Speaker 1: It's Tuesday, September twenty nine. I'm Oscar Ramiras from the
Speaker 1: Daily Dive podcast in Los Angeles, and this is reopening America.
Speaker 1: The CDC, one of the most admired public health agencies
Speaker 1: in the country, has seen its credibility road over the
Speaker 1: course of the pandemic. There were some stumbles early on
Speaker 1: in the rollout of test kits, to the changing guidance
Speaker 1: on aerosols and how the coronavirus spreads. The agency has
Speaker 1: also had to deal with political interference. Lena's Son, health
Speaker 1: reporter at the Washington Post, joins us for out has
Speaker 1: been a disaster for the c d C. Thanks for
Speaker 1: joining us, Lena. Happy to be here. I wanted to
Speaker 1: talk about the CDC and what's been going on throughout
Speaker 1: this pandemic that we're going through. It's been around for
Speaker 1: a long time. For a while, it was the most
Speaker 1: admired public health agency, but there's been a series of missteps,
Speaker 1: starting at the very beginning of the pandemic with a
Speaker 1: botched rollout of testing kits, which kind of put is behind.
Speaker 1: The latest thing we've encountered was the guidance on aerosols
Speaker 1: that they had a retract saying it was kind of
Speaker 1: a rough draft that they're working on. There's a lot
Speaker 1: of things that are going on in the CDC right now,
Speaker 1: and you know, maybe public confidence is not all there
Speaker 1: right now. So Lena, tell us a little bit about
Speaker 1: what's going on with the CDC. Well, I think that
Speaker 1: your last point is definitely true. The trust in CDC
Speaker 1: is at an all time low. And when you're dealing
Speaker 1: with a public health crisis, your main weapon is trust.
Speaker 1: And the reason why there's loss of institutional credibility at
Speaker 1: this time when the United States so desperately needs to
Speaker 1: know whom to trust is as you mentioned, there's been
Speaker 1: a series of things, some are honest mistakes by CDC.
Speaker 1: The test failure in the beginning of the year really
Speaker 1: was perhaps the original sin, which prevented the United States
Speaker 1: from seeing early on how widespread the virus was. But
Speaker 1: then since then, I would say most of the problem
Speaker 1: has been with political interference from the White House and
Speaker 1: higher ups at JHS, pressuring the cd SEE to issue
Speaker 1: guidance or change guidance or not include things and guidance
Speaker 1: so that those recommendations to the public were delayed and
Speaker 1: watered down. And then this most recent back and forth
Speaker 1: was actually an honest mistake. But because there had been
Speaker 1: this record of political interference with CDC's work, people didn't
Speaker 1: believe the CDC when the CDC says no, really, this
Speaker 1: was an honest mistake. One of the things you wrote
Speaker 1: about in your article are about not really being a
Speaker 1: central public face for the CDC. We have the CDC Director,
Speaker 1: Robert Redfield, who has been out testifying on Capitol Hill
Speaker 1: and making a couple of interviews and whatnot, but there
Speaker 1: hasn't really been anybody else that kind of stepped up
Speaker 1: in there. So let's talk about Robert Redfield and how
Speaker 1: he's leading this public health agency right now. So. Dr
Speaker 1: Redfield is a really nice guy, solid guy. I have
Speaker 1: talked to him numerous times, as hard as in the
Speaker 1: right place. He is not an effective communicator if you
Speaker 1: see his public appearances at the hearings and is on television.
Speaker 1: But more importantly, when he was appointed to this job,
Speaker 1: he did not have any experience in running a big
Speaker 1: public health agency as large and as complex as the CDC,
Speaker 1: and in the time of a pandemic, In a time
Speaker 1: of a crisis, you need to be having briefings daily
Speaker 1: to the American public where you say, here's what we
Speaker 1: know today about the virus, here's what we don't know,
Speaker 1: here's what we think you ought to do, here's what
Speaker 1: we think works best. But the CDC has been completely silenced.
Speaker 1: There has been no public briefing for three months. And
Speaker 1: I take you back to just last year when we
Speaker 1: had all those vaping related lung injury cases. There were
Speaker 1: briefings several times a week as soon as they learned
Speaker 1: something how it was related to vape being a right
Speaker 1: aminy ascetate. And then I take you all the way
Speaker 1: back to zica ebola. The two thousand and nine pandemic,
Speaker 1: which was a flu pandemic with H one N one,
Speaker 1: was led by CDC. Their responses, they had a briefing
Speaker 1: almost every day for six weeks. So let me just
Speaker 1: repeat that, a briefing every day for almost six weeks,
Speaker 1: and we have heard nothing. And when the White House
Speaker 1: has a briefing, it's Trump and you know what, he
Speaker 1: is not a scientist exactly. And that's what they've been
Speaker 1: side step for for the President and earlier on the
Speaker 1: Coronavirus Task Force. But that's kind of been done away
Speaker 1: with now. Right now, you see the president. You'll see
Speaker 1: Dr Scott Atlas, which is another controversial figure there, just
Speaker 1: because he has no public health experience in in this
Speaker 1: kind of genre of things. So that's what we're getting
Speaker 1: instead of CDC updates. Let's talk a little bit about
Speaker 1: the CDC's role in the rollout of a vaccine once
Speaker 1: it gets approved. So the CDC is gonna have a
Speaker 1: major role in that. Obviously the f d A is
Speaker 1: going to be approving the vaccine, but from there, the
Speaker 1: CDC is going to have a lot of influence on
Speaker 1: how it gets distributed. It's a process that involves multiple agencies.
Speaker 1: So there's been a lot of attention on how safe
Speaker 1: and the defective of the vaccine will be. That is
Speaker 1: the job of the Food and Drug Administration, the FDA,
Speaker 1: and it has had its own separate trust issues with
Speaker 1: its commissioner. And then once the vaccine is approved safe,
Speaker 1: the CDC has a federal advisory panel that will then
Speaker 1: decide well, who should get it first? Should it be
Speaker 1: healthcare workers, essential workers? Who among the healthcare workers? Should
Speaker 1: it be people who have direct or indirect patient care.
Speaker 1: Those recommendations are made by this Federal advisory Panel to
Speaker 1: the CDC that the CDC will they have almost in
Speaker 1: every single case accepted their recommendation, and then the federal
Speaker 1: government will let the states know, here are the folks
Speaker 1: we think should get the first initial doses. Because it
Speaker 1: will be limited numbers of vaccine doses. The states will
Speaker 1: then decide in each of its states, of their own
Speaker 1: states population, who among those, like four buckets or five
Speaker 1: buckets should get it. And then once it comes time
Speaker 1: to distributing the vaccine, it will be up to the
Speaker 1: CDC to help lead this very big and complicated effort
Speaker 1: to get the doses actually out to people. So where
Speaker 1: do we get how do we get back to center this?
Speaker 1: How does the CDC regain their credibility after these blunders
Speaker 1: were obviously still going through the pandemic and everything is
Speaker 1: moving so fast, and we've talked a little bit about
Speaker 1: the political interference that seems like that's not going to
Speaker 1: go away just yet. So how does the CDC regain
Speaker 1: that credibility? One of the issues is Dr Redfield, who
Speaker 1: has been appointed, And the criticism of Dr Redfield is
Speaker 1: from inside the agency and outside the agency that he
Speaker 1: has not done enough to stand up for the hard
Speaker 1: working professionals at CDC, the scientists who are doing the work,
Speaker 1: but they're not being allowed to talk about it or
Speaker 1: explain it. Or when something has changed the guidance, why
Speaker 1: did the CDC change its mask guidance? There was nobody
Speaker 1: from CDC to explain what the science was or why
Speaker 1: they changed that. So there are some people who say, well,
Speaker 1: as a start, why don't you let the experts talk?
Speaker 1: That is perhaps not going to be as likely under
Speaker 1: this administration. So then they're thinking, like, it's come November three,
Speaker 1: If there is a change and we have a different director,
Speaker 1: perhaps that would make a difference. But there are others
Speaker 1: who feel that the damage has been so deep that
Speaker 1: the only way to really do a reboot is to
Speaker 1: get rid of the current structure. The States director is
Speaker 1: not someone who is Senate confirmed, unlike the FDA commissioner
Speaker 1: or the NIH director, so that person is appointed by
Speaker 1: the Health Secretary. But one thought that is out there
Speaker 1: is that you replace the current leadership structure at CTC
Speaker 1: with a board of governors with staggered terms that lasted
Speaker 1: longer than a president, and that's one way to get
Speaker 1: rid of political interference. Lena Son, health reporter at the
Speaker 1: Washington Post Thank you very much for joining us. Thank you.
Speaker 1: I'm Oscar Ramirez and this has been reopening America. Don't
Speaker 1: forget that. For today's big news stories, you can check
Speaker 1: me out on the Daily Dive podcast every money through Friday,
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