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U.S. Response II: House Expected to Approve CDC Funds The U.S. House of Representatives is expected to vote today on a measure that would provide $750 million between 2002 and 2003 to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (see GSN, Dec. 11). Of that amount, $600 million would go to construction, and $150 million would be spent on bioterrorism-related activities. An Atlanta-area group called Friends of CDC has been lobbying for the funding. The group began after more than 100 business and civic leaders toured the CDC in 1999 and discovered many areas that needed improvement. “Million-dollar pieces of equipment were covered in plastic because the roof was leaking. A refrigeration unit was falling through the floor. I said this was absolutely ridiculous,” said Phil Jacobs, president of BellSouth of Georgia and co-founder of Friends of CDC. This year a CDC investigation into an anthrax-tainted letter sent to television anchorman Tom Brokaw (see GSN, Dec. 11) was delayed for 15 hours in October when a 40-year-old power cable at a CDC building burned and cut power to a laboratory. Jacobs and other area leaders—including Oz Nelson, former CEO and chairman of United Parcel Service, and Bernie Marcus, founder of Home Depot—formed the lobbying organization because, as a federal agency, the CDC cannot lobby Congress on its own behalf. “I haven’t found anybody up here [on Capitol Hill] that’s not supportive of the CDC,” said Representative Johnny Isakson (R-Ga.). “We just have a lot of moving parts and capital investment for this war on terrorism, and everyone is fighting for their share of it” (Melanie Eversley, Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Dec. 12).
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