‘It’s an incredible place’: CDC Director Rochelle Walensky on how she hopes to reform her battered agency

Rochelle Walensky walked into a hot mess when she took the helm of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in January 2021. Then head of infectious diseases at Massachusetts General Hospital, Walensky was an HIV/AIDS clinician and researcher who specialized in cost-effectiveness studies and oversaw fewer than 80 physicians. She took over an agency with a $15 billion annual budget, nearly 11,000 employees, and a world-renowned reputation that had been battered by its haphazard, inconsistent response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Part of the problem lay at the feet of outgoing former President Donald Trump’s administration, which had restricted CDC’s ability to communicate with the public, altered its scientific reports, and pressured it to go along with advice that sometimes ran counter to scientific evidence. But the pandemic also revealed cracks in CDC’s structure that had little to do with politics. The agency had difficulty keeping up with the fast-moving crisis. Whereas most scientists shifted to preprints to publish COVID-19 data, researchers at CDC often published in the agency’s own Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report ( MMWR ), which requires several levels of clearance before publication. CDC also botched the development and distribution of COVID-19 tests, sending out a faulty diagnostic to state labs; issued unclear directives about prevention efforts such as social distancing and vaccines; and was at a loss to ...
Source: ScienceNOW - Category: Science Source Type: news