The CDC's new plan to accelerate its response to health threats, simplify public messaging and improve data capabilities is a step in the right direction, but more work must be done to address the root cause of the agency's three largest problems: slowness, impracticality and lack of strategic thinking, former CDC director Tom Frieden, MD, wrote in an Aug. 31 piece for The Atlantic.
CDC director Rochelle Walensky, MD, announced the agency's plan for reforms Aug. 17, acknowledging that it had failed to respond effectively to the COVID-19 pandemic. Dr. Frieden said the improvements are greatly needed and long overdue, but fail to acknowledge external factors — such as chronic underfunding and loss of public trust — that will still cause issues even if the CDC's proposed reforms succeed.
He outlined three reforms that could make the CDC more effective at identifying and responding to health threats:
1. Congress should give the CDC a more stable and sufficient budget that includes flexible emergency funding options.
"We spend at least 300 times more on our military defense than we do on our health defense," Dr. Frieden wrote. "Why should the CDC, tasked with the health defense of the nation, be different?"
2. The CDC should "exponentially increase [its] collaboration with state, city and local health departments" to give agency members valuable, hands-on experience before they take on roles at CDC headquarters.
3. Finally, the CDC must work to rebuild trust with the general public. To achieve this goal, the White House and HHS must give the CDC and its experts the freedom to speak directly with the media about current health issues.
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