The CDC On A Mission

I had more to say about the CDC in January. Accordingly, it wasn’t on topic for my article on The Real Hoax About Prescription Opioids. So I am returning with this article to spotlight the CDC’s scope of practice and how they have overstepped in their duties to the public and the chronic pain community. This is my opinion based on information & facts from my research.

I look forward to reading your comments and how you see their role and where their power comes from to control treatment for chronic, intractable, often unpreventable conditions and diseases.

The CDC is not designed to, nor should they ever have weighed in on this issue of chronic care for pain management or created guidelines. Like every other organization and individual, they only have the power others give them. Yet far too often, they overstep their scope. I receive comments from other nonprofit leaders and scientists, doctors, and researchers, often not understanding that their expertise in the area they work, in this case, pain management, far outweighs the CDC employees who have a different scope of practice and should be given credit for their data and studies and understanding of how pain management works.

A History of the CDC’s Scope of Practice

Initially, in the late 1700s, the Public Health Service was created to protect the health of sailors and immigrants. The nation’s first public health agency, the Marine Hospital Service (MHS), was formed in 1798 to care for sick and injured seamen. The agency consisted of hospitals with personnel who provided medical care. It became compulsory overtime for the USPHS Commissioned Corps’ to host a vital role in healthcare delivery, research, regulation, and disaster relief. By January 4, 1889, the Public Health Service was the established health authority.

The Communicable Disease Center (CDC) was established in 1946 by the Public Health Service to work on malaria, typhus, and other infectious diseases. The center was in Atlanta (rather than Washington, DC) because the South had the most malaria transmission.

The CDC launched an effort in April 2022 to refine and modernize. It focused on updates to its structures, systems, and processes to develop and deploy its science and programs. They aimed to learn how to pivot long-standing practices and adapt to pandemics and other public health emergencies. They applied these lessons across the organization. A review of key workflows, focusing on ensuring CDC’s science reaches the public in an understandable, accessible, and implementable manner as quickly as possible, was their focus.

CDC’s Mission

Whether the condition starts in America or abroad, is chronic or acute, curable or preventable, human error or deliberate attack. The CDC states on its website that its mission is to “protect America from health, safety, and security threats .”The CDC fights diseases and supports communities and citizens to do the same. But do they really?

The issue here is that the CDC redefined its mission. It was not voted on or approved by legislative authority as it should have been. They should have transparency and accountability. Using low-quality data, rushing decisions based on moral opinion, and fudging facts of science that have recently come to light with Twitter files makes me question even more of what has happened over the past 8 to 10 years.

The three primary functions of the Public Health Service are Assessment, Policy Development for communicable diseases, and assurance. 

Assessment

• Monitor health status to identify community health problems
• Diagnose and investigate health problems and health hazards in the community
• Evaluate the effectiveness, accessibility, and quality of personal and population-based health services

Policy Development

• Develop policies and plans that support individual and community health efforts.
• Enforce laws and regulations that protect health and ensure safety.
• Research for new insights and innovative solutions to health problems.

Assurance

• Link people to needed personal health services and ensure health care when otherwise unavailable.
• Assure competent public health and private healthcare workforce
• Inform, educate, and empower people about health issues
• Mobilize community partnerships to identify and solve health problems

Time, attention, and reaction matter to the entity receiving it. The CDC should stop while behind, so far behind. They should reign in their scope of practice to what they were created to do and be authorized to do through legislation. They should not be overstepping their bounds.

The community’s pain patients, providers, and caregivers should be recognized as experts as they live with their chronic diseases. Technically, the CDC only has voters’ power regarding the law. Be it through our voting in legislators who create laws and the respect and confidence we Americans have for those working there. If they do not, we will continue to use our American freedoms to work on legislation that will help fix what they have been weaponized to do with their guidelines.

These guidelines are not laws; legislators turn them into laws that must be corrected in the states where we vote. We need to fix this situation and work to make individual care that gives us access to proper and timely care. It will take time, energy, and volunteerism from every good angle and will be done within our rights. Let’s go chronic pain community, get out there, and respect nonprofits, experts, and those living with these challenges to decide what suits us.

As the CDC states in its assurances, it is here to inform, educate, and EMPOWER people about health issues. We must take accountability and responsibility to do better for the pain community across the country and our local areas.

by Barby Ingle, BSpysc
Immediate-Past President International Pain Foundation