The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced plans Wednesday to overhaul the agency after reviews found it fell short in its handling of the COVID-19 pandemic and responded too slowly to the monkeypox outbreak.
CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky announced a series of changes, including how the agency shares important health information with the public.
“For 75 years, CDC and public health have been preparing for COVID-19, and in our big moment, our performance did not reliably meet expectations,” Walensky said in an email to staff. “As a longtime admirer of this agency and a champion for public health, I want us all to do better.”
Walensky said the changes will shift the CDC to a more public-focused agency from its previous academic mindset that created “confusing and overwhelming documents” as well as a website that is “not easy to navigate.”
The CDC promised to publish scientific data quicker with “plain language” guidance. It will tap former Deputy Health and Human Services Secretary Mary Wakefield to create a new executive council to implement the changes.
“My goal is a new, public health action-oriented culture at CDC that emphasizes accountability, collaboration, communication and timeliness,” Walensky said.
The announcement comes after an external review earlier this year.
Led by HHS official Jim Macrae, the review criticized the CDC’s slow response in sharing scientific data and lack of transparency as to its “current level of understanding” during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Macrae interviewed 120 CDC staffers and people outside the agency to come up with recommended improvements — including faster release of scientific data, translating confusing science into easy-to-understand information, working better with other health agencies and training CDC staff to respond better to public health emergencies.
A second review by CDC Chief of Staff Sherri Berger examined the agency’s operations, finding the “traditional scientific and communication processes were not adequate to effectively respond to a crisis the size and scope of the COVID-19 pandemic,” according to a CDC statement.
Both external reviews were ordered after the CDC faced public backlash for shifting and confusing guidance over mask-wearing, testing and isolation.
Former Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Scott Gottlieb said the mistakes the CDC made with COVID-19 are being repeated with the monkeypox outbreak.
“Our country’s response to monkeypox has been plagued by the same shortcomings we had with COVID-19,” Gottlieb wrote in The New York Times last month.
“Now if monkeypox gains a permanent foothold in the United States and becomes an endemic virus that joins our circulating repertoire of pathogens, it will be one of the worst public health failures in modern times, not only because of the pain and peril of the disease, but also because it was so avoidable.”
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For starters, Dr. Walensky, the director, should resign to allow someone who has not been tainted by a relationship with the agency do the house cleaning. In this administratio that would be impossible because they are all liberal progressives at heart.
BETTER YET< shut the whole bloody thing down… SCORCH THE ENTIRE thing away, then if we still think that sort of organization needs to be around, START AFRESH!
Macrae interviewed 120 CDC staffers and people outside the agency to come up with recommended improvements —
My first recommendation would be a MANDATORY RETIREMENT for Dr. ( Howdy Doody) Fauci. Immediately
I’d like to see him return every dime of the salary he stole since he was put in charge of National Health emergencies back in 1984. His lips used to milk our government cow for the past 40 years at some time came in contact with mad cow disease, which by coincidence or not, apparently effectst he human brains just like Trump derangement syndrome.
If i had my way, he’d not have the choice in the matter, he’d be FORCED to give up that money.
so they new covid was coming? smoking gun?
BECAUSE they funded it.. So of course they new it was comingl
I was at one time a pharmacist. I can tell you the CDC is an absolute, total, non-entity. Nobody ever cared what the CDC thought or said when it came to patient care/treatment. Want to see your tax dollars hard at work. Do a web search of CDC GIF pool poo. You simply will not believe what the gubment does with tax receipts. Maybe you will.
So after two years of having the power of the media and social sites to silence dissenting opinion and legitimate alternative therapeutic treatments, now when the epidemic is effectively over and done, they’re doing a mea culpa?
Pfft, sorry. Too little, too late.
You’re belittling and condemning the research and experience of hundreds of vocal Doctors and Nurses in the field who were finding alternatives that actually turned out to be superior of what was being officially dictated to us, and how they were treated with not only disrespect, but were being vilified and threatened, and because of media lock downs and censorship were unable to present their data.
How many lives could have been saved?
How much suffering could have been eased?
Even now, as the virus is being marginalized, those in charge who come down with Covid and are taking the current officially prescribed treatments always seem to suffer from lingering symptoms.
Trump got Covid on a Friday, and was back to work on Monday. Sooo…
There are many people in high places that have a lot to answer for, Fauxi and Walensky are on the top of the list.
But everyone who had an active role in the suppression of the National Mind Trust that has always been what made the US able to overcome adversities throughout its history need to be held accountable.
Period.
IF they really were doing a mea-culpa, THEY WOULD ALL BE RESIGNING In shame.
Yes. Yes they would.