For years, public and food industry officials have maintained that the American food supply is one of the safest in the world. Yet in 1999, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention  estimated that food borne pathogens caused 76 million illnesses, 325,000 hospitalizations, and 5,000 deaths annually in the United States. Now, more than ten years later, American families still face the same meaningful risks of illness or death from their food. While incidents involving some foodborne microbes have declined significantly, others have not abated in years. While incidents involving some foodborne microbes have declined significantly, according to the CDC, others have not abated in years.

These everyday dangers are evident from periodic, dramatic nationwide outbreaks of foodborne illness. These range from the infamous 1993 Jack-in-the-Box hamburger E. coli outbreak that struck hundreds, including many children, to the recent 2008 salmonella outbreak—the largest ever—that federal officials mistakenly attributed to tomatoes, before belatedly identifying the Mexican jalapeno peppers that sickened over 1,200 Americans.

Federal food safety officials openly acknowledge the persistence of this public health threat. Last October, Commissioner of Food and Drugs Peggy Hamburg echoed the CDC’s 1999 statistics in Senate testimony, acknowledging that every year “millions of people in the United States suffer from food borne illness, hundreds of thousands are hospitalized, and thousands die.” This staggering toll in health is matched by a tremendous economic impact. Last month, the Pew Charitable Trusts and Georgetown University concluded that the American economy incurs annual economic losses of $152 billion from medical costs, disability, and losses to quality of life attributable to food borne illnesses.

Deficiencies in the regulation of the American food supply constitute the most serious and persistent gap in American consumer protection. But solving the problem requires a combination of legislation to strengthen oversight authority, resources necessary to implement reforms, and an administration with the courage to take on difficult political choices. Thus far, that elixir has proven as elusive as health insurance reform. Sporadic congressional interest, historic infighting between the two principal agencies responsible for food safety, the Food and Drug Administration and the U.S. Department of Agriculture, and effective opposition from food producers and agricultural interests, have all but assured for many years that meaningful food safety reforms did not occur. But the chances of real reform are looking healthy.

This year, the possibility of action is significant. In the House of Representatives, Congressman John Dingell’s (D-MI) H.R. 2749, the Food Safety Enhancement Act of 2009, moved quickly last summer through committee markup and passed the House by a commanding 280-150 vote. The legislation would provide FDA with stronger authority to conduct inspections, mandate performance standards and preventive controls, and review records in order to trace outbreaks and unsafe food imports. The FDA would also strengthen nationwide laboratory capacity to test food samples and gain clear authority to mandate recalls of contaminated food. While the agency can mandate recalls for medical devices, it currently lacks the authority to do the same for contaminated food products. According to a 2010 Government Accountability Office report, “Limitations in FDA’s food recall authorities heighten the risk that unsafe food will remain in the food supply.” Under the proposed legislation, the agency would even have the power to quarantine regions where it suspects outbreaks originate. An effective combination of regulatory reforms and legislative compromises, the bill has broad bipartisan support, as well as the support, or absence of opposition, from regulated food industries and agricultural interests.

As Republican Congressman Shimkus (R-IL), a leading member of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, said, “We just couldn’t sit on the sidelines anymore as we saw case after case of food-borne illnesses. We had to come together in a way to address this.”

In the Senate, Richard Durbin’s (D-IL) S. 519, the FDA Food Safety Modernization Act, moved swiftly by voice vote through committee and is expected to reach the floor this month. The legislation has been amended to reflect reasonable compromises that have the bipartisan support of key senators, including Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee Chairman Tom Harkin (D-IA), fellow Democratic Senator Chris Dodd (CT), and Republican Senators Mike Enzi (WY) and Judd Gregg (NH). Like H.R. 2749, the Senate legislation strengthens FDA authority to regulate food, increase inspections, establish science-based standards, and better cope with the ever-expanding volume of imported foods.

Just as important, the Obama administration has heightened enforcement of consumer protections, selecting new, like-minded leadership at FDA and USDA committed to better coordinating their work and improving federal oversight of food safety. Commissioner Hamburg is a physician and public health leader who considers food safety “a core public health issue.” Deputy Commissioner for Foods Mike Taylor is a widely respected leader in food safety, having served as USDA undersecretary for food safety, as well as an FDA deputy commissioner under former commissioner David Kessler. At USDA, deputy undersecretary for food safety Jerry Mande worked with Taylor at FDA and Dr. Elisabeth Hagen, the department’s chief medical officer, has been nominated as the new undersecretary for food safety. Finally, the administration has matched its rhetoric and appointments with funding: the FDA’s Fiscal Year 2011 budget calls for a $326 million increase to “transform” food safety through $88 million in appropriations and $239 million in industry-funded user fees.

If the Senate successfully completes ongoing negotiations on a managers’ amendment and can bring S. 519 to a floor vote, the remaining steps to enacting comprehensive food safety reforms will be few. With few major substantive differences between the House and Senate bills, a bipartisan Congress would have to stumble badly to fail to deliver a law to President Obama for his signature before it adjourns this year. Provided enactment of these new authorities can be matched with equal commitments in funding, the federal government will have secured and begun implementing landmark reforms that will improve the safety of the food supply and better protect the health of all Americans.

Paul Kim is a partner at Foley Hoag LLP, and former deputy staff director for health under Senator Edward M. Kennedy and counsel to Congressman Henry Waxman.

This problem needs to be addressed as soon as possible. The time is right: there is a great need to reduce or eliminate unnecessary government programs where possible, and the Obama administration has signaled its intention to place a new premium on using science to leverage investment in public programs.

The PRA and scientific research

Congress revised the PRA in 1995 and a broad bipartisan group supported its quest to reduce the burden to citizens associated with government data collections. The legislation has been overdue for reauthorization since 2001. As commonly understood by many Americans, the impetus for this law stemmed from mandatory reporting requirements like those imposed by the U.S. Census and tax forms. It was also intended to reduce the burden of repeated requests for the similar information required as a condition for receipt of services or benefits (e.g., federally funded insurance programs) or reporting from such programs. However, the language of the PRA was sufficiently broad to encompass federally sponsored public health data collections in which participation is voluntary and often compensated—for example, voluntary behavioral surveys, and projects that collect behavioral risk data collected in conjunction with the offering of disease screenings must be reviewed and approved by OMB before enrollment can begin.

For data collections by government agencies such as the CDC, the OMB administrative review process should require six to eight months after all human subjects reviews have been completed. In our experience, these timelines are minimum estimates, and many OMB reviews of public health research data collection protocols have taken much longer, often more than a year, and sometimes as long as three years. This results in delayed implementation of important public health data collections and forces public health decision makers to plan and implement programs without the benefit of timely and relevant data.

Ethical considerations

In considering PRA requirements in the context of public health research, policymakers must consider the principles espoused in the Belmont Report—the landmark statement on bioethics in human subjects research—which include respect for persons, beneficence, and justice. Unfortunately, delays in PRA reviews violate all three principles. With regard to respect for persons, delaying the opportunity of individuals to choose to participate voluntarily in a public health research study is not consistent with respect for the autonomy of persons to choose for themselves. With regard to beneficence—making efforts to secure the well-being of persons—if the OMB review process results in the delayed opportunity for voluntary research participation by those in greatest need (and in our experience it does), this clearly compromises the principle of beneficence. Unnecessarily long reviews also compromise the principle of justice by delaying access to voluntary participation in research studies. According to the Belmont report, “an injustice occurs when some benefit to which a person is entitled is denied without good reason.” This is especially evident in light of the fact that individuals choosing to participate in public health research studies may create direct and immediate benefits for themselves and those in their own communities by increasing knowledge about the impact of public health programs and by providing data to inform development of policies and improved programs.

The purpose and reality of PRA requirements

The stated purposes of the PRA include minimizing the burden of data collections on individuals, ensuring the greatest possible benefit from information collected, and reducing the cost to the federal government of collecting information. The principles are important, but the nature of CDC public health research fulfills them without additional review requirements. Moreover, OMB review can reduce the benefits of information gathering by duplicating existing review processes and delaying access to new health data. Here we address these purposes in turn as they relate to public health research and evaluation:

Minimizing the burden of data collections on individuals: Most citizens will identify the PRA with data collections that are mandatory and involuntary—for example, tax, census, and immigration forms. In fact, the PRA itself defines data collection as occurring when data collection “requirements [are] imposed on ten or more persons.” However, OMB review requirements have been increasing applied to CDC public health research programs in which participation is voluntary, and even for which participants are monetarily compensated for their time and effort. The OMB review process has been extended to cover activities which do not impose a burden on citizens, but instead offer them the choice to participate in research that is designed to promote the health of communities in which they may receive services not yet widely available, and for which their time is compensated. In other words, burden does not result when people are offered a choice as to whether they want to participate in a public health research or evaluation study and the choice does not affect any services they already have available. Therefore, requiring PRA oversight of such studies beyond peer review and Institutional Review Board examination does not reduce the burden to participants.

Implicit in this purpose is that reducing duplicative data collections supported by the federal government would reduce unnecessary burden. However, there are many other funding mechanisms, such as National Institutes of Health grants, for which OMB does not provide oversight of most data collections because of a “clinical exemption” in the PRA, or because funding mechanisms are used in which government scientists do not have substantial input or direction with respect to data collections. In these cases, truly duplicative data collections are relatively rare. This is because scientists take seriously our responsibility to be well-versed in the published literature, to keep abreast of other ongoing research through networking with colleagues, and to not conduct research that unnecessarily duplicates other ongoing efforts. NIH review processes also help identify potentially overlapping areas of investigation in the peer review process. CDC, which is increasingly using peer review processes consistent with those of NIH, should similarly rely on the integrity of scientists and the diligence of peer review committees to address concerns of duplicative research.

Ensuring the greatest possible benefit from information collected: To provide maximal benefit, public health data collections, whether research or part of non-research public health surveillance or evaluation efforts, must be timely. The greatest possible benefits of data collection are to have the right data at the right moment. There are a number of processes already in place to ensure that public health research studies are collecting the right data. Research proposals are peer reviewed by external experts, and, in the case of research cooperative agreements, have substantial input from CDC scientists. In our experience, the OMB review process is in part duplicative of the peer review process. For example in a recent OMB review of one of our studies, there were no questions about the burden of our study; in fact, the only questions raised dealt with sampling methods and other aspects of scientific study design that peer reviewers had already examined and found meritorious. In our case, this issue was exacerbated by the fact that the original study proposal to CDC, which detailed the sampling methods and rationale, was not even reviewed by OMB staff as part of their review process.

Timeliness of data collection also relates in important ways to maximizing benefits. The OMB process unequivocally delays the collection of crucial public health data—sometimes by years. But even the lost benefit of science delayed only tells part of the story: CDC scientists, daunted by the realties of how long OMB approval sometimes takes, may self-censor their best ideas about public health science because they understand that by the time required OMB processes are completed, the science will be out of date. Increasingly, academic and other non-federal scientists are choosing to limit their collaborations with CDC because of OMB delays, in favor of working with other funding agencies where OMB review is usually not required.

Minimize the cost to the federal government of information collected: There might be instances in which OMB review identifies duplicative data collections, and costs are reduced because OMB intervention prevents such redundancy. However, we believe that much more frequently, costs increase because review delays necessary, well-coordinated data collections. When CDC has funded scientists in partner institutions to conduct important public health research and those researchers sit idle waiting for OMB approval, dollars are wasted. When important science is not done in a timely manner, we can measure the costs of failing to implement effective prevention programs both in dollars, because in many situations preventing disease costs less than treating it, and in preventable morbidity and mortality.

A case study

We base our observations of the OMB process on our recent experience. A group from the University of Maryland and the University of Pennsylvania were awarded funds under a cooperative agreement with scientists from the CDC to conduct a project in Philadelphia and Baltimore to examine the impact of conducting rapid HIV testing in inpatient and outpatient mental health settings that predominantly serve African Americans. This cooperative agreement was funded to 1) increase the number of mental health providers who routinely provide HIV counseling, testing, and linkage to care in settings that provide mental health care; and 2) to describe the relationship between mental illness and HIV testing and care for persons with newly diagnosed HIV infection and risk behaviors in order to inform optimization of HIV prevention interventions for persons with chronic mental illness. The proposal went through peer review, was approved, and funded beginning in August 31, 2007. More than two years later, we have not started work on the project and continue to await OMB approval. These delays represent a combination of internal CDC processes in preparing and submitting the OMB package and in OMB review of the data collection. Whether the OMB-related delays reside within CDC, elsewhere within the Department of Health and Human Services, or within OMB itself, these delays arise because of the OMB review requirements.

A simple solution

These concerns can be easily addressed in the next reauthorization of the PRA by providing an exemption to the PRA for public health research, surveillance, and evaluation in which participation is voluntary. Exemptions to OMB review are not without precedent. Notably, the NIH and the Veterans Administration, both of which have substantial intramural and extramural research programs, frequently use an exemption for clinical research. The legislation authorizing the National Vaccine Program also specifically exempts this program from the requirements of OMB review under the PRA. Public health research deserves no less.

The threshold to justify implementation of lengthy governmental reviews that delay scientific progress should be very high. In the case of the OMB review requirements for voluntary data collections for public health research and program evaluation, we believe that this threshold is not met. Although put into place to make sure that the American public is not overly burdened by government data collections, the OMB review process is currently applied to voluntary participation in public health studies that do not mandate participation, and therefore cannot mandate burden in its commonly understood sense. Because the OMB functions as part of the executive branch, the review process could be used as a political tool to modify or delay research that is unpopular within a given administration. This review process costs the public in many ways—counted in dollars as well as in delays of important research in public health that could ultimately save lives. Alternatives exist to meet the goals of the PRA for public health research that minimize delays in study implementation.

We are hopeful that Congress will take aggressive steps to review these policies and ultimately extend to these specific types of public health data collections an exemption from PRA requirements.

Michael B. Blank, PhD, is Associate Professor of Psychology in Psychiatry at the University of Pennsylvania. He is affiliated with the Center for Mental Health Policy and Services Research as well as the Leonard Davis Institute of Health Economics.

Patrick S. Sullivan, DVM, PhD, is Associate Professor of Epidemiology at Emory University’s Rollins School of Public Health in Atlanta. Prior to his current appointment, he served in scientific management positions at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention from 1999-2001 and 2003-2008.

Paul A. Lombardo, JD, PhD, is Professor of Law at Georgia State University’s College of Law. He is affiliated with the Center for Law, Health and Society and is a recognized expert in legal history and bioethics.

Over the course of the current Salmonella Typhimurium outbreak, the Centers for Disease Control has so far cataloged 677 cases in 45 states. Here’s the latest from the CDC as of Sunday:

The contaminated peanut products originated from a plant in Blakely, Georgia, but the shipping routes for those items have likely determined the geographic distribution of sick citizens.

For more on that, and a comparison with last year’s national food safety disaster, which involved Salmonella Saintpaul hitching a ride on tomatoes, see this post by Emily Sciarillo at FortiusOne’s “Off the Map” blog (HT to Nancy).

Good riddance to the lies, the deception, the White House-edited pseudoscience reports. Good riddance to the stacked science advisory committees, the faux peer-review of proposed regulations, the junkyard claims of “junk science.”

Good riddance to the scientist manqué at the top of the Environmental Protection Agency who big-footed actual evidence for political convenience. Good riddance to the leadership at the Office of Science and Technology Policy that supported President Bush’s skepticism about the need to address climate change aggressively.

Good riddance to the vice-president who thought the telecom revolution was about better bugging of innocent citizens’ phone calls. Good riddance to the president who cared more about human embryos than he did about children living in the lower Ninth Ward.

Now, however, comes the difficult task of looking forward—of finding the place for progressive voices in an administration refreshingly committed to treating science fairly, but burdened by an inheritance of underfunded agencies and dispirited federal scientists. And all this comes in the midst of an economic crisis that precludes the cash infusion that our emaciated science agencies and their surviving public servants need and so richly deserve.

But there are two aspects of the current predicament that give me hope. First, of course, is that when it comes to science, Obama really does get it. Back in October 2008, he sent via the government employees union several letters to federal workers in the science-based agencies, stating in no uncertain terms his commitment to evidence. “In an Obama administration, the principle of scientific integrity will be an absolute, and I will never sanction any attempt to subvert the work of scientists,” he wrote.

By my reading, those missives could be reduced to about seven words—two-sevenths exhortation—“Hang on!”—and five-sevenths supplication—“I’m going to need you!”

The supplication gets me to my second reason for hope, which is that despite all the failings at

• the Food and Drug Administration: the Plan B debacle, the parade of contaminated foods, and the failure to follow up on serious side effects of drugs
• the EPA, with its repeated overruling of science on pesticide approvals, chemical contamination standards, air and water pollution
• the Interior Department, which, according to The New York Times, is “riddled with incompetence and corruption, captive to industries it is supposed to regulate and far more interested in exploiting public resources than conserving them.”
• the Department of Agriculture, which has been repeatedly scolded by federal courts for its failed science policies and which, according to a just-released Inspector General report, “does not have a strategy for monitoring new transgenic plants and animals that may be developed and imported into the United States”
• the National Institutes of Health, which has not paid sufficient attention to conflicts of interest among its grantees and provided too much cover for the morally corrupt Bush stem cell plan
• the National Aeronautics and Space Administration—consider the Columbia disaster and the pending loss of the shuttle fleet with no other means of reaching the space station
• the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which failed in “almost every respect” to protect Hurricane Katrina victims from the well-understood risks of formaldehyde fumes, according to a congressional investigation, and which has alienated scientists around the world for failing to share important public health data

…Despite all these failings and more, the amazing thing is that every time I talk to the men and women who are actually doing the science in these agencies, I find them almost without exception to be hugely talented and dedicated professionals. Most of them are working on shoestrings but virtually all of them are squeezing all the integrity they can into the process, wanting nothing more (and nothing less) than to get the best answers to the smartest questions so the United States can be a leader among nations and help save the world. Who can’t relate to that?

In short, I am heartened that the nation is endowed with a huge corps of public-servant scientists devoted to going where the evidence takes them and who, as of Wednesday, will for the first time in years be respected by the highest officials in the land for what they do. What’s more, one of the silver linings of our recent eight-year nightmare is that scientists have awakened to the political context within which they work, and more of them than ever seem willing to speak their minds when it comes to how their studies are to be integrated into the world of public policy.

Now is the time for progressives inside and outside of science to solidify these gains for the common good—to avoid overreaching in these days of our political ascendance and instead prove that science can bring economic as well as environmental benefit, prove that scientists can be responsive to social, ethical, and cultural concerns, and prove that evidence is a better source of ideas than ideology.

Rick Weiss is a Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress and Science Progress.

The organizers of National Handwashing Awareness Week, which runs through Saturday, want you to know that washing your hands with soap and warm water, or using an alcohol-based hand sanitizer, is the best way to stop the spread of germs. In fact, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention cite handwashing as the “single most effective way to prevent the transmission of disease.”

Dr. William Sawyer’s Henry the Hand Foundation is the driving force behind the public awareness week, which began in 1999 in response to a flu vaccine shortage in Cincinnati, Ohio. “Spread the word, not the germs,” is a favorite catchphrase for the campaign that encourages everyone to follow the CDC recommendations for handwashing the right way.

But routine handwashing isn’t just about staying healthy through the winter. It’s also about improving public health for everyone, and getting better value out of health care.

The effects of poor hygiene in the medical system can be costly. As Rick Weiss noted recently, each time a health care professional fails to wash his or her hands, it costs a hospital $1.98. That may not sound like much, but, according to Duke University researchers, over the course of a year, it can add up to $1.77 million at a typical 200-bed hospital.

Handwashing can also help prevent the spread of infection, both in hospitals and at home. Remember the recent MRSA outbreaks? The methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus Aureus bacteria spreads largely through poor handwashing habits in hospitals and the community. What’s more, CDC estimates that between 78,000 and 90,000 people die from hospital-acquired illnesses each year, many of them directly linked to poor handwashing.

So this week—and this year—make an effort to wash your hands for 15 to 20 seconds with soap and running water, and dry them with a paper towel before and after eating, after using the toilet, during food preparation, when you arrive home, after leaving the hospital or doctor’s office, or any other time your hands seem dirty. Or reach for an alcohol-based hand sanitizer, which will also do the trick.

Image: flickr.com/kokopinto

Weiss’s Notebook

CAP Senior Fellow Rick Weiss covered science and medicine for The Washington Post for 15 years, and now he brings his investigative eye to science policy. From cloning and stem cells to agricultural biotechnology and nanotechnology, Weiss examines the issues at the intersection of cutting edge research and public policy.

The presidential transition, begun quietly before the party conventions, now barrels ahead at full speed. And as soon as the transition team has completed its immediate work on the two most pressing issues of the day—national security and the economy—there is good reason to believe that the nation’s science agencies and offices will get fast and close attention.

It is a truism by now that the solutions to many of the major problems facing the United States—climate change, energy, the environment, health care, and food security, among others—have major scientific or technological components. It is also widely recognized that the Bush administration’s almost allergic rejection of scientific evidence and government oversight has badly stalled the development of new approaches to these problems, as well as others in the life sciences and public health. Transition officials clearly plan to act quickly to select new heads for the agencies responsible for these interlinked issues, with an eye toward enabling coordinated efforts.

Already, the Washington rumor mill is buzzing with names of possible science appointees. I have no inside information, but to satisfy the innate human urge to give and receive gossip, I’m happy to highlight some of what I’ve heard from others. For secretary of Health and Human Services, there is talk of former Majority Leader (and CAP senior fellow) Tom Daschle (D-S.D.), who released a book in February on the nation’s healthcare crisis; Nobel laureate and former National Institutes of Health Director Harold Varmus, currently president of Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center; Howard Dean, the Democratic National Committee chairman and a family physician; and Kathleen Sebelius (D), the governor of Kansas, who made a name for herself when she successfully fought a major battle against BlueCross-BlueShield’s plan to become a for-profit company.

For FDA Commissioner, some have floated the names of Mike Taylor, a former deputy FDA commissioner with particular expertise in food safety; Mary Pendergast, who had a top post in the FDA under President Clinton and has also consulted for the pharmaceutical industry; and even Steven Nissen, the Cleveland Clinic maverick M.D. who has become a chronic thorn in the side of big pharma by repeatedly challenging the data that drug companies have used to back up their claims of safety and efficacy.

It’s been easy for scientists to gripe about their mistreatment during the past eight years. But now is not the time to demand payback.

The parlor game could go on, and it will. But what is more interesting, really, is just how many high-level science openings there are to fill. There are the cabinet-level positions overseeing such science-heavy departments as Agriculture, Energy, and Commerce. There is the surgeon general, the directors of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the National Institutes of Health, and the National Institute of Standards and Technology; the administrators of NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration; and the head of the United States Geological Survey, the all-important research arm of the Interior department.

Within the executive office of the president alone there is the director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy and science advisor to the president (a position that many in science hope will be elevated to a cabinet level “assistant to the president” post); four associate directors of the Office of Science and Technology Policy; a gaggle of presidentially appointed members of the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology; the chairman of the Council on Environmental Quality; the director and three associate directors of the Office of Management and Budget; and the administrator of OMB’s Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, which has in recent years become an increasingly important venue for scientific review and regulation.

Now feel free to skip this paragraph—and to seek help if in fact you make it to the end—but I would be remiss not to mention as well that within the Agriculture Department alone the president needs to appoint three science-based under secretaries—for research, education, and economics; food safety; and food, nutrition, and consumer services. In Commerce he must choose an under secretary for oceans and atmosphere. In Defense he must find a director of defense research and engineering; an under secretary for acquisition, technology and logistics; a director for the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency; an assistant secretary for health affairs; an assistant secretary for networks and information integration; a chief information officer; and an assistant to the secretary for nuclear and chemical and biological defense programs. In Education he must pick a director of that department’s Institute of Education Sciences. In Energy there are slots that must be filled for an under secretary of science; an under secretary for energy and environment; an assistant secretary for energy efficiency and renewable energy; an assistant secretary for environmental management; an assistant secretary for fossil energy; an assistant secretary of nuclear energy; and an under secretary for nuclear security.

And remember, we’re just talking about the most science-y presidential appointments here. We’ll ignore the nearly 500 others for now (but see below for a more exhaustive list).

Of these myriad positions, the most important will be the director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. This is a position that has traditionally been held by a physicist, a holdover from the days when the most important thing to think about in science was the risk of a nuclear attack. Today, as the nation faces a far broader array of scientific threats, including climate change and biological warfare, it will be interesting to see if the new president breaks with tradition and appoints an earth scientist or biologist to that central scientific coordinating position.

The fruits of all these transitional decisions will take time to ripen, but here are a few questions worth asking today:

Will HHS lead a quick and effective charge to focus more on prevention, reduce the cost of healthcare and insurance, and expand coverage to the un- and underinsured?

Will FDA work together with Agriculture to revamp the nation’s food safety system? Will it demand more of pharmaceutical companies, and will it regulate tobacco?

Will EPA get back to the job of using science to calculate honestly the effects of pesticides and other chemicals on the environment and human health? Will it lead the way to dealing with climate change and stand up for endangered species?

Will DOE jump-start the transition to a low-carbon economy by aggressively funding work on alternative energy sources and promulgating strict energy efficiency standards for homes and office buildings? Will it tackle the problem of nuclear waste?

And will Interior manage, in an integrated way, the nation’s precious fresh water resources and protect public lands for we the taxpayers who together own them?

To answer these questions in the affirmative will require a government commitment to data instead of ideology, which alone would constitute a real break from the Bush legacy. But it will also require a huge corps of scientists willing to speak up, and to provide and interpret those much-needed data for the good of the country.

The National Academies put it well in their 2008 report, “Science and Technology For America’s Progress: Ensuring the Best Presidential Appointments in the New Administration”:

The nature of our current national challenges, whether domestic or abroad, demands the best of science, engineering and technology to solve. “More of the same” will not work in the 21st century. Innovative thinking will be needed to a degree unprecedented in American history. Fortunately, large numbers of scientists, engineers, and health professionals have experienced positive change throughout their careers and have been enormously successful as a result. They have much to give back. Government service is an excellent means by which to repay that debt.

It’s been easy for scientists to gripe about their mistreatment during the past eight years. But now is not the time to demand payback. Now is the time for science to put its best foot forward and show the country what it’s been missing.

Rick Weiss is a Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress and Science Progress.

Key Science and Technology Positions

Adapted from the NAS report, “Science and Technology for America’s Progress: Ensuring the Best Presidential Appointments in the New Administration”

PAS = presidential appointment with Senate confirmation

PA = presidential appointment (without Senate confirmation)

NA = noncareer appointment

FT = fixed term appointment, with length of appointment indicated

Examples of Scientific and Technical Federal Advisory Commitees, by Origin and Purpose

It’s been about a year since MRSA, or drug-resistant staph, last made major headlines, scaring officials from Virginia to Connecticut to Maryland to disinfect schools. After the Centers for Disease Control released a report last fall indicating that MRSA was responsible for more than 94,000 life-threatening infections and 19,000 deaths in 2005, drug-resistant staph infections sparked a national discussion about the overuse of antibiotics. But the news this October is about a form of Streptococcus pneumoniae, or pneumococcus, that is causing meningitis, pneumonia, and bloodstream infections, according to a report in The New York Times. Rather than resisting antibiotics, the organisms in this case may have outmaneuvered a proven vaccine.

Known as Serotype 19A, this strep bacteria is infecting more children and elderly people despite the longtime use of a Prevnar, a vaccine which immunizes children against all kinds of pneumococcus. Prevnar, has been around since 2000, but since 2002, rates of infection from Serotype 19A have risen from about 2 per 100,000 children to more than 10 per 100,000. A fourfold increase in life-threatening infections has also occurred among the elderly. Prevnar has been mostly successful in preventing infection from many of the 91 forms of pneumococcus, but now that it has eliminated much of microbial competition, 19A can grow and become a greater threat to humans. Prevnar may have prevented many of the pneumococcus infections in American children in 2000, but the drug is out-dated and doesn’t protect against other forms of pneumococcus.

But the NYT reports that experts say it is hard to know what role the introduction of Prevnar may have played in the rise of the bacteria, which was gaining momentum in some countries before the vaccine’s adoption.

Drug-resistant bacteria arise from strains that have survived through natural selection with traits rendering them unaffected by antibiotics. Of the 91 strains of pneumococcus, most are not dangerous. But pneumococci live in the nose and throat, constantly exchanging genetic material and forming new strains of bacteria. Finding vaccines and antibiotics to eliminate them is very difficult for drug companies.

The survey data landed just after a new study reinforcing the fact that the measles vaccine has no connection to autism. The research appeared in PLoS One, and as the Associated Press explained: “There is no evidence that MMR plays any role, the international team—which included researchers who first raised the issue—reported Wednesday.

AP

The AP and The Washington Post both referenced the discredited 1998 research that first suggested a link between the MMR shot and autism. Wariness over vaccine safety spurred by the faulty study first lead to measles outbreaks in Britain. Just last month, CDC released numbers indicating that vaccination exemptions drove measles cases in the United States this year to the highest level in a decade.

CDC quoted Dr. Anne Schuchat, director of the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases in its press release:

Because our nation has been so successful in reducing and eliminating vaccine preventable diseases, it is easy to take the benefits of immunizations for granted…However, recent cases and outbreaks of measles in our country have been a sobering reminder that we must not let our guard down.

In an interview earlier this year on vaccine safety with Science Progress, Dr. Saad Omer, associate director of the Institute for Vaccine Safety at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health discussed research indicating that some of the risks associated with rubella complications (one of the diseases the MMR vaccine prevents) are very similar to the autism vaccine-opposing parents fear.

Comprehensive vaccination not only protects children, it keeps individuals and communities healthy and saves billions in medical expenses. From CDC: “For each group of vaccinated children born during a given year, an estimated 14.3 million cases of vaccine-preventable diseases and 33,500 premature deaths are prevented over the course of a lifetime. In addition, vaccination results in a total savings of $43.3, billion, including $9.9 billion in direct medical costs.”

Rep. Dennis Cardoza (D-CA), Chairman of the House Agriculture Subcommittee on Horticulture and Organic Agriculture, called the Salmonella St. Paul outbreak the next saga of “outbreak roulette,” and asked “which industry will be next?” Rep. Diana DeGette (D-CO), sponsor of the TRACE Act, H.R. 3485, which would strengthen the food industry’s traceability system, did not hesitate to call the FDA and CDC out on their faults. She called the food safety system “agonizingly slow.” In her opening statement, she asked, “Why is it that the FDA has jurisdiction over cheese pizzas, but the CDC has jurisdiction over pepperoni pizzas?”

Yesterday Dr. David Acheson, assistant commissioner for food protection at the FDA, shocked the audience by admitting that only three FDA investigators were currently in Mexico, and that none were stationed there permanently to check the food supply that enters the United States. But he was able to escape the most severe questioning by breaking the news that the FDA had only hours before discovered Salmonella St. Paul in the groundwater of a farm in Mexico that produced serrano peppers.

That did not save Bill Hubbard, former senior associate commissioner for policy, planning and legislation at the FDA, this morning, as he testified in front of the House Energy and Commerce Committee. Hubbard was quick to discuss the flaws in his agency. He said that reduced funding has led to a reduced staff and a reduced ability to perform the agency’s essential duties. He also noted that while the Bioterrorism Act of 2002 requires that food industries be able to trace their food supply back one step and forward one step, the FDA receives only partial reports, if any, from many food producers.

DeGette came to his rescue by supporting his claim that not all of the FDA’s problems are their fault. The FDA had pushed for additions to the Bioterrorism Act that would have included electronic food tracing records, the identification of each box of tomatoes with individual farm lot numbers, and a consistent recording format, all of which were denied.

Ed Beckman of the California Tomato Cooperative argued today that his company could successfully trace back their tomatoes “in 35 minutes.” Parker Booth of Delta Prepack Company even brought physical evidence of how his company maintains efficient and reliable traceability. He held up a cardboard tomato box which had, printed on the side, the individual farm lot number that the tomatoes came from, along with other state identification codes. This code, provided by a commercial system called HarvestMark, labels all of his company’s tomato boxes, and costs about a penny per box. It could be a good idea to implement on a federal level.

Effect Measure wonders if the unpublished CDC study reporting that up to 50 percent more Americans have HIV than we thought was just another victim of the administration’s suppression.

Michael Stebbins posted on Scientists and Engineers for America’s blog about the new, searchable OTA archive and included a video of Rush Holt talking about why OTA was awesome.

JR Minkel on Scientific American comments on a study (which is hotly contested by the IMF) that finds a correlation between IMF loans and tuberculosis deaths.

Bioethics.net’s Summer Johnson draws our attention to a particularly undesirable effect of high gas prices: cuts in home health services.

Curtis Brainard at CJR provides a very thorough analysis of the renewed interest in GM crops and their potential to solve the food crisis.

Kaid Benfield at NRDC’s Switchboard chides the environmental movement for failing to be more vocal about obesity and its environmental causes, and later in the week posts about how Google Maps can now help.

But a British study published in 1998 drew a link between the measles-mumps-rubella vaccine and autism. While the study itself was flawed and discredited, and subsequent research has demonstrated no link between vaccines and autism, parents and advocacy groups are still wary.

To learn more about vaccine safety, Science Progress spoke with Dr. Saad Omer, the associate director of the Institute for Vaccine Safety at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. Parents concerned about vaccine safety, he says, are coming from the right place in terms of their desire to protect their children, and that it is the responsibility of the public health community to broadcast the right information so that people can make informed decisions about the risks and benefits of vaccines and vaccine-preventable diseases. This interview has been edited.

Andrew Plemmons Pratt, Science Progress: Some recent media coverage has focused on the March ruling from the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program to Terry and John Poling, who claim that a vaccine contributed to their daughter Hannah’s development of autism. In a New York Times editorial, Paul Offit of the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia laments the fact that the program abandoned a previous standard for a “preponderance of evidence” for determining the link between vaccines and injuries and instead ruled that their claim was made on standards of “biological plausibility.” Is there a problem with the way that vaccine injury compensation program ruled on this issue, and what does it say about the way we are approaching vaccines in general?

Dr. Saad B. Omer: Let me start with the case, to briefly describe it for those who are not familiar with it. It was a case of a nineteen-month-old girl who received several vaccines together after a delay due to current bouts of otitis media, or an ear infection. And so those vaccines were administered together and she developed some symptoms after that, and at the twenty-three month assessment she was diagnosed with having mild symptoms of autism spectrum disorder, and during her evaluation she was diagnosed with a mitochondrial disorder. A claim was filed in a federal court, and the government settled, awarding them compensation for that.

So to put things in perspective for that case—and in terms of people drawing conclusions from it—I would caution that this is just a case and the question I often ask, even within the scientific community is “where are the controls?” Because when we assess scientific evidence, we need to keep in mind that we need to compare an association of an event with an outcome in both cases and controls, we haven’t had that kind of evaluation yet. And I can go into specific examples of what problems one can have. However, this is a “biologically plausible hypothesis.” What does that mean? That means we should explore this kind of hypothesis under a counterfactual model but should not draw conclusions from it at this point.

And just to clarify why we are on this topic: even if this link is established, and what it says is that mitochondrial disorders, which are a kind of disorder in the cell’s energy mechanism, is proven to be exacerbated by vaccines and result in autism spectrum disorders, metabolic disorders are very rare and it would explain a very small proportion of autism diseases—just to put that in perspective.

Now to the second part of your question, about the change in the standard in the vaccine court that resulted in the awarding of this compensation. First of all, it wasn’t the injury compensation program that changed it, it was the interpretation of a couple of circuit court decisions. These higher court decisions were the result of some cases from the compensation program that were appealed and there were a couple of decisions which the Special Masters of the compensation program, not the HHS, interpreted as having said that the evidence should be evaluated on a standard of “biologically plausible.” I think that’s dangerous, because I can sit here and come up with twenty or thirty different hypotheses which would be biologically plausible on several biological models. We are not talking about probable; we are talking about plausible. Even with probable models, we know the human body is complex, and if you test twenty different biological hypotheses, a majority of them won’t pan out in humans. So I think it’s not a very robust standard to go by because what we are saying is that we would have judgments on these cases based on something that could happen, not something that does happen.

SP: The government has programs that do vaccine surveillance and maintain safety. Could you talk a little bit about what those programs are and how effective they are?

Omer: One major program is the Vaccine Adverse Events Reporting system, which is jointly managed by the CDC and the FDA, and events that seem to be associated with vaccines are reported into that system. It’s a good system for generating signals but it has its limitations. The major limitation is that we don’t have a good denominator to calculate rates so we cannot assume all the vaccine doses that entered the market were administered, so we don’t know the rates.

But another interesting problem that has come up is due to the fact in the U.S. adverse event reporting system, anyone can report a case into the system. There was a recent analysis published in Pediatrics that showed that most of the rise in reports of autism-related symptoms associated with vaccines has been due to increased reporting of litigation-associated cases. So we have that kind of a problem with VAERS but it still has a lot of utility in terms of generating signals. For example, it generated a signal for the old rotavirus vaccine.

Then the CDC has the Vaccine Safety Datalink. They have put together a system by linking databases from several large HMOs, and it covers approximately two percent of the U.S. population of zero to six years. Fortunately because vaccine events are rare, you need large databases to get enough numbers and do a robust scientific study, so that’s a good system.

Then there is the Clinical Immunization Safety Assessment Network, which is a network of a few centers of excellence, mostly academic centers, coordinated by the CDC, to assess vaccine safety in a clinical setting.

So this is basically what the vaccine safety system is in the U.S. However I must say, I think vaccine safety needs a lot more resources than it is provided. Because as I said, vaccine events are rare so you need large numbers to study these phenomena and the resources that are available are very low.

SP: These are very personal choices that parents are making about whether or not to exempt their children from getting vaccinations. What do you say to parents who might be thinking of exempting their children from getting vaccines because of what they might have heard about these possible links to autism?

Omer: There have been several studies—both in the U.S. and outside, in Denmark and other parts of Europe—that have looked at the issue of vaccines and autism and we haven’t found any credible association between vaccines—either thimerosol, which is a mercury preservative that was of concern a few years ago—and MMR, the measles mumps and rubella vaccine and autism. So there have been several studies, and our website, vaccinesafety.edu, discusses some of these issues so people can go and look up specific evidence related to that.

On the other hand, we know that there is risk of—even an individual level risk—of acquiring vaccine-preventable diseases in the United States if your child is not vaccinated. For example, in a national-level study it was found that kids who are exempt from vaccination requirements had thirty-three times—not percent, it’s times—higher risk of acquiring measles with those who are vaccinated, who do not seek exemptions, and [in a Colorado study] six times higher risk of acquiring pertussis than those who are vaccinated. So there are real risks involved in terms of acquiring vaccine-preventable diseases

One last point in this regard: we do know that congenital rubella syndrome is associated—and there are some studies showing an association—with autism-like symptoms. So we know that part of that syndrome is explained by a congenital rubella syndrome which used to occur when the population-level immunity in the U.S was relatively low. So actually, MMR vaccine prevents against something that is associated with autism. So if you are thinking specifically in terms of autism, one should consider that we are talking about something that prevents autism. Congenital rubella syndrome is when mothers get rubella in pregnancies, and children develop certain abnormalities.

SP: So in your experience, where does this misinformation about the risks of vaccination come from? Is it usually generated through parents talking to parents? Is it the media? Is it doctors talking to parents?

Omer: It’s several sources. We found in our studies—looking at parents of children exempted from vaccination requirements, compared to those vaccinated—there was an association with types of provider, trust in government, the sources of information people tended to get, information from some of the advocacy sites tended to seek exemptions at a higher rate, etc. So yes. There are several sources of that, and there are passionate people who feel there is an association with vaccines and autism, and that includes some celebrities as well. So that gets people’s attention.

On the other hand I must say that most parents, even those that are concerned about vaccine safety, are coming from the right place. All of us want our children to be safe from any harm, including harm from any pharmaceutical interventions. So we shouldn’t be dismissive of that, but it’s our responsibility, for those of us in the public health community, to put out the right information so that people make a truly informed decision about the risks and benefits of vaccines and vaccine-preventable diseases.

SP: What do you think is most important for people who are both working in the public health community, people who are policymakers, people who might be hearing about this issue, and for parents to take away from this whole conversation in the public sphere at the moment?

Omer: One thing that people should realize is that we know that vaccines have some side effects. And we should acknowledge that, everyone who is involved. However, the risk and benefit calculus for all vaccines that are out there, based on our current knowledge, heavily favors not only getting your child vaccinated, but also getting them vaccinated according to the specified schedule. I have seen a new trend where people are splitting the difference and saying, “OK, I’m going to get my kid vaccinated, but I’m going to get them vaccinated late.” Well the risk of illness is not constant across childhood and so that’s why the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices and the American Academy of Pediatrics come up with these recommendations to look at several factors, including the burden of disease. So it’s important to not only get your child vaccinated, but also to get them vaccinated per specified schedule.

Controversy arose when it became known the ATSDR’s report, “Health Consultation on Formaldehyde Sampling of FEMA Temporary-Housing Trailers,” contained scientifically unsound information as a result of what Rep. Nick Lampson (D-TX) called, “not following typical protocol you teach in basic science classes.” Dr. Christopher De Rosa, the CDC’s chief toxicologist testified at the hearing that the report was, “possibly misleading, and a threat to public health.” Subcommittee members were flummoxed to learn how mismanagement at the CDC, the ATSDR, and FEMA stalled revision of the report, delaying measures that would protect thousands of hurricane survivors from exposure to unhealthy levels of formaldehyde.

The hearing also highlighted the collapse of management among the different federal agencies. Dr. Christopher De Rosa, the whistleblower at the CDC who questioned the soundness of the ATSDR report, revealed his troubles in getting the attention of his superiors–he even had a letter he sent to FEMA expressing his concerns quietly filed away. De Rosa was eventually put on a 90-day work improvement plan and relocated to another department for making noise about the flawed ATSDR report, a claim his superiors deny. De Rosa’s superiors, Dr. Howard Frumpkin and Dr. Thomas Sinks, Director and Deputy Director at the ATSDR respectively, acknowledged the bad science in the report and the delayed response of ATSDR in fixing their report, promising that steps were being taken to address the shortcomings. Subcommittee Chairman Brad Miller (D-NC), with email records on hand, grilled the two ATSDR officials on how such a mistake could happen.

Formaldehyde is strong-smelling gas used in the production of particle board and urea-foam insulation, major material components in most trailer homes. It is considered a carcinogen and is absorbed into the body through the respiratory tract, and through eye and skin contact. Symptoms of formaldehyde exposure include skin rashes, sinus problems, headaches, depression, insomnia, nausea, eye irritation, nose-bleeds, and recurrent colds. Long-term effects include changes to the immune system, possible development of some cancers, and the risk of damage to DNA. Nevertheless, after hurricanes Katrina and Rita, FEMA provided such trailers leeching unhealthy levels of the gas to over 100,000 families who lost their homes until more permanent alternatives became available.

Subcommittee members agreed this was only the beginning of a greater investigation and possible litigation if these agencies are found guilty of gross negligence or wrong-doing.

For more backstory:

Scientist: CDC Bosses Ignored Warning (AP)

CDC officials admit failings on FEMA trailers, will not fire whistleblower (E&E Daily, subscription)

Avery Palmer at CQ Today reports that Rep. Edward Markey (D-MA) is looking to subpoena the Environmental Protection Agency for documents related to carbon emission regulation. Last year, the Supreme Court ruled that the EPA must regulate carbon emissions, but the agency has yet to provide a draft regulation proposal it agreed to have ready by the end of last year.

Russell Dinnage of Greenwire profiles Christopher De Rosa, a toxicologist at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention who recently accused his CDC bosses of censoring (subscription) two studies on chemicals that were making people sick.

The Mercury News reports that business leaders from leading tech companies called for an increase in H-1B visas for skilled foreign workers at a recent briefing hosted by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. Oracle Vice President Robert Hoffman hopes Congress can provide “short-term relief” by doubling the current H-1B visa cap.

Al Gore’s Alliance for Climate Protection has launched a three-year, $300 million advocacy campaign to raise awareness about global climate change and methods to reduce emissions in the United States.

The United States Supreme Court ruled 8 to 1 on Wednesday that medical device makers are immune from liability for injuries as long as the devices were previously approved by the Food and Drug Administration. The legal question behind the case pertained to whether or not Federal law (specifically, the Medical Device Amendments to the Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act) can preempt state-based lawsuits. Next Monday, the Supreme Court will hear another FDA-related case which explores further the rights of states to challenge FDA decisions.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have been fairly successful over the years in predicting the most virulent flu strains and then formulating vaccines based on those predictions. This year was an exception. The current vaccine is most effective against fewer than half of the strains that are most dominant in the human population. Government researchers are presently deciding which strains next year’s vaccine should target, and they have decided, in an unusual move, to leave out two of the strains targeted by the present vaccine and replace them with two new strains next year. How well vaccine makers will adapt to the CDC decision in time to produce 100 million doses by the fall remains to be seen. The Knight Science Journalism Tracker has a full roundup of coverage.

In assessing the possibility of using geoengineering projects to mitigate the effects of global climate change, Dr. Daniel Schrag from Harvard University arrived at a conclusion similar to that articulated by Chris Mooney in a recent Science Progress column: given certain catastrophic warming scenarios, geoengineering would be a complex but possibly necessary solution. But he was careful to say that that, “geoengineering is a band-aid for a wound that keeps getting bigger.” He emphasized the importance and feasibility of “changing our energy infrastructure,” which he noted, “will only cost 1% of our GDP.”

Presenting on research in counter-bioterrorism, Dr. James Baker of the University of Michigan highlighted work measuring and characterizing the physical processes by which viruses and their antidotes bind to cells. He explained that understanding this process could reveal populations that are particuarly susceptible to certain kinds of viruses; from there, researchers could explore how to protect or treat those populations. He also explained that bioterrorism is uniquely difficult to prevent or respond to when compared to conventional terrorism, saying that, “bombs, weapons, and planes can be traced; but with a virus, we don’t know if it is natural or not.” He added that in investigating the West Nile virus and SARS outbreaks, the CDC examined whether or not terrorists had released the pathogens. Noting that “we haven’t had the modeling or characterization we’ve had with nuclear,” he went on to suggest that first responders need to develop more sophisticated methods for handling potential bioterror scenarios.

Dr. Jay Keasling of UC Berkeley and Lawrence Berkeley National Lab, also presented a cautionary warning on the dual-use dangers of the rapidly expanding field of synthetic biology, saying, “biology is so complex, its easier to do harm than good.” He called for “a standard-setting organization like IEEE,” that would both ensure the safety and expand the scale of the synthetic biology industry by implementing the use of prefabricated biological components. Such components would allow different biotech firms to maximize and economize their creativity while remaining within industry-imposed boundaries that will keep their creations safe.

Exactly what should the public make of genetic tests indicating a predisposition to depression? How can we ensure that medical information about depression does not lead to employer discrimination? Experts tackled these and other issues at a Monday symposium, “DNA and Depression: Tests, Trust, and Treatment,” part of a Johns Hopkins University series of Genetic Perspective on Policy Seminars hosted by the University’s Genetics and Public Policy Center.

Dr. Francis McMahon of the NIMH discussed the research that his team carried out on the genes that predispose patients to having suicidal thoughts while taking Selective Seratonin Reuptake Inhibitors such as Prozac. This research came in the wake of FDA research indicating that SSRIs can can cause a rise in suicidal thinking and behavior in adolescents; the Agency subsequently mandated “black-box” warnings on the medications. Dr. McMahon also noted that these types of drug side effects can be minimized as personalized medicine, which is based on a patient’s personal genome information, becomes standard practice. In the near future, doctors may be able to recommend preventative treatments based not just on family history, but on indicators found in a patient’s own genome.

“Everyone has predicted that the complete genome will be part of your medical record in five years or so,” McMahon said. However, as private companies offer to decode and interpret the genomes of consumers, doctors will no longer be the sole gatekeepers of genetic information. “We don’t have a monopoly on the information anymore,” McMahon affirmed.

While genome sequencing is not currently a part of regular mental health diagnoses, Kim Bechthold, CEO of Neuromark, which develops diagnostic tools to help doctors determine if SSRIs pose a risk for their patients based on their genomes, explained that surveys show that “patients and consumers trust genetic tests,” which means that “we have a very exciting and very challenging task” in trying to accurately convey genetic information to doctors and patients. She explained that the public trusts genetic diagnosis more than they trust diagnoses based on lifestyle, environmental factors, and socioeconomic status.

Bechthold also stressed the need to protect patient privacy with regard to genetic information and added that Congress must pass the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act in order to prevent employer discrimination against employees at risk for ailments—mental health or otherwise. “Without GINA…preventative medicine is simply not going to get off the ground,” she said.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recently reported that 25 to 30 percent of the U.S. population carries the staph bacteria methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, which was for responsible for more than 94,000 life-threatening infections and 19,000 deaths in 2005. MRSA is resistant to drug treatment and is responsible for more deaths in the United States each year than AIDS, according to CNN.

Healthy people can also carry the bacteria, which lives on their skin or in their noses. Most drug-resistant staph cases are mild skin infections, but severe infections can enter the bloodstream and become deadly.

Close on the heels of the CDC report came the announcement of the tragic death of 12-year-old Omar Rivera. The incident, along with the CDC findings, has prompted the health community to re-evaluate how individuals develop the deadly staph infections and how to better treat and manage the infections.

In response, Senator Charles Schumer (D-NY) called for the creation of a national reporting system for the drug-resistant staph infection. Schumer said on October 28 that he wants to develop legislation that will require hospitals and other institutions to keep more rigorous records of the frequency of MRSA infections. He also expressed that he is working to promote research into the overuse of antibiotics, which may lead to the developments of dangerous drug-resistant bacteria. Other government officials have called for similar legislation this week, including Virginia Governor Tim Kaine and Connecticut Governor M. Jodi Rell.

The CDC report found that “about 85 percent of all invasive MRSA infections were associated with health care settings, of which two–thirds surfaced in the community among people who were hospitalized, underwent a medical procedure or resided in a long–term care facility within the previous year,” according to the press release. It went on to note: “The 2005 rates of invasive infection were highest among people 65 years of age or older. Black people were affected at twice the rate of whites, which could be due to higher rates of chronic illness among blacks.”

Scientific evidence supports the view that the earth’s climate is changing. A broad array of organizations (federal, state, local, multilateral, faith-based, private and nongovernmental) is working to address climate change. Despite this extensive activity, the public health effects of climate change remain largely unaddressed. CDC considers climate change a serious public health concern.

Science Progress has prepared a redacted version of the testimony highlighting the portions removed, which cover extreme weather events, air-pollution-related health effects, water- and food-borne infectious diseases, vector-borne diseases, food scarcity, and the differential burden of climate change health effects on certain populations.

This week, the Senate resumes consideration of the Commerce-Justice-Science appropriations bill (HR 3093, summary [pdf]), which funds science education ($28 billion, $2 billion more than 2007), global climate change initiatives ($1.85 billion for a program that has not existed previously), NASA ($10.5 billion, $1.01 billion more than 2007), NOAA ($4.0 billion, $56.9 million above 2007), NSF ($5.96 billion, $500 million more than 2007), and the National Institute of Standards and Technology ($831.2 million, $154.3 million above 2007 ).

Also in the Senate this week: the Labor-Health-Education appropriations bill (HR 3043, summary [pdf]), which funds the Department of Health and Human Services, including the National Institutes of Health and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In its current form, the bill provides $29.4 billion total for NIH ($549 million, or 3 percent, more than the current level) and $6.5 billion for the CDC ($192 million, or 8 percent, more than the current level).