CDC Wastes Case on Consultants
"The top U.S. public health agency spent millions of dollars on a Hollywood consultant, a lavish visitors center, and a 70-foot-by-25 foot ``wall of plasma televisions,'' a senator's report said.
Using some money intended to fight bioterrorism, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention paid out more than $1.7 million since 2001 to get producers to include public health messages in television shows and movies, according to the report, issued today by Tom Coburn, an Oklahoma Republican. One consultant is a former CDC employee, the report said.
The Atlanta-based agency last week asked for more money and an airplane to help with the fight against tuberculosis after the travels of an infected man called attention to gaps in controlling the disease. Coburn, a doctor who sits on the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, said the CDC has mismanaged the $9.2 billion budget it already has, while infections such as with the AIDS virus keep growing."
Read the full article at Bloomberg.com.