Washtington Post
quote:The 7,000-person agency earned both praise and criticism during last fall's anthrax bioterrorism outbreak, in which it was responsible for making prevention and treatment recommendations to local health officials and clinical practitioners. Numerous experts in and out of government said they were surprised by Koplan's announcement.
quote:The agency, however, was severely criticized for what some people viewed as a lack of clear communication and leadership in the weeks after the death, from anthrax, last October of a tabloid newspaper employee in Florida. In all, five people -- two of them postal workers -- died of the bacterial infection, which is usually seen in cattle and is extremely rare in humans. In the recent cases, it was intentionally spread by highly refined bacterial powders sent through the mail.
Some observers said the agency should have concluded earlier that such easily dispersed powders could infect people far beyond the recipients of the envelopes containing them. Others said the agency should have given stronger advice to local public health officials and, ultimately, citizens at risk about such issues as preventive antibiotics and the anthrax vaccine.
Hmm. I got a little phone survey where the CDC asked about this stuff - at first, it seemed to focus on the Cipro side effect, but after a couple minutes, it really started to seem like a PR exercise. How did we communicate? - that kind of thing.
I guess the survey results just got tabulated.
And, of course, my inner conspiracy theorist suspects the man found out too much about the Ft. Detrick labs and all that. |
