McCaughey vs. CDC

Former ACSH trustee Betsy McCaughey has an important message for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention: Stop playing politics with infection control. McCaughey, founder of the Committee to Reduce Infection Deaths and the former lieutenant governor of New York, says the CDC s current infection guidelines are no match for CRE, the so-called nightmare bacteria that s raging through hospitals, killing up to half of all patients it infects. CDC Director Dr. Thomas Frieden is warning that the sequester would cut his agency s ability to fight hospital infection, McCaughey writes. But under both Republican and Democratic administrations, the CDC hands out hundreds of millions of dollars yearly in grants for what can kindly be called less essential projects. Frieden should stop playing politics with a potential hospital plague and focus on the CDC's core mission. And the public should issue its own call to action. There isn t much time.