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You Get What You Pay For

© Adelle Vancil Tilton

"It's a bigger crime to follow Congress's direction than to spend money where science dictates." These words, spoken by Dr. William Bellini, a high ranking official in the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, have prompted some to question the entire role of the CDC in our nation's health research effort, and others to simply say, "I told you so." Whichever viewpoint you take, one thing is clear, there is a major problem facing federal agencies and their leadership.

Furthermore, it does not appear that these funding discrepancies are anything new. According to testimony before the Senate Sub-committee for Appropriations, "In the mid-1980s, Mr. Chairman, in Lake Tahoe, a series of people came down with a disease that was then known as Epstein Barr syndrome that is now known as Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. Under the good auspices of this committee, we were able to get some money to specifically study that disease. We were very disappointed to learn that that money was spent for something else, because they thought it could be better spent on something else. If it were only Epstein Barr that money has not been spent properly for, maybe we could say that was a mistake. But now we learn that the Hanta virus money, that was set aside for that, which is also a western United States disease where people are dying as a result of this disease, who are being exposed to something, we believe, dealing with rats. We are not too sure."

It's an old cliché, but one which is fitting for this situation, "History repeats itself." And it is repeating itself almost 20 years later, as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is again under fire for mismanagement of funds. In hearings held, February 29, 2000, members of that Senate committee heard testimony from Dr. Jeffrey Koplan, Director of the CDC, who denied any knowledge of fiscal mismanagement and other issues raised by members of the committee. These issues, and the resulting, rather heated; debate resulted in widespread publicity and a continued investigation by the General Accounting Office.

If things go as planned, May 25, 2000, will be the day when the Congress of the United States receives the final report of the GAO on the mismanagement of funds by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Congress expanded the investigation to include the National Institutes of Health, as well. The original GAO report concluded that the CDC, "...spent significant portions of CFS funds on the costs of other programs and activities unrelated to CFS and failed to adequately document the relevance of other costs charged to the CFS program."

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