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In the news, children and others are sick with cancer and other conditions in Vieques, where the Navy had used parts of it for 6 decades as a bombing test site. News showed tests results of toxic levels of contamination off the charts. It was reported that a 2003 CDC study found no links in the illnesses with the Navy's activities. The sick Americans are now fighting back with a lawsuit. CDC is now taking another look. Is there another story behind the story?

Good news: the President's budget includes increases for nearly all areas of science. Bad news: only CDC's budget went down.
A simple bar graph says it all--visit WIRED:
http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2010/02/obama-science-budget/

How long is the stressful reorganizational situation going to last within NCPHI?

The senior leadership has been asked to consider program areas at CDC that could be reduced or eliminated, according to these criteria:

- No or Little Demonstrable Health Impact
- No Legislative Mandate
- No or Small Stakeholder Support
- No or Little Evidence-Based Interventions to Support

Which programs do you think fit these criteria and why?

In an era of budget cuts, and rumors of increased taps from the OD/OD, I suggest that if we could streamline business services, or at least made it that business service were not designed to prevent us doing our jobs, we could reduce the workforce by half and still prevent as many deaths and disability.

Heck, if we scale business services to where they serve rather than obstruct, that alone would cut the need by a quarter.

Performance Evaluation is a JOKE for GAP Country Directors in the Field

There is good news for NCEH and ATSDR Staff! Dr. Howard Frumkin has been moved out of his role as Director of NCEH/ATSDR as of Friday January 15, 2010. In his place, Dr. Henry Falk will assume the role of Acting Director until a permanent replacement can be found. Dr. Frumkin has been put in a face saving position directly under the CDC Administrator, and will likely be looking for outside employment in the near future. (Dr. Frumkin's email to staff follows)

How did CDC do during the real test of continuity of operations functions last Friday?

Looking for some feedback on working with/for multiple senior staff

British Medical Journal questions the science behind Tamiflu claims of efficacy.

SUMMARY from BMJ article
"What is already known on this topic:
Neuraminidase inhibitors (especially oseltamivir) have become global public health drugs for influenza
They prevent symptoms and shorten the duration of illness by about one day if taken within 48 hours of the onset of symptoms.
Toxicity and the effects on complications have been debated.
What this study adds:
Neuraminidase inhibitors reduce the symptoms of influenza modestly
Neuraminidase inhibitors reduce the chance of people exposed to influenza developing laboratory confirmed influenza but not influenza-like illness
Evidence for or against their benefit for preventing complications of influenza is insufficient
Evidence for or against serious adverse events is lacking, although oseltamivir causes nausea"

The BMJ article Neuraminidase inhibitors for preventing and treating influenza in healthy adults: systematic review and meta-analysis and the Atlantic article The Truth About Tamiflu

Fomer EID fellow who was told I had a job for 8 weeks that was canceled 2 days before I was supposed to start

Per latest all hands message, the new organizational structure has been published in the Federal register. In case you missed the email or are having trouble keeping score....

Read the entire Federal Register citation DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Statement of Organization, Functions, and Delegations of Authority

Good luck to Merck!

We have in our office an employee that chronically reports in late to work, does little work when on site unless prodded to do so (and then it's generally substandard), causes friction with other employees and has filed numerous grievances and EEO complaints through the years -- this has been going on for a long time. In January 09 I became this person's supervisor of record, although I'm monitored daily by my supervisor very closely.

H1N1 vaccine availability

Well CDC has blown it again with the availability of the H1N1 vaccine. They send an email saying the vaccine is now available for all employees and provide a number to schedule an appointment. No one answers the number. Why not schedule open houses for each campus THIS week so that employees will be covered by the holidays. Who wants to be traveling over the holidays and come down with the flu???

Is the ASPH fellowship program on the ropes again?

Change is good, and goodness knows lots at CDC needed changing. Coordinating Centers gone...great! Fixing CDC's poor HR and business support functions...greater! Identifying (and sticking with) priorities...greatest. But change for change sake is a losing proposition. It seems that Dr. Frieden and his chosen few are creating this new structure in a very top-down, outmoded management style...and they're throwing the baby out with the bathwater. Everything Julie started was not bad. Everything good that's happened in the past 5 years isn't because of her or in spite of her. Yet, that seems to be the current rationale guiding this reorganization. So much for making decisions based on the data.

All CDC should be concerned about the lack of communication about and participation in decisions regarding the changes being made. These decisions are made in isolation, with token input from current managers, and without any communication in advance of announcing the changes globally. Open and transparent communications? Current CDC leadership has a lot to learn about how to manage people and an organization. A subscription to the Harvard Business Review would shed some light on data-driven management practices and communication.

But...what to do...don't whine...you can only voice your concerns, make your congressmen aware, and vote with your feet. It's change and change is constant...even if it's change back to the future.

"CDC committee includes controversial 'screw the medical experts' lifeguard trainer" by the Dean of Cincinnati, The Cincinnati Beacon, November 18, 2009

CDC's Need To Be "Bipolar" And Public Expectation

The CDC seems to be taking some major hits with its credibility and reputation with the American public. Changes in H1N1 reporting numbers did not help with public perception. See ABC News and their reporting on CDC three-fold increase OVERNIGHT of H1N1 numbers - "Seeming Overnight Surge in H1N1's Death Toll: Number Change Underscores Uncertainty About Virus" ttp://abcnews.go.com/Health/SwineFluNews/h1n1-deaths-triple-overnight/story?id=9057650). An increase in deaths from 1,200 to 4,000 made in one day by the CDC does not look very good. Add to this the fact that the seasonal flu kills 36,000 people by comparison and the CDC looks even worse in reliability of data and analysis -- and possibly hype. The numbers of people who refuse to get the H1N1 vaccine are large and show that the public does not trust what the CDC says – regardless of the possible complications of getting the virus. And then there is the XMRV virus discovery in October by the Whittemore-Peterson Institute in Nevada that put a very hot spotlight on the CDC’s work on Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. The Internet websites and blogs seemed to explode overnight with vitriolic attacks against the CDC and conspiracy theories abounding.

Dr. Frieden and Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro "hosted" a Friends of NCHS reception on Capitol Hill this evening (11/4/09) at the Rayburn House Office Building. This group has openly advocated for the removal of NCHS from CDC. A complete list of member organizations and donors appears on their website. Does Dr. Frieden understand what this group is advocating?

Has anyone else noticed that our health insurance premiums continue to go up up up ? Take a look at this years insurance booklet, most of us are now paying $5,000 a year for family coverage out of our pocket and this does not include the government share.

Saving ASPO?

The Coordinating Centers are gone, replaced by the offices of the new Deputy Directors.

A notable letter requesting that strong public health and prevention provisions be included in any final health reform measure was sent to several senior members of Congress involved in health reform on October 28 by the Campaign for Public Health.

This critical letter was signed by more than thirty senior leaders in health, including former CDC Directors, former Speaker of the House, Newt Gingrich, former Surgeons General, former members of Congress, prominent leaders who served at DHHS and local health leaders from around the nation.

The debate continues at www.theatlantic.com/doc/200911/brownlee-h1n1

"[Lisa] Jackson’s findings showed that outside of flu season, the baseline risk of death among people who did not get vaccinated was approximately 60 percent higher than among those who did, lending support to the hypothesis that on average, healthy people chose to get the vaccine, while the “frail elderly” didn’t or couldn’t. In fact, the healthy-user effect explained the entire benefit that other researchers were attributing to flu vaccine, suggesting that the vaccine itself might not reduce mortality at all. Jackson’s papers “are beautiful,” says Lone Simonsen, who is a professor of global health at George Washington University, in Washington, D.C., and an internationally recognized expert in influenza and vaccine epidemiology. “They are classic studies in epidemiology, they are so carefully done.”

My work area has several people who refuse to stay home if they are ill. What can be done to get co-workers to do the right thing and protect others?

"Centers for Disease Control and Prevention spokesman Christopher Cox said any concerted effort to make sure people stay at home when they're sick is beneficial to the workplace." Arizona County to Employees: Come to Work With the Flu and You May Be Fired

At the Roybal Campus, for several days recently there has been overflow parking behind the Building 17 parking deck.

An article a few months ago in the AJC noted that new non-lab office buildings would be built on Chamblee for the Chronic Disease and for the Birth Defects national centers... does the master plan outline details on how these new buildings will look? Will they be mirrors of Building 106?

I've been through the old postings about 106 and now that we are far enough removed from the move-in, aren't there lessons learned from that facility?

Did the "don't move your furniture" isses ever get resolved? Is the Office to Cubicle ratio appropriate and will they work for Chronic and BD staff?

What types of projects are assigned to the CDC Interior Designers (i.e. health care design, internal space planning, etc)?

Any insight regarding Interior Designers (services provided, work environment, number of designers, etc) at the CDC would be appreciated.