CDC begins shoring up facilities that are falling apart

Posted 7:04PM on Saturday 27th July 2002 ( 22 years ago )

CHAMBLEE - When the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recruited Dr. Julie Gerberding four years ago to lead its fight against hospital infections, she took the job only on one condition. She would only come on board, she told government health officials, if they could guarantee new labs for her colleagues facilities suitable for the critical work they were doing. Now Gerberding is in charge of the CDC an agency whose profile is higher than it's been since the height of the AIDS panic. But those scientists still work in buildings that are literally falling apart, with many colleagues toiling in windowless cubes, with sewer pipes running overhead. ``These people are diligent,'' she said recently. ``They're there day in and day out doing their work. But morale is an issue.'' Earlier this month the CDC dedicated two new labs at its campus here in suburban Atlanta sparkling glass-and-steel structures to house scientists working on parasitic diseases and toxins like lead and pesticide. But a handful of those scientists will be left behind in the facilities those labs are meant to replace shabby wood-frame buildings that resemble the trailers that overcrowded high schools use as classrooms. And those labs remain more the rule than the exception at the CDC. In one building, paper towels are attached with masking tape to clattering air conditioning units hoping to keep condensation from dripping onto computers that cost the government nearly $1 million a pop. In another, a $20 oscillating fan, the sort you might pick up at a supermarket at the start of summer, blows on sophisticated circuit boards to keep them from overheating. Since Sept. 11 and the anthrax attacks, lawmakers have climbed over each other to promise the CDC money to fight bioterrorism. But agency officials say the crumbling buildings need just-as-urgent attention. ``We don't have any extra room,'' says Dr. Jim Pirkle of CDC's National Center for Environmental Health. ``Imagine if you put four sofas in your living room. That's what we're trying to do.'' The two buildings that opened here July 19 are the most visible pieces yet of CDC's plan for rebuilding and renovating. It is an ambitious 10-year, $1 billion project that is only in its second year. Some of the next steps are a replacement for a 35-year-old lab at Fort Collins, Colo., that CDC uses to study West Nile virus, hantavirus, plague and other deadly pathogens. Also slated are a new lab to study new infectious diseases, an emergency operations center and a communications center. Making sure all the facilities are secure will be a key priority because of post-Sept. 11 security worries, Gerberding said. While members of Congress, who must approve the spending year-by-year, promise the money to fight bioterrorism will be there, winning the dollars to spend on upgrades may not be as easy. Some lawmakers still may be wary about shoveling money to the agency. In 2000, then-director Dr. Jeffrey Koplan was forced to apologize to Congress for how scientists spent some money intended for deadly hantavirus. He said at the time that CDC account had grown careless as its budget grew. But the CDC argues the rebuilding is critical and not just to guarantee the quality of the science conducted in the labs. Agency officials grumble that it's extremely difficult to recruit top-notch young scientists with an offer of government work in shabby facilities, as opposed to a bigger salary in the private sector. ``I was recruited into the old facility,'' said Patty Wilkins, CDC's chief of parasitic diseases, ``and you wondered why anyone would go over there to work.'' The CDC contends the construction plan will actually save taxpayers money. The staff will be consolidated at the two main campuses, in Chamblee and Atlanta, eliminating the need for the agency to rent office space. Most of the construction projects should be under way by 2009; many will be finished by then, the CDC says. The agency plans to have all its renovations finished by 2012. ``Piece by piece, we're getting there,'' says Dr. Stephen Ostroff, a CDC infectious disease expert. ``Just because they're working with Third World diseases doesn't mean they should be working in Third World facilities.''

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