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The agency’s director, Dr. Rochelle Walensky announced Monday that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention will undergo a one-month comprehensive review and evaluation, the first step in modernizing and future-proofing its systems and processes.
The move follows a relentless barrage of criticism over the agency’s handling of the pandemic over the past few months. The review will be led by Jim Macrae, who for two years served as acting executive director of the Health Resources and Services Administration and has held other senior positions in the federal Department of Health and Human Services, of which the CDC is a part. Mr. Macrae will take up his post on April 11th.
“The lessons learned from the Covid-19 pandemic, along with feedback from inside and outside the organization over the past year, suggest that it is time to step back and strategically position the CDC to support the future of public health.” Dr. Walensky told agency employees in an email.
Three senior CDC officials – acting deputy director Dr. Deb Houry; chief operating officer Robin Bailey; and chief of staff Sherri Berger — who will gather feedback on the agency’s structure and “seek recommendations for strategic change,” said Dr. Walensky.
At the end of what he describes as a “collective effort,” the agency will develop new systems and have a plan for how the agency should be structured.
A CDC spokesperson said the agency has worked over the past year to speed up data reporting and scientific processes, but more needs to be done, including finding “new ways to adapt the agency’s structure to the changing environment.”
Dr. Walensky said the review will focus on the agency’s core capabilities: public health workforce, data modernization, laboratory capacity, equity in health, rapid response and preparedness to disease outbreaks both in the United States and around the world.
Dr. “Over the past year, I’ve heard from many of you that you wanted to see the CDC build on its rich history and modernize it for the world around us,” Walensky said in his email. Thanking his staff, he said, “I appreciate the hard work you’ve put into making the CDC better.”
The CDC has long been respected for its methodical and scientific approach to improving public health worldwide. Scientists outside the United States have been trained by agency experts, and their standards have been adopted and imitated globally.
But the agency’s infrastructure, like the nation’s overall healthcare system, has been neglected for decades, and the pandemic has created unprecedented challenges. Early on, the CDC made significant mistakes in testing and surveillance—for example, the notoriously clumsy design of a diagnostic kit shipped to state labs.
Authorities were late to recommend masking, in part because agency scientists did not quickly recognize that the virus was transmitted through the air. In May of last year, Dr. Walensky vaccinated people can take off the masks inside and outside; only weeks later it became clear that vaccinated people could not only get new infections, but also transmit the virus.
In August, Dr. Walensky joined President Biden to support booster vaccines for all Americans before scientists at the Food and Drug Administration or his agency reviewed the data on whether it was necessary.
More recently, the highly contagious variant of Omicron has prompted the CDC to publish recommendations based on what was once considered insufficient evidence amid growing public concern about how these guidelines affect the economy and education.
In December, the CDC shortened isolation time for infected Americans to five days, although many infected people seem to be able to transmit the virus for longer periods of time. In the past few weeks, some experts have criticized the agency for changing the criteria used to assess risk and identify appropriate local measures to appease business and political interests.
Dr. Walensky’s supporters say the agency has been given an extraordinary task and the CDC is doing its best under extremely difficult circumstances – at least most employees work remotely.
In a separate statement made public Monday, Dr. “Never in its 75-year history has the CDC had to make decisions so quickly, often based on limited, real-time, and evolving science,” Walensky said.
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