Get rid of the CDC

How has CDC screwed the pooch?  Let us count the ways ...

Act The First: You don't need no steenkin' test kits!

Via Lawrence (in a fabulous post), Why didn't we get test kits in January?

In essence, the CDC-designed test kit included and extra segment that would have allowed users to include people who had SARS or similar coronaviruses. It’s not clear what the point of this third segment of the test was but the important point is that only the first two segments of the test kit were needed to identify COVID-19.

The addition of the third test segment might not have mattered except that it wound up creating a significant problem. The CDC decided to manufacture the test kids “in house” rather than rely on outside labs. And during that process, the reagents used in the third segment of the test became contaminated. We know this because when the CDC sent out the initial batch of test kits, nearly all of them gave false positives on the third segment.

The effort to create these kits was let by their top expert on respiratory viruses, so this is a first class screw up by the A-Team.  Top.  Men.  And pay no attention to the name of the agency: the Center for Disease Control and Prevention.

Act The Second: What do you mean, Ebola has reached Dallas?

I mean, we've been sending out happy happy press releases for weeks now:

(CNN) -- A second health care worker at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital who cared for Thomas Eric Duncan has tested positive for Ebola, health officials said Wednesday -- casting further doubt on the hospital's ability to handle Ebola and protect employees.

... 

Meanwhile, CDC supergenius Frieden has decided that maybe sending an actual, y'know, CDC response team, to Dallas immediately might have maybe sort of possibly perhaps been helpful, unlike all that bloviating and reassuring from 1500 miles away with their heads firmly clenched somewhere upstream from their anal sphincter muscle. 

More Frieden jackassery on parade. 

Great work, Frieden. 

Pity about the additional 100+ people now known to be exposed because you and your agency are run like the government equivalent of the Jamaican Bobsled Team, but thanks for the comedy relief.

Top. Men.  And pay no attention to the name of the agency: the Center for Disease Control and Prevention.

Act The Third: Sorry about that "make patients go cold turkey on their pain meds" thing ...

People put through excruciating withdrawal symptoms because CDC told doctors to stop prescribing?  My bad, Bro:

Last month saw a letter to the CDC, a letter that documented hundreds of patients suffering the adverse consequences of the CDC's guidance.  The letter was signed by hundreds of doctors and nurses.  And suddenly the CDC is stumbling all over itself to "clarify" their 2016 guidance:

Acknowledging the suffering caused by "misinterpretation" of the opioid prescribing guidelines it published in 2016, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) yesterday sought to clarify that it never recommended imposing involuntary dose reductions on chronic pain patients. In a letter to physicians who had objected to that widespread practice, CDC Director Robert Redfield emphasized that his agency "does not endorse mandated or abrupt dose reduction or discontinuation, as these actions can result in patient harm."

Except that's exactly what their guidance had told doctors.  Click through for the gory details, but all I can say is that this is what you get when you have your national health care run by Top Men.

Postscript: How did we get here?

A Charlie Foxtrot this bad doesn't happen by chance, but rather is built brick by brick over the course of decades.  As the old saying goes, enough layers of bureaucracy ensures that disaster is not left to chance.

And if you think I'm being hard on CDC here, check back tomorrow when I describe how CDC will single-handedly collapse the health care system in the United States.  They have Top Men working on it.