Gottlieb calls for CDC to have ‘elevated’ role in coronavirus fight

Former Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Commissioner Scott Gottlieb called on the Trump administration to avoid sidelining the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in an op-ed in The Wall Street Journal published Sunday evening.

Gottlieb wrote in his column that the CDC has released less information than is customary during public health emergencies, and argued that information about the coronavirus is not being shared with the public in an adequate fashion.

“New insights have translated into improved care. This knowledge is saving lives and will be especially useful if infections flare up again,” he wrote. “Yet such data on patients isn’t being streamlined and shared with the public quickly.”

“There are shortcomings in our ability to access the electronic systems designed to help glean facts from clinical data. CDC hasn’t been filling its traditional role of promptly publishing medical findings that may help doctors care for patients,” he continued. “Instead, a lot of this information is being passed around social media, by email or even through word of mouth. It’s trial and error on a global scale.”

Gottlieb echoed his comments in a tweet Sunday evening, writing: “We’re not putting out information quickly to improve clinical practice, inform on emerging issues of medical concern, and guidance to help business restart safely. @CDCgov must be elevated in the covid fight, not marginalized.”

My Op Ed in tomorrow’s @WSJ. We’re not putting out information quickly to improve clinical practice, inform on emerging issues of medical concern, and guidance to help business restart safely. @CDCgov must be elevated in the covid fight, not marginalized. https://t.co/czrAE705FK

— Scott Gottlieb, MD (@ScottGottliebMD) May 17, 2020

His argument comes as a Trump administration official publicly blasted the agency during an interview with NBC’s Chuck Todd on “Meet the Press.”

“Early on in this crisis, the CDC which really had the most trusted brand around the world in this space, really let the country down with the testing. Because not only did they keep the testing within the bureaucracy, they had a bad test. And that did set us back,” trade adviser Peter Navarro said on NBC.

Navarro also criticized members of the medical community during his interview Sunday, declining to name names but accusing “people in the medical community [who] just want to run and hide until the virus is extinguished.”

President Trump has boasted in recent weeks about the U.S.’s coronavirus testing capability even as many governors have argued that the amount of available tests is still insufficient.