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Can We Trust the CDC Anymore?
Frustration grows over the agency’s increasing politicization
Former senior U.S. health officials, infectious-disease experts and pundits alike are expressing lost faith and trust in the leadership of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention given the agency’s blatant politicization and sidelining of science in favor of announcements and guidelines dictated or vetted by the White House. A widely shared Aug. 31 New York Times opinion piece, co-written by former director of the National Institutes of Health Harold Varmus, is headlined “Ignore the CDC.”
Is it really that bad?
“Recent actions by the CDC have led many in public health to call into question the integrity of the CDC’s leadership as they ignore the science and bow to political pressure,” writes Catherine Troisi, PhD, an associate professor of management, policy and community health at the University of Texas Health Science Center. “Their actions have hurt public health efforts and led to confusion and mistrust by the public at large.”
Troisi’s criticism is moderate compared to some.
“We have an epidemic of anti-science coming from U.S. government agencies,” says Eric Topol, MD, a professor of molecular medicine at the Scripps Research Institute in California, calling out both the…
