CDC Director Discusses Guns, Flu and High-Security Labs

CQ NEWS
March 2, 2018 – 2:04 p.m.

CDC Director Discusses Guns, Flu and High-Security Labs

By Andrew Siddons, CQ

Anne Schuchat became the acting director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for the second time when Brenda Fitzgerald resigned as director in January over financial conflicts of interest that had prevented her from testifying before Congress on pressing public health issues.

Schuchat sat down with CQ at the CDC’s Washington office to discuss gun violence research, the severe flu season and the future of the CDC lab that handles dangerous pathogens like Ebola and smallpox.

Schuchat, a physician who holds the rank of rear admiral in the U.S. Public Health Service Corps., has been the CDC’s deputy since 2015 and served as acting director at the beginning of the Trump administration. Earlier in her 30-year career at the CDC, she ran the divisions on immunization, respiratory diseases, global health and infectious diseases.

Investigating Gun Violence 

In the wake of the shooting at a Florida high school last month, the CDC’s ability to conduct research on gun violence is “on everybody’s mind,” Schuchat said, adding that she spoke to Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar after he was questioned about it during a House Energy and Commerce hearing.

Schuchat said controversial appropriations language that prohibits the CDC from “advocating” for gun control isn’t the problem. The bigger hurdle is that Congress hasn’t provided the money and guidance on how to conduct such research.

“We are not currently funded to do gun violence research,” she told CQ. “We work in some narrow areas when we can, but if funded, we would certainly do more.”

The CDC’s injury prevention division would take the lead on such research, and she noted that it currently conducts surveillance on deaths caused by violence in general. But she suggested that most of the division’s $235 million budget is already spoken for, especially as the CDC is being directed to put more resources toward monitoring opioid addiction and overdose deaths.

If provided funds specifically to study gun violence, Schuchat said that a 2013 Institute of Medicine report lays out a research agenda that she would like the CDC to pursue. She believes that work can all be done without violating a prohibition on “advocacy.”

“I think we need an evidence base to know what works. I can say safely storing your guns is very important,” she said, pointing out that this is established scientific evidence.

“There’s a difference between a policy proposal and the result of a scientific study,” she said. “The question is just whether there’s direction from Congress about more resources, or for a change in our approach.”

Fighting the Flu 

Schuchat is a familiar face at congressional hearings, and she will be back on the Hill next week to testify about seasonal influenza. She will join other administration officials at a House Energy and Commerce Oversight Subcommittee to discuss why this season set records for hospitalizations and why the recommended flu vaccine didn’t provide as much protection as in previous years.

Vaccines don’t work as well against this year’s flu strain, H3N2, she explained. While there are questions about whether the virus mutated to thwart the vaccines that are available, she also said that not enough people are getting vaccinated.

“The vaccines aren’t being used as well as they should,” she said. “The majority of children who die from flu haven’t been vaccinated against it.”

She said there is work to do to accelerate the rate of manufacturing vaccines, and more research needs to be done into a “universal” vaccine that can work against all flu strains. Until then, she pointed to the CDC’s work on helping people who come down with the flu gain access to antivirals that can treat flu symptoms.

“CDC worked with manufacturers and insurers and pharmacies to try to pivot during the season to get more quantities of antivirals on the shelves in pharmacies, to get some of the producers to increase their production during the course of it,” she said. “It’s a little easier to do that with antivirals than with vaccines.”

High-Risk Containment Lab

Lawmakers are trying to pass a catch-all spending bill by March 23 that would fund the government for the rest of fiscal 2018, and the administration wants the bill to include $350 million for a new CDC lab that can handle the world’s most dangerous pathogens, such as Ebola and smallpox.

While the $350 million would not cover the whole project, Schuchat said that the CDC needs to start now, since the lab’s automated systems will no longer be able to safely function at some point in the near future. “It takes several years to plan and execute a building of this nature,” she said.

The current lab was built in 2005 — before the iPhone was developed, Schuchat noted — but the CDC wants the next lab to have a longer lifespan.

“The technology is not current, and the approach going forward would be more modular and flexible for upgrades to be possible,” she said. “I think we’ve learned from that era and can really build in a way that would have a longer life.”