Politics Plays Role in Disease Research

Sueraja Narasimhan works with DNA samples at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's chronic fatigue syndrome lab in Atlanta, Dec. 6, 2006. (AP Photo/John Bazemore) (John Bazemore - AP)

It was at one of the panel's meetings in 1998 that CDC's misuse of chronic fatigue funding was exposed.

McCleary pressed a CDC official on how the chronic fatigue money was being spent, and Reeves emerged as a whistleblower who refused to back up his boss, Dr. Brian Mahy. Mahy contended $6 million had been spent on the disease in the prior year as Congress requested.

But Reeves had complained to Mahy that chronic fatigue efforts were not getting the money Congress intended.

"It was basically, 'Go out there and lie for me,'" Reeves said in a recent interview. "I just basically said 'No.'"

Mahy, who still works at CDC, declined to comment for this article.

An investigation found that nearly $13 million of $22.7 million meant for chronic fatigue work was spent on other programs. Lawmakers grilled the CDC director at the time, Dr. Jeffrey Koplan.

Porter, the Illinois congressman, was upset but there wasn't much he could do, since Congress usually doesn't mandate how the CDC should divvy its money among programs. Congress puts spending recommendations in appropriations reports, but they're not binding, said Porter, who now works for a Washington law firm.

That's an important point: There are authorization bills that often get a lot of press, such as the recent autism bill, but they don't come with actual money. Advocates say it's a bit like parents giving their teen permission to go to the movies, but not the allowance money to buy the ticket.

"Almost never do we substitute political judgment for scientific judgment in the actual appropriations" for the CDC, Porter said.

Some current and former CDC officials said that shifting funds to other disease-fighting efforts was not a crime. "This wasn't a case of someone taking money for a holiday on the French Riviera," Koplan said, in a recent interview.

But the agency clearly bungled how it communicated with Congress, said Koplan, now an administrator at Emory University. "We had not done procedurally what the CDC should do, which is inform Congress and ask their permission when funds for one health problem are used for another health problem," he said.

In the 2006 budget year, the CDC spent about $6 million on chronic fatigue research. That doesn't include the $4.5 million for the slick new ad campaign unveiled in Washington last fall; and the NIH spent another $5.5 million on the disorder.