The CDC’s ‘Medical CIA’ Failed America on the Pandemic

Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar speaks during a press conference on the coordinated public health response to the CCP virus outbreak on Jan. 28, 2020, in Washington, D.C. With Secretary Alex Azar is (from left to right) Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Robert Redfield, National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases Director Nancy Messonnier, and National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Director Anthony Fauci. Samuel Corum/Getty Images

The federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) deploys the Epidemic Intelligence Service (EIS) to protect the nation against epidemics. In the throes of a pandemic, Americans have good cause to regard the vaunted “medical CIA” as a failure.

As Diana Robeletto Scalera of the CDC Foundation explains, the EIS “works day and night domestically and globally to ensure epidemics in other countries do not hit American soil.” EIS disease detectives “are the ones responsible and they take this role very seriously.”