ScienceInsider reports on Lancet letters regarding CDC Center for Global Health

Mar 11 2012

In a letter (.pdf) published Wednesday in the Lancet, officials from the CDC refute "point by point" three letters previously published in the journal that were critical of the agency's Center for Global Health, ScienceInsider reports. Lancet Editor Richard Horton on February 11 "published criticisms of the institution's Center for Global Health that he received from an anonymous letter writer" and then "ran complaints made by two more unnamed critics of the CDC center on March 3," the news service states, adding, "As Horton noted, the letters 'raise questions about leadership, management of resources, proper use of the CDC's authority and power, and the scientific rigor of CDC research.'"

In their rebuttal, CDC Director Thomas Frieden and Center for Global Health Director Kevin De Cock, "recoun[t] the center's accomplishments in training field epidemiologists, working with ministries of health in many countries, and helping countries combat health emergencies. The center has aided efforts to combat HIV/ADS, malaria, cholera, cryptic liver disease, plague, measles, lymphatic filarisis, and polio. Frieden and De Cock also note that CDC last year began a review of the program," ScienceInsider writes (Cohen, 3/8).