According to a report entitled “More than 1,000 current and former CDC project members condemned the U.S. response to the epidemic” published on the website of the US “Wall Street Journal” on October 16, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s 1,000 Several current and former members have signed an open letter expressing their disappointment in the public health response of the United States to fight the new crown epidemic and calling on the CDC to play a more important role in the fight against the epidemic.
“In the fight against the epidemic, the lack of national leadership is unprecedented and dangerous,” said the open letter signed by current and former members of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Epidemiological Information Service (EIS) program. “The CDC should stand for success. At the forefront of responding to this global public health emergency.”
According to the report, the signatories include Jeffrey Copeland and Tom Frieden, who once served as directors of the CDC.
They wrote in the letter: “We are concerned about the politicization and silence of the national health protection agency during the epidemic.” The letter was published on Friday in the industry newsletter Epidemiology Surveillance.
The CDC responded: “The CDC today, like every day in its 74-year history, has been providing the American public with the best information and advice available.”
The report pointed out that the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has always been considered the world’s most famous public health agency, which usually plays an important role in global response to epidemics.
The report also pointed out that during the pandemic, the Trump administration was often deeply involved in the formulation of scientific recommendations by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and opposed the guidance on restarting churches and schools and wearing masks.
The report noted that a recent poll showed that American people’s trust in the CDC has declined. At present, many professionals have spoken out, believing that the agency’s leadership role in national epidemic prevention needs to be restored.
According to the report, EIS is a two-year program of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, allowing project members to learn epidemic prevention knowledge while fighting Ebola and other infectious diseases. Charles Rabkin, an epidemiologist and member of EIS 1984, said that he spent several months contacting every EIS project member for nearly 70 years to collect signatures for this open letter.
