Congress Scrutinizes Spending At CDC

(CBS)  The Center for Disease Control's main mission is to prevent disease, and the agency has been credited with some terrific strides in public health. But a startling analysis from Congress says the CDC is squandering hundreds of millions of your tax dollars in ways many find hard to believe, CBS News correspondent Sharyl Attkisson reports.

To talk about fat in the CDC budget, you can start 2,000 miles away in Hollywood, where CDC pays a liaison to help TV dramas and soap operas write accurate medical plots. The service is free of charge to Tinseltown moguls, through the generosity of $1.7 million of your tax dollars.

"That is obviously a waste of taxpayer dollars and they need to stop it," said Sen. Dave Weldon, R-Fla.

Weldon, who is also a doctor, is member of the House committee that funds CDC. He's outraged by the Hollywood story and other examples of spending exposed in a Congressional report: "CDC Off-Center".

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Read the full report on CDC waste.

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There's the new $109 million headquarters filled with nearly $10 million in furniture, which the report says works out to $12,000 per person in the building.

It's named after Arlen Specter, a top Republican senator in charge of CDC funding. But the naming is bipartisan. A top Democrat, Sen. Thomas Harkin, gets his name on the new $106 million communications and visitors center, complete with waterfalls, plasma TV's and more.

The $200,000 fitness center rivals the most posh private clubs with $30,000 saunas, "quiet rooms" and "zero gravity chairs" complete with "mood-enhancing light shows" for stressed out employees.

As for disease prevention, your money's being spent there too, but too often with disappointing results, says the report.

AIDS grants have been given to groups who've used them for workshops on erotic writing, how to flirt, and how to throw an alcohol party.

The CDC spent $5 billion over seven years on AIDS prevention, but the infection rate didn't drop a bit.

And after it spent $269 million tax dollars on an effort to eliminate syphilis, syphilis rates went up 68 percent.

"If a private company were spending money and getting no results like that, investors would withdraw their money," Weldon said.

CDC Director Julie Louise Gerberding, M.D., M.P.H., wouldn't agree to an interview, from CDC's new state-of-the-art television studio or anywhere else.

But the agency issued a statement saying "CDC takes seriously the need to wisely and appropriately use its resources," and that the report gives an incomplete view of its "excellent public health work."

The new facility replaces dilapidated buildings and "have led to scientific advances and strengthened our ability to respond to public health emergencies."

The CDC recently told Congress it needs $1 billion more for 2008 on top of its $10 billion budget. At least some here are saying the agency needs to do a thorough internal exam before asking taxpayers to open their wallets wider.

[fomerworker]

Yes, you can build a basic house in this area for less than $200,000. Most taxpayers couldn't afford to spend that, even to house their families.

I have seen secretaries running up and down the halls at fiscal year end, BEGGING people buy more things. They were trying to spend all the leftover money so that they could justify asking for more next year.

Quonset huts? Where? Certainly not on the main
campus!

How many plasma screens does it take to have a studio? How many auditoriums does the CDC need, anyway? It's not enough that local Fox Five brings a van over almost every day of the week?

Take a real good look at how much money CDC forks out to industry, THEN tell me it's about the taxpayers.

Want to guess how many workers actually have access to that gym and those quiet rooms? Many workers don't even work on the main campus. Contractors comprise about a third of all workers, but are accorded no privileges at all. They don't even get flu shots when everyone else does.

As taxpayers, we were completely disregarded and disrespected. If workers at CDC feel they are underpaid and underprivileged, they are always welcome to seek employment in real jobs in the private sector. I know that's a little scary for those who went straight from college to the agency, but regular people do it every day. They even live in regular houses and work at places that don't have gyms at all. All this sounds like is a gi-normous sense of entitlement.

[fomerworker]

Yes, you can build a basic house in this area for less than $200,000. Most taxpayers couldn't afford to spend that, even to house their families.

I have seen secretaries running up and down the halls at fiscal year end, BEGGING people buy more things. They were trying to spend all the leftover money so that they could justify asking for more next year.

Quonset huts? Where? Certainly not on the main
campus!

How many plasma screens does it take to have a studio? How many auditoriums does the CDC need, anyway? It's not enough that local Fox Five brings a van over almost every day of the week?

Take a real good look at how much money CDC forks out to industry, THEN tell me it's about the taxpayers.

Want to guess how many workers actually have access to that gym and those quiet rooms? Many workers don't even work on the main campus. Contractors comprise about a third of all workers, but are accorded no privileges at all. They don't even get flu shots when everyone else does.

As taxpayers, we were completely disregarded and disrespected. If workers at CDC feel they are underpaid and underprivileged, they are always welcome to seek employment in real jobs in the private sector. I know that's a little scary for those who went straight from college to the agency, but regular people do it every day. They even live in regular houses and work at places that don't have gyms at all. All this sounds like is a gi-normous sense of entitlement.

[fomerworker]

Yes, you can build a basic house in this area for less than $200,000. Most taxpayers couldn't afford to spend that, even to house their families.

I have seen secretaries running up and down the halls at fiscal year end, BEGGING people buy things. They were trying to spend all the leftover money so that they could justify asking for more next year.

Quonset huts? Where? Certainly not on the main
campus!

How many plasma screens does it take to have a studio? How many auditoriums does the CDC need, anyway? It's not enough that local Fox Five brings a van over almost every day of the week?

Take a real good look at how much money CDC forks out to industry, THEN tell me it's about the taxpayers.

Want to guess how many workers actually have access to that gym and those quiet rooms? Many works don't even work on the main campus. Contractors comprise about a third of all workers, but are accorded no privileges at all. They don't even get flu shots when everyone else does.

As taxpayers, we were completely disregarded and disrespected. If workers at CDC feel they are underpaid and underprivileged, they are always welcome to seek employment in real jobs in the private sector. I know that's a little scary for those who went straight from college to the agency, but regular people do it every day. They even live in regular houses and work at places that don't have gyms at all. All this sounds like is a gi-normous sense of entitlement.

[fomerworker]

Yes, you can build a basic house in this area for less than $200,000. Most taxpayers couldn't afford to spend that, even to house their families.

I have seen secretaries running up and down the halls at fiscal year end, BEGGING people buy things. They were trying to spend all the leftover money so that they could justify asking for more next year.

Quonset huts? Where? Certainly not on the main
campus!

How many plasma screens does it take to have a studio? How many auditoriums does the CDC need, anyway? It's not enough that local Fox Five brings a van over almost every day of the week?

Take a real good look at how much money CDC forks out to industry, THEN tell me it's about the taxpayers.

Want to guess how many workers actually have access to that gym and those quiet rooms? Many works don't even work on the main campus. Contractors comprise about a third of all workers, but are accorded no privileges at all. They don't even get flu shots when everyone else does.

As taxpayers, we were completely disregarded and disrespected. If workers at CDC feel they are underpaid and underprivileged, they are always welcome to seek employment in real jobs in the private sector. I know that's a little scary for those who went straight from college to the agency, but regular people do it every day. They even live in regular houses and work at places that don't have gyms at all. All this sounds like is a gi-normous sense of entitlement.

[drawest54]

"Long time gov employee" obviously never worked at CDC. As a manager in the government for 30 years, I would have fired his butt and made it stick!

CDC scientists are sought after world wide for their abilities, knowledge, and passion for public health. Many CDC employees work 10+ hour days without any additional compensation (that is correct, NO overtime), and they do it for 30 year careers. In the past, the perks have been few. Now that CDC has decent facilities like the work-out facilties, CDC is finally catching up to the rest of the world in providing decent facilities for its personnel. That is something the taxpayer can feel good about.

You can count on your fingers the institutions in the world that have made the positive impact of the CDC. It's a bonus that they've done it for such modest investment.

[gams5]

Last post on this subject: This is not "a startling analysis from Congress", but rather a report from Senator Tom Coburn's office. The facts cited in the report bear investigation, but the lurid writing style suggests authorship by a college-student staffer, not a responsible researcher and writer. This report would hardly be considered a definitive treatise on CDC spending.

There was a time when CBS would have used such a report as a starting point for a responsible investigation of its own; but clearly the days of responsible investigative journalism are gone.

[gams5]

To: j4401

Part 2: The fitness center thing is what really got me--this is something that would benefit any company, and that price is ridiculously low for the facilities described. Many companies provide workout facilities for employees; making this available is a terrific investment in employee health and morale and is cheap at the price. A $200,000 facility does not equal the %u201Cmost posh private clubs%u201D, and it ain%u2019t that private%u2014it%u2019s open to all CDC employees, who, as noted, work for less than market salaries. It should be noted that you can%u2019t build a basic house in Atlanta for that price.

We are currently involved in a highly destructive and hugely expensive war. The CDC, on the other hand, with a budget that is a fraction of war spending, promotes only constructive issues%u2014health, disease prevention, immunization, research. This is a good use of tax dollars.

I would encourage anyone who wants to see their tax dollars at work, and be proud of the results, to visit the CDC campus.

[gams5]

To: j4401

Part 1: I sound like a CDC employee, which I'm not.

As with all government agencies, money can be wasted since they must try to do the impossible%u2014please everyone. However, most of the items cited in the CBS news report were not wasteful or frivolous, but things most likely to push buttons with the average viewer.

The CDC employees highly-educated professionals who could be making much more money in private industry, many of whom until fairly recently worked in outdated facilities. Why SHOULDN'T CDC build nice buildings to replace those that had been in use since the 1940s? Would it have been better to build shacks? Considering how long it took to replace the previous buildings, these new ones will have to last a while%u2014they should be top-notch and state of the art.

CDC is a world-wide resource, one of the most respected agencies anywhere in any country. People come from all over to visit and learn there. It should be a showplace and a point of pride to present it well. It%u2019s not as though the buildings were built and furnished for the personal enjoyment of one person%u2014the story made it sound like CDC had embezzled the money for plasma TVs to watch sitcoms. Plasma is current video technology and would be installed in any facility designed for communications, and these are in use in the visitors center--open to the public and used for education.

[j4401]

To: GAMS5

You sound very defensive, I understand that. I do not know if you have any government time under your belt, but those of us who do, realize the continual waste that prevails in almost all government facilities. You would have to be blind not to realize it. As tax-payers, we and the media have every right to question the waste, because it is continual increasing and many times opulent.

[antoniof123]

nyckate I agree 100 percent get rid of these clowns start with the Pres and his Vice then move to the rest.