Former CDC heads criticize Trump administration for undercutting agency

ATLANTA - Four former Centers for Disease Control and Prevention directors are criticizing the Trump administration for undermining the Atlanta-based agency's pandemic response.

Doctors Richard Besser, Tom Frieden, Jeffrey Koplan, and David Satcher wrote an editorial published Tuesday in the Washington Post, with the headline, "We ran the CDC. No president ever politicized its science the way Trump has."

Besser, CEO of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, spent 13 years at the CDC, working as acting director during the H1N1 crisis.

He is concerned about the Trump administration ordering hospitals to bypass the CDC and send all COVID-19 patient hospitalization information to a database in Washington.

The move is effective immediately, and Besser believes it will interfere with the agency's ability to track the virus.

"I don't get it," Besser says.  "Here we have in Atlanta the nation's public health agency, the world's leading public health authorities.  And they're taking away exactly what the CDC needs, which are data."

President Trump has criticized the CDC's proposed guidelines for schools, saying they are expensive and complicated.

He has also threatened to cut off funding to schools that refuse to go back to in-person classes this fall.

The agency, which held several press conferences a week during the H1N1 flu outbreak, has held only one or two press conferences since early March.

Dr. Besser believes Americans are caught in a political tug-of-war between two conflicting messages about the pandemic.

“Every public health leader in the nation is saying the same thing:  this is a very dangerous pandemic, and what we do individually and collectively really matters,” Besser says.  "And, that's being contrasted by some on the political side, who say, 'There is nothing to worry about.  Let's just get back to work and back to our social lives.'"

He worries the undercutting of the public health messaging breeds distrust.

"You see some people deciding to follow public health and some people saying, 'Hey it doesn't make a difference we don't need to do this,’” Besser says.  “The danger is loss of life.  And loss of life where that could have been prevented. It so clear that the simple steps of wearing masks, keeping six feet apart from other people, washing hands, that those matter."

Judd Deere, White House Principal Deputy Press Secretary, provided this statement in reaction to the former CDC directors:

“The White House and the CDC have been working together in partnership since the very beginning of this pandemic to carry out the President’s highest priority: the health and safety of the American public.”