Subject: [SciPol 497] Re: Biosense or Biononsense

From: "Lloyd Davidson" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 5 Apr 2007 09:19:07 -0700

This is hardly a surprise.  The Bush administration has been trying to kill
the CDC since they gained office.  A CDC staff member attended the same
session I did a couple of years ago at the American Chemical Society
meetings and off the record he discussed the terrible problems of management
and morale that have developed there and how senior scientists who are able
to are retiring in droves just to escape the oppressive atmosphere there.  I
wouldn't be at all surprised to discover that Biosense was a big donor to
the Bush campaign, or some other Republican politician.

It took years to even get a page up on birth control after the original one
was taken down after Bush took office.  At least the CDC does admit now the
condoms can be an effective means of blocking HIV transmission but if you
search the simple phrase "birth control" on the CDC Web site, you get zero
hits.  This is in line with Bush's restrictions on funding for AIDS
prevention that stresses abstinence as the primary method of choice.  There
was also a recent NY Times editorial on this issue:

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/04/opinion/04weds3.html
"Programs to prevent the spread of H.I.V., the virus that causes AIDS, are
perhaps the most important tool in that long-term fight. Yet Congress
specified that only 20 percent of the money could be spent on prevention,
and one-third of that had to be used to promote abstinence until marriage.
More money has been spent in that area than on other prevention activities,
including distribution of condoms and blocking mother-to-child
transmission."

Also:
http://www.tompaine.com/articles/2006/12/01/bushs_other_losing_war_aids.php

Here is an excerpt from a 2005 article on the state of things then at the
CDC:

http://effectmeasure.blogspot.com/2005/03/cdc-on-skids.html
Tuesday, March 08, 2005

CDC on the skids

The open secret that CDC was in disarray poked its head above water Saturday
in a story in the Washington Post, "Internal Dissension Grows as CDC Faces
Big Threats to Public Health." For months there has been a rush to the exits
by some of the agency's most senior scientists, as Director Dr. Julie
Gerberding "restructures" CDC out of existence and opens the door wider to
political interference. Last week a National Academy panel criticized the
agency for lack of leadership in implementing the ill-fated smallpox
vaccination program of health care workers, a program that was flawed from
the outset in purpose, public health rationale and buy-in from the nation's
public health establishment.

Gerberding's restructuring has caused deep resentment at CDC and was
reportedly done in a heavy handed style that brooked no discussion or
explanation. As one senior CDC scientist told me, the only "rationale" given
was "deal with it." Like other incompetent managers, Gerberding blames
complaints on "resistance to change." Assuming the massive changes she is
calling for make sense (something disputed by many), it is clear she has
failed to prepare the ground.

"CDC folks are a very dedicated bunch . . ., [but] it's gone from dedication
to make change to being aghast at the process and the changes being made,"
one senior official said. Among the 34 people interviewed for this article,
this official and a number of other current and former CDC staff spoke on
the condition they not be identified because of their intense loyalty to the
agency and, in some cases, because they fear retribution.

On 4/4/07, MsRedSonya <[email-masked]> wrote:
>
>
> Biosense or Biononsense
> Katherine Eban
> The Scientist 21 (4), 32 (2007)
> http://www.the-scientist.com/article/daily/52963/
>
> ..."This false alert came from the government-funded computer program,
> Biosense. The complex program, which culls electronic health data from
> 350 of the nation's urban hospitals as well as veterans' hospitals and
> defense department facilities, comes after a string of costly, and
> never fully realized computer ventures before it. But three years into
> its development, with a price tag of around $230 million (on top of
> millions more spent on unsuccessful systems before it), it is unclear
> as to exactly what the program can accomplish. CDC officials
> acknowledge Biosense's shortcomings. The program was initially
> designed to detect the earliest possible symptoms from a bioterror
> attack. Instead, it lacks real-time capability and has issued a stream
> of false alarms that would be comical were the stakes not so high.
> "..."Last year, in testimony before a Senate subcommittee overseeing
> the national response to bioterror, two experts urged senators not to
> spend "another penny" on Biosense until the program's goals, and how
> to achieve them, became clear. Nicole Lurie, codirector for Public
> Health at the Rand Corporation's Center for Domestic and International
> Health Security, stated that among local public health departments,
> the program has another name: Biononsense."..."Congress has responded
> with funding. In 2002, it passed the Public Health Surveillance Act,
> which authorized $1 billion for the CDC to distribute to states for
> public health preparedness. Included was a mandate that states develop
> some kind of electronic means of monitoring emerging symptoms, but
> there were few guidelines and no national strategy. "..."Nonetheless,
> the problem is "not just technology," says Yasnoff. It's the mentality
> and resources of low-performing organizations. "Not only do public
> health agencies not know anything," he says, "but they don't have the
> resources they need if they did." "..."Biosense was born soon after
> the 2003 State of the Union address, in which President Bush announced
> Bioshield, a $6 billion initiative to jumpstart the development and
> production of vaccines and treatments for bioterror agents. This
> torrent of money was just the beginning. Biowatch - a series of
> environmental sensors to detect the release of bioterror agents, and
> Biosense followed. Bioshield has foundered publicly. Last December,
> the Bush administration cancelled an $877 million contract with
> VaxGen, a company slated to produce 75 million doses of an anthrax
> vaccine after it had failed to make critical progress. The company had
> been selected even though it had never successfully produced a single
> drug. Comparatively, Biowatch and Biosense appear to be making
> progress. The CDC projects that by year's end, Biosense will be
> receiving and analyzing data from 1,400 of the nation's hospitals.
> Some local health officials say they believe the program is "very
> effective" and should continue to be expanded. But others question
> what, if anything, the program actually does. "..."With a
> whistleblower-fueled investigation underway in the Senate's finance
> committee into the CDC's oversight of at least $6 billion in grants
> for emergency preparedness, many public health experts and oversight
> officials fear that this unprecedented investment has been squandered.
> As ranking member on the finance committee Senator Chuck Grassley (R-
> Iowa) says, "The bottom line is we don't know what exactly has been
> purchased with the grant money. Like the saying goes, 'A billion here,
> a billion there pretty soon adds up to real money'." "
>
>
> >
>

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