Tag: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

CDC is “in the ICU right now” former officials say

Volume 406, Issue 10508
13 September 2025
WORLD REPORT  Senior officials say HHS Secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr is eviscerating the CDC. Washington Correspondent Susan Jaffe reports.    
The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) implosion was months in the making, senior officials tell The Lancet after they resigned in protest following the dismissal of CDC Director Susan Monarez by Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr. They describe a gutted agency so damaged that it might not be able to fulfil its core mission to protect Americans from public health threats.  An HHS spokeswoman called their comments “the gripes of disgruntled former employees.”  [Continued here.]
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Trump agenda ignites legal challenges

Volume 405, Issue 10477
8 February 2025 
WORLD REPORT  After just 3 weeks in the White House, US President Donald Trump’s executive orders have caused chaos and concern—and now, resistance. Susan Jaffe reports from Washington, DC.

“There’s nothing unusual about an executive order”, said Professor Emeritus Laurence Tribe, an expert in constitutional law at Harvard Law School. “What is unusual is for the President of the United States to say, ‘I can do anything I want, as long as I package it in an executive order. I can exercise not only the power to enforce the laws, which is basically what the executive branch does, but also the power to ignore law.’ ”  Lawsuits have been filed to block executive orders affecting federal funding, workforce protections, closing the US Agency for International Development, and information on government websites including the Center for Disease Control and Prevention.[Full article here, includes links to updates on legal actions and executive orders.]

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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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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.]…

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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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.]…

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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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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US global health leadership hangs on election result

lancet cover 2Volume 388, Number  10055 

22  October 2016 

WORLD REPORT   On most issues, the US presidential candidates have polar opposite views; engagement in global health is no different.  Susan Jaffe, The Lancet’s Washington correspondent, reports.

Americans will choose their next president in less than 3 weeks and yet some global health experts still wonder what would happen to the international health programmes that the USA has championed in recent decades if the Republican contender, Donald Trump, is elected. The uncertainty comes despite the Ebola virus and Zika virus threats that made global health front-page news.  [Continued here] …

Zika response threatened by funding shortage

Susan Jaffe | Washington Correspondent for The Lancet | 14 March 2016The Lancet USA blog logo

Congress hasn’t budged in the five weeks since President Barack Obama asked Congress for more than $1.8 billion in emergency funding to deal with the Zika virus. But Zika isn’t waiting.

In the weeks since the president’s request, the number of cases of the mosquito-borne virus among people who traveled to countries where transmission has been confirmed has almost quadrupled to 193, as of March 9. It is in nearly twice as many states — 32 and the District of Columbia — with Florida, New York and Texas topping the list. In Puerto Rico, the U. S. Virgin Islands, and American Samoa, the number of cases is 174, or 19 times higher, reports the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.  [continued here]  …

Congress Wrangles Over Funding for Zika Research

Susan Jaffe | Washington Correspondent for The Lancet | 12th February 2016

President Barack Obama asked Congress this week for more than $1.8 billion in emergency funding The Lancet USA blog logoto respond to Zika virus and administration officials wasted no time in explaining why at four congressional hearings less than two days later.

While such Capitol Hill visits are part of the budget process, the looming virus adds a new urgency to the proceedings–though not necessarily enough to deter controversy. [Continued here]…

US initiative for prediabetes

 

The Lancet Diabetes logo24 April 2015

IN FOCUS       Health officials in the USA want physicians to help to reduce diabetes by asking at-risk patients to join diabetes prevention programmes.  Susan Jaffe reports from Washington, DC.

“…Clinicians may be talking to patients about their elevated blood sugar, but if it isn’t diabetes, some do not take it very seriously”, Ann Albright, director of the CDC’s Division of Diabetes Translation, told The Lancet Diabetes & Endocrinology. “But the evidence is clear that the earlier you intervene, the greater the likelihood is of either preventing or delaying diabetes or, if someone already has diabetes, preventing or delaying the complications.”  [Continued: PDF ]…

US federal health agencies questioned over Ebola response

image Volume 384, Issue 9953, 25 October 2014

WORLD REPORT A congressional inquiry into the handling of Ebola in the USA has sparked new guidance to protect health-care workers. Susan Jaffe, The Lancet’s Washington correspondent, reports.

As US President Barack Obama ramped up the country’s response to the Ebola crisis domestically and abroad (panel), his top health officials attempted, during a tense congressional hearing last week, to address potential solutions to the epidemic ravaging west Africa, which has now reached the USA, confronting emergency medical providers at a well regarded hospital in Dallas, Texas.

But the Republican-controlled House of Representatives’ Committee on Energy and Commerce, which undertook the inquiry, did not seem particularly interested in discussing additional long-term investments in medical research—there is currently no cure for the disease—or the need to shore up, if not create, health-care infrastructure in the west African countries where more than 4500 people have died of the disease.

“To protect the USA, we have to stop it at the source”, said Tom Frieden, director of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), at the hearing. “There is a lot of fear of Ebola, and…one of the things I fear about Ebola is that it could spread more widely in Africa. If this were to happen, it could become a threat to our health system and the health care we give for a long time to come.” [MORE full text or PDF ] …