CFS within the CDC Organization - Some Background Information
The CDC head who was appointed last year has been doing reorganizing - and it takes a while for all the changes to filter down. That is one reason there are a lot of "acting" appointments like Elizabeth Unger right now.
I wanted to catch up on the current organizational status of the CFS research program within CDC. So, I am posting below a description of where CFS is, as well as copying what the Chronic Viral Disease Branch is assigned to do.
This is long - but I wanted to include it for those people who might be interested in the organizational structure. I put this under the Advocacy thread because it may help us figure out who is in the power structure for future letter writing, etc.
Anika
CFS within the U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC) Organizational Structure.
Within the CDC, there are several Offices. Some of the Offices have Centers within them. (You can see an organizational chart that shows the Offices and Centers here:
http://www.cdc.gov/maso/pdf/CDC_Chart_wNames.pdf .)
Each Center has multiple Divisions, which in turn have multiple Branches. CFS is assigned to the Chronic Viral Diseases Branch,
--of the Division of Viral and Rickettsial Diseases,
----of the National Center for Emerging and Zoonotic Infectious Diseases (NCEZID),
------within the Office of Infectious Diseases.
As of the January 29, 2010 announcement, Elizabeth Unger will become the new acting head of the Chronic Viral Diseases Branch, when William Reeves changes assignments on February 14. Reeves new assignment takes him outside the Office of Infectious Diseases, into the Office of Surveillance, Epidemiology, and Laboratory Services. On the organizational chart its a major move.
Within the Center for EZID that CFS is under, the acting Center head is different too now partly because two former Centers were combined into the current Center in the recent reorganization. Before the reorganization, Lonnie King was the head of the former Center for Zoonotic, Vector-Borne, and Enteric Diseases (NCZVED). Now, Thomas Hearne, PhD, is acting head of the new, larger NCEZID. (I cant tell if or where Lonnie King is in the new organization.)
http://www.cdc.gov/ncezid/about-ncezid.html takes you to the CDC web page for the new NCEZID, which has links to organizational charts and information about the Divisions.
Going through some of those links, you can see the page on the Chronic Viral Disease Branch at
http://www.cdc.gov/nczved/divisions/dvrd/cvdb/index.html . Here is what it currently says about the jobs of this branch:
DVRD - Chronic Viral Disease Branch
1. Conducts surveillance and hypothesis-driven clinical studies of chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS);
2. develops novel genomic and proteomic laboratory assays to be used in studies of CFS;
3. develops bioinformatics techniques to elucidate the pathophysiology of CFS and similar medically unexplained illnesses;
4. develops, executes, and evaluates medical and public education programs to decrease morbidity associated with CFS;
5. conducts laboratory-based epidemiologic studies of human papillomavirus (HPV) infection and cervical cancer to enable effective control and prevention;
6. conducts research concerning human immune responses to HPV, CFS, and other related unexplained or chronic illnesses;
7. develops, evaluates, and improves reagents/methods for rapid diagnosis of HPV, CFS, and other related unexplained or chronic illnesses;
8. provides epidemiology, molecular biology, bioinformatics, diagnostic serology/virology, and immunology consultation and collaboration to national and international organizations concerning prevention and control of CFS, cervical cancer, and related chronic or medically unexplained illnesses; and
9. provides expert assistance and consultation to national and international investigators and organizations regarding sequelae of viral infections.
This CDC web page was last updated August 20, 2009. I dont know what it said before that.
The recent and planned projects on CFS dont seem to me to be very well tied in to the assignments the branch is given on CFS..
