CDC Misled Congress

[Guest guest]

NOT AGAIN.

We would got to jail for misappropriating funds---this is the second case in

a very short amount of time. Just the tip of the iceberg I imagine.

We need to BE HEARD!!!

M

[Guest guest]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WPlate/2000-02/02/130l-020200-idx.html

The Washington Post

February 2, 2000

CDC Misled Congress on Hantavirus; Funding Was Spent On Other Diseases

Joe s; Strauss, Washington Post Staff Writers

Seven years ago a long-distance runner from New Mexico caught cold,

struggled for breath as liquid flooded her lungs, then suddenly died. Her

fiance died five days later, followed by more than two dozen other residents

of the American Southwest.

The federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention identified the killer

as a previously unknown strain of hantavirus, a mouse-borne disease with a

staggering mortality rate. An alarmed Congress responded by giving the CDC

up to $ 7.5 million a year to fight it.

At least, Congress thought it did.

Instead, apparently without asking Congress, the CDC spent much of the money

on other programs that the agency thought needed the funds more, interviews

and documents show. One official said the total diverted is almost

impossible to trace because of CDC bookkeeping practices, but he estimated

the diversions involved several million dollars.

Regardless of the amount, the CDC's spending practices have troubled

officials within the agency and on Capitol Hill. Agencies are supposed to

give Congress accurate reports about the spending of taxpayer dollars. But

in the past year, disclosures about secret diversions of CDC funds have

incensed some members of Congress and fueled debate over who knows best how

to spend federal funds--the lawmakers who hand out the cash or the

bureaucrats who run the government day-to-day.

In the case of hantavirus, records show that once Congress voiced its

willingness to fund CDC research, the agency reported year after year that

it had spent up to $ 7.5 million annually battling the deadly germ.

" If they said $ 7.5 million was spent on hantavirus, then they should have

spent $ 7.5 million on hantavirus, " said Mike Myers, who until 16 months ago

managed CDC accounts for the House Appropriations Committee. " I would have

been outraged. "

Newbold of Colorado, whose 38-year-old wife, Cheri, died from

hantavirus two years ago, said the CDC's decision to redirect research funds

" surprises me and disturbs me. " He said victims and their families had

waited anxiously for new research into the disease but " we were led to

believe the money wasn't there. "

Senior CDC officials declined to comment on the hantavirus spending. But the

agency acknowledged in an unsigned statement that it had spent an

undisclosed amount on other diseases. It said the decision was made under

" the budgetary discretion given the director. "

The hantavirus diversion is strikingly similar to the CDC's controversial

decision to redirect money intended for research into chronic fatigue

syndrome--a matter that last year led to calls for a criminal investigation.

It also bolsters the accounts of CDC scientists who have complained of loose

bookkeeping at the $ 2.4 billion agency, which works to prevent and control

diseases.

An inspector general's audit last year found that the CDC could not account

for or defied congressional intent while spending $ 12.9 million

appropriated to study chronic fatigue syndrome, a debilitating illness

characterized by a lack of stamina.

While there was no suggestion that the money was stolen or used illegally,

Sen. Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) in November asked the Justice Department to

investigate whether the agency had violated laws against lying to Congress.

In the aftermath, the CDC promised to restore lost funds and apologized for

" a breach of CDC's solemn trust. " Director P. Koplan said at the

time that it was an isolated incident and that he knew of no other

diversions.

Yet documents show that 16 months ago, the head of the hantavirus program

told an auditor that he was worried because no one outside the Atlanta-based

agency knew of his program's spending practices. He said other CDC managers

were scared as well.

" Funds were used consistently to cover other things, " explained C.

Reeves, head of chronic fatigue syndrome research. " That is not a bad way to

do things. But you do not lie and hide it. "

Reeves exposed the manipulation of chronic fatigue money in 1998, saying he

refused to participate in a coverup. He charged that his superiors did not

consider the disease a serious health threat but were unwilling to air the

issue in Congress, which had been heavily lobbied by patients' groups.

Last summer, Koplan promised unprecedented changes. He announced mandatory

legal training for all budget managers and placed the viral division--home

of the hantavirus and chronic fatigue programs--on budgetary " probation. "

" We have learned a valuable lesson through this experience, " the agency said

in a statement at the time. But the vow failed to appease some in Congress.

" These bureaucracies get so big, they don't care where Congress wants the

money to go, " Reid said at the time he requested the criminal probe. " They

are kind of above it all; they do what they want to do with the money. "

As head of the CDC's Special Pathogens Branch, C.J. s directs research

into hantavirus and other quick-killing germs.

The white-bearded scientist works in a " spacesuit " and an isolation lab,

which protect him from exotic viruses. His risky research inspired

Hoffman's character in the movie " Outbreak " and won s a prominent spot

in the book " The Hot Zone. "

" C.J. s could swim through a bureaucracy like a shark, " wrote author

Preston. But auditor's notes, obtained under the federal Freedom of

Information Act, depict s not as a predator but as a frustrated and

fearful bureaucrat.

An auditor prepared the memorandum during the inquiry into chronic fatigue

funding. It quotes s as saying years of budget problems peaked in 1997

when the CDC slashed a quarter of his funding.

Even worse, s told the auditor, he was not told of the cuts until more

than 10 months into the fiscal year, when most of that year's funding had

already been spent. " He was very upset, " the auditor wrote.

To keep all programs afloat, s said in an interview, viral division

chief Mahy directed him to use part of the hantavirus money to

research Ebola and Lassa fevers, which the agency apparently had been paying

for out of discretionary funds. Since then, more than a third of the

hantavirus money has gone toward Ebola and other exotic diseases, s

said.

s said Mahy promised to revise reports sent to Congress to reflect the

diversion. But there is no evidence that ever happened. In its statement

last week to The Washington Post, the CDC announced that it has proposed

changes in the report language " to more accurately reflect how these

resources are being used. "

Ebola fever has killed people in Africa but has never been diagnosed in a

human in the United States. In 1989, it tore through a colony of monkeys at

a quarantine facility in Reston. It is one of dozens of maladies targeted by

the viral division of the National Center for Infectious Diseases, one of 11

centers that make up the CDC.

Mahy, who oversees a budget of more than $ 40 million, would not discuss

uses of the hantavirus money. Mahy's budget officer said he doubted that the

branch suffered a 25 percent budget reduction or that news of the cut would

have been delivered so late.

s said he could not comment further. But auditor's records show s

complained about the cuts to Mahy and to M. , director of the

Center for Infectious Diseases. Mahy " responded by writing him a nasty note

which essentially told him to shut up, " the auditor wrote.

told The Post that he was aware of concerns about redirection of the

hantavirus money but had not determined whether they were valid.

There is no evidence that word of the funding issues reached Congress, where

annual budget reports continued to cite concern about the hantavirus

outbreak. " The [Appropriations] committee encourages CDC to continue to

prioritize the prevention and containment of the hantavirus, " a 1999 report

said.

The CDC supplied Congress with reports showing that the agency's " actual "

hantavirus expenses increased 11.7 percent to $ 7.5 million in fiscal

1997--the same year that s said his branch suffered deep cuts. The CDC

reported that it spent $ 7.39 million on hantavirus in fiscal 1998.

But s told the auditor that after administrators subtracted hefty

overhead charges, his branch appeared to be losing roughly one-fifth of the

$ 5 million a year he expected to cover all his research programs. s

said determining a more precise figure was impossible because of fractured

accounting.

The auditor studied funding for s's programs in fiscal 1998 and arrived

at an even higher estimate: $ 1.4 million missing.

Wilmon Rushing, who retired about a year ago as associate director for

budgeting at the center, agreed that hantavirus money " ideally " should not

have been spent elsewhere. But he said that during his six years in the job,

the agency sometimes had borrowed from marked money, hoping to repay it

later.

Auditor's notes quote s as saying he felt legally " at risk " because no

one outside the CDC knew of the spending practices. The auditor wrote that

" other branch chiefs are nervous as well, because they are afraid they will

not actually get the money " allocated to run their programs.

In interviews and auditor's reports, other researchers confirmed the

outlines of s's account: budgets that arrive belatedly, money swapped

among programs at the fiscal year's end, an inability to track spending on

particular programs.

The agency budget " is almost unfathomable, " said Rupprecht, head of

the CDC rabies program. " No one can tell us what our balance is day to day. "

Auditors who tried to track the chronic fatigue money said that when CDC

officials shifted the money, they often left no paper trail.

Yet some researchers said the loose system worked well because it allowed

scientists to bounce money among programs as needed to fight disease

outbreaks or pursue medical discoveries.

" It's probably not kosher accounting-wise, " Bellini, head of the CDC

measles virus section, said of some of the money juggling. " So much of what

always went on I thought was kosher, now I'm finding out wasn't. "

Researcher Phil Pellett echoed the sentiments of many scientists. He does

not condone misleading the public but said it sometimes would be a " bigger

crime " to follow Congress's direction rather than spend money where science

dictates.

Pellett grew furious when an auditor questioned the propriety of funding his

herpes virus research with chronic fatigue money.

According to the auditor's notes, Pellett demanded, " How can some

congressman know better than we what the important public health issues

are? "

Researcher Alice Crites contributed to this report.