Leading AIDS researcher to run CDC
NEW YORK A leading AIDS researcher was picked Wednesday to run the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the federal government’s top public health agency.
Dr. Robert Ray Redfield Jr., who rose to prominence in the 1980s as a top researcher into the emerging AIDS epidemic, has been named to the post by U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Alex Azar.
“Dr. Redfield has dedicated his entire life to promoting public health and providing compassionate care to his patients,” Azar said in a statement. Redfield’s appointment doesn’t need Senate approval, and he’ll start at the CDC on Monday.
Redfield, 66, is a medical school professor at the University of Maryland, where he co-founded the Institute of Human Virology. He has extensive experience treating HIV patients as well as heroin addicts and has been praised for his work in Maryland on the opioid crisis.
His institute has worked on AIDS in Africa, getting $138 million from CDC for its work.
But Redfield also made headlines more than two decades ago, when he was scrutinized for overstating the effectiveness of an experimental AIDS vaccine. He also has been criticized for being out of step with the public health community on some issues.
Public health leaders who spoke to The Associated Press about his appointment all voiced hope that he will be able to protect CDC’s budget and programs.
Redfield didn’t immediately comment on Wednesday’s announcement.
The Atlanta-based CDC investigates disease outbreaks, researches the cause and frequency of health problems, and promotes prevention. Founded in 1946, it is the only federal agency headquartered outside of Washington, D.C., and has nearly 12,000 employees and 10,000 contractors worldwide.
The agency has total budget of about $12 billion. The Trump administration has proposed slashing that by about $1 billion in the next fiscal year, cutting a wide range of programs.
Redfield will replace Dr. Brenda Fitzgerald, a Trump administration appointee who resigned in January after about six months on the job. Fitzgerald, who had previously run Georgia’s state health department, was embroiled in unresolved financial conflicts. HHS officials ultimately said her investments were affecting her ability to be involved in issues like cancer and the opioids crisis.
In the 1980s, Redfield was working at the Defence Department's Walter Reed Institute of Research when he became a leading AIDS researcher. He has been counted as among the first to demonstrate the AIDS virus could spread among heterosexuals, and argued early in the epidemic that AIDS wasn’t a threat only to gay men and injection drug users.
In the early 1990s, the Army and a Congressional committee investigated his research into an experimental AIDS vaccine and accusations that he misrepresented study data to make it seem like the vaccine worked. The Army found no evidence of scientific misconduct, but it criticized him for faulty analysis of study data and for an inappropriately close relationship with a conservative lobbying group.