HIV and ID Observations

CDC Homepage, 1996.

Over on Open Forum Infectious Diseases — and that’s abbreviated “O-F-I-D”, not “Oh-fid”, thank you — I sometimes invite other ID-types to join me on a podcast to pick their favorite ID-related item:

Examples of these mock “drafts”:

• Antibiotics
• Landmark HIV research papers
• Expired antimicrobial brand names

And some time this past winter (a million years ago), ID PharmD extraordinaire Monica Mahoney came up with a great idea for one of these drafts — top ID-related internet resources.

We recorded it in my office in February, our wonderful audio editor Meredith Mazzotta edited the audio file to make us sound more articulate — and then, because I was on service in late February, we didn’t post it right away.

Well, you know what happened next. A pandemic happened, meaning the world exploded. It didn’t seem quite right to release something so lighthearted and COVID-free in March.

Tell me — would you have wanted to read something about the joys of air travel in mid-September, 2001? So we shelved it, awaiting a more stable time.

Fast-forward to now, and I’ve decided we’re ready. After all, Monica is thoughtful and funny and loves to teach, so why not expose the world to her talent?

But before you listen to our picks, I’ll share my #1 pick of the best ID internet resource at the time, because it has special resonance now in a post-COVID-19 world. It’s the CDC web site, and here’s what I said (lightly edited):

I think the CDC site is a work of genius. It’s comprehensive. It’s broad. It’s updated all the time. It’s graphically terrific. It shows you sometimes your taxpayer dollars do really good work. I use it for all kinds of things. Example:  I am not a travel medicine doctor, but of course, all ID doctors get asked travel questions. I use it for that all the time. Not surprisingly, when there are emerging outbreaks, it is the first place you go to find the latest information. They are extremely diligent about keeping it up to date. … It is really a remarkable thing, and it makes me very proud and very patriotic (sometimes not easy these days), to say that cdc.gov is my number one choice for an ID internet resource.

I bolded that last part, since it’s so painful to read today.

Not because what I said was wrong at the time. If we think back to Zika, Ebola, pandemic flu, West Nile, Candida auris, HIV, HCV, STIs — basically anything except COVID-19 — the CDC site has been the place to go to find the most updated and reliable information.

Now, not so much. Never has so much talent and potential been wasted, undermined by a federal government that seems intent on undercutting what CDC does best, which is responding thoughtfully and carefully to infectious threats, using the best available data.

Wouldn’t it be great if these experienced public health officials were given the resources and allowed to use their expertise to take control of our national COVID-19 response? If they issued frequent briefings with the latest national information? If they remained free of the politicization that has so bedeviled our response to the pandemic right from the start? From a recent outstanding summary, published in The Atlantic:

On February 25, the agency’s respiratory-disease chief, Nancy Messonnier, shocked people by raising the possibility of school closures and saying that “disruption to everyday life might be severe.” Trump was reportedly enraged. In response, he seems to have benched the entire agency. The CDC led the way in every recent domestic disease outbreak and has been the inspiration and template for public-health agencies around the world. But during the three months when some 2 million Americans contracted COVID‑19 and the death toll topped 100,000, the agency didn’t hold a single press conference. Its detailed guidelines on reopening the country were shelved for a month while the White House released its own uselessly vague plan.

Isn’t it the height of irony that no one uses the CDC as a source for the latest numbers on new cases, percentage of positive tests, hospitalizations, and mortality?

Sure, they still do some good COVID-19 related research, and set important policies using the best available information.

But they could be doing so much more, if given the chance. Aaugh! So frustrating.

So take it away, Monica. Let’s hear about some other great internet resources. And use the comments section to let us know yours.

(Read the transcript:  Debating the Top ID Internet Resources with Dr. Monica Mahoney.)