Sunday, July 13, 2014

Had conference call today on Sunday with Francis Collins and Tom Frieden of the CDC. Tom has a significant problem in that they have been multiple lapses at the CDC with people not adhering to protocol in the experiment with a transfer of select agents such as anthrax, Brucella and influenza. He wanted to run this by Francis and me so that the NIH and CDC could be on the same page. We had the problem described above with the smallpox discovery in a cold room in building 29a and so his issue and ours are somewhat aligned. He is under pressure to decrease the number of investigators throughout the country who are working with select agents. The rationale for this is the fact that if the CDC could make mistakes like this, then virtually anyone can. This is aligning with the issue of many people wanting to put a clamp on gain of function research, particularly with influenza. More to come.