is no ban on gun violence studies, the CDC still lacks the funding to proceed. Susan Jaffe, The Lancet‘s Washington correspondent, reports.

…Appeals for immediate federal action to make schools and communities safer have so far largely gone unanswered. And legislative efforts languish in Congress, as the chairman of a key congressional committee that oversees federal health programmes has so far resisted requests by its Democratic members to hold hearings on preventing gun violence [continued here].…

No barrier to CDC research on gun violence—except funding

Susan Jaffe | Washington Correspondent for The Lancet | 28th March 2018

    A day after the horrific mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida on February 14, where 17 students and faculty were murdered and 14 injured, Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar fielded budget questions from a congressional committee. In response to Representative Kathy Castor, a Democrat from Tampa, Florida, Azar said there is no restriction on the ability of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to conduct research into the causes of gun violence.

Questions about CDC’s ability to investigate gun violence—as it

“March for Our Lives” rally in Washington, D. C. March 24, 2018. (Photo/Susan Jaffe)

would other public health threats—have persisted ever since Congress passed the 1996 Dickey Amendment prohibiting the use of research funds to advocate or promote gun control.

“We don’t believe that it gets in the way of our ability to do violence research or firearms violence research at any part of HHS,” Azar told another congressional panel a month later.  “I think we’ve now made it quite publicly—and within the administration—clear that we don’t see any barriers around violence or firearm violence research.  We’re in the evidence and science-gathering business.”

His assurances were also included in the instructions that accompanied the budget agreement Congress approved and President Donald Trump signed into law last week. While some observers believe this means CDC has permission from Congress to proceed, some leading experts in firearms research are skeptical.  There may be no barriers, but they say there’s no funding either.[Continued here]  …

CDC faces leadership changes, potential spending cuts

Volume 391, Number 10121   
17 February 2018

 

WORLD REPORT   The CDC has indicated it will reduce its foreign presence, and proposed budget cuts make some fear its core functions are threatened. Susan Jaffe, The Lancet’s Washington correspondent, reports.

“We don’t know what the next outbreak organism will be; we don’t know where it will come from, or when it will emerge”, [former CDC director Dr. Tom] Frieden said. “But we are 100% certain there will be a next one and if we are not better prepared than we were during Ebola, shame on us.”  [Full article here.]

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After a weekend of negotiations and demonstrations, shutdown disrupts health agencies

Susan Jaffe | Washington Correspondent for The Lancet | 22nd January 2018

On the first anniversary of Donald Trump’s inauguration as the 45th president of the United States on January 20, 2018, the federal government ground to a shutdown and hundreds of thousands of women and their supporters rallied against the new president in dozens of cities across the country. [Continued here.]  

 

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Trump administration begins to confront the opioid crisis

 Volume 390, Number 10108   
11 November 2017

 

WORLD REPORT    As the Presidential Commission releases its recommendations, Trump moves closer to defining his policies against the opioid epidemic  Susan Jaffe, The Lancet’s Washington correspondent, reports.  

“Having failed to recognise how this epidemic was going to grow in proportion and take vigorous enough action, we need to be willing to be far more vigorous so we don’t continue with that mistake,” said Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Scott Gottlieb.   [full story here]

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Science appointments in the USA

  Volume 389, Number  10088
    24 June 2017

WORLD REPORT    Slow appointments and vacant positions in federal agencies challenge the stability of research in the USA.   Susan Jaffe, The Lancet’s Washington correspondent, reports.  

     As President Donald Trump rolls out his domestic agenda, his proposed budget cuts and lingering vacancies in key federal agencies have rattled some people in the biomedical research and science community.
     “This has been the most anxious time in science that I have seen in this country”, said Rush Holt, chief operating officer at the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), which represents 250 scientific societies and academies serving 10 million members. Holt cited a litany of reasons: “fake news” that distorts science, “policy making based on wishful thinking rather than evidence, funding proposals that are nonsensical, and unfilled positions in government agencies”.  [Continued here]  

 

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