Today's Stories

May 22-24, 2009

Conn Hallinan
Swine Flu Fallout

May 21, 2009

Jeffrey St. Clair /
Joshua Frank
The Politics of Bait-and-Switch: Obama and the Environment

Paul Craig Roberts
Morphing Dick Cheney

Chris Floyd
In Defense of George W. Bush

Gerald Paoli
Inside Iraqi Kurdistan: Life and Death in the Qandil Mountains

Zach Mason
Something's Gotta Give: Obama and the Hustler

Uri Avnery
A Quarrel on the Titanic

Andy Worthington
Out of Guantánamo

Niranjan Ramakrishnan
India: Two Funerals and a Wedding

Norman Solomon
The Afghanistan Escalation

Dave Lindorff
A Corporate Crime Wave of Labor Law Violations

Website of the Day
Swine Flu: The Panic That Wasn't

May 20, 2009

Michael Hudson
The Toll Booth Economy

Gary Leupp
Courting Hekmatyar: Obama and the Warlord

Michael D. Yates
Work is Hell

Jonathan Cook
Netanyahu Adviser Steps Out of the Shadows

Peter Lee
The World Doesn't Have a Pakistan Nukes Problem ... It Has a David Albright Problem

Binoy Kampmark
The End of the Tamil Tigers?

Peter Zinn
Eulogizing Lawyers

William Loren Katz
Tortured Reasoning; Tortured Results

Gary Lapon
Why Women Need Single Payer

Trudy Bond
Torture, Shrinks and a Groundhog's Day Moment

Website of the Day
Meet the Climate Change Lobby

May 19, 2009

Kristoffer Rehder
Check Point Iraq: a Soldier's Tale

Mike Whitney
The Real Lesson of the Financial Crisis

Ray McGovern
How Colin Powell Got Duped by the CIA

Vijay Prashad
The Indian Elections: a Game Changer?

Mirjam Hadar Meerschwam
Intimidation and Interrogation in Tel Aviv

Mustafa Barghouthi
Is Obama Up to the Challenge of Dealing with Netanyahu?

Andy Worthington
Gitmo: A Prison Built on Lies

Binoy Kampmark
Britain's Speaker Crisis

John Walsh
John Kerry vs. Single-Payer

David Macaray
Alcohol as Metaphor: Zero Tolerance in the Workplace

Website of the Day
So You Think That Veggie Burger is Organic...

May 18, 2009

Dave Lindorff
The US is Using White Phosporous in Afghanistan

Abdul Malik Mujahid
Thirty Years of Tragedy in Afghanistan

Jonathan Cook
How Many Secret Prisons Does Israel Have?

Ben Rosenfeld
Police Violence: How Many Kicks to the Head Does It Take?

Patrick Cockburn
These Killings Will Only Strengthen the Taliban

Ralph Nader
They Want It All: New Tricks From the Old Energy Lobby

Stephen Soldz
Psychologist Bryce Lefever Clarifies Defense of Torture

Eugenia Tsao
On the Devaluation of Labor

Walter Brasch
Cheney's Magical Mystery Media Tour

Roberto Rodriguez
War and Torture

Charlotte Laws
Politics and American Idol

Website of the Day
Disbar the Torture Lawyers

May 15-17, 2009

Alexander Cockburn
King of the Hate Business

Jeffrey St. Clair
The Case of the Missing H-Bomb

David Rosen
Sexual Torture: What is Acknowledged and What Remains Unknown

Mike Whitney
From My Lai to Bala Baluk: Obama Picks Up Where Bush Left Off

Bruce Page
A Real History of Rupert Murdoch

Jeremy Scahill
The Black Shirts of Guantánamo

Fred Gardner
Tortured Reasoning: Judge Bybee Rules Against Brian Epis

Tom Barry
Fighting the Drug War at Homeland Security

Mats Svensson
On the Beach in Tel Aviv

Ramzy Baroud
The Drones Are Coming

Mark Engler
Science Fiction From Below

Mark Weisbrot
Stealth Move by IMF to Get $100 Billion Without Congressional Debate

Farzana Versey
Of Scapegoats and Separatists

Ron Jacobs
It's Up to You to Save Troy Davis

Hannah Wolfe
What to Tell the Children

Cal Winslow
Fresno, the New Ground Zero in the Battle Between the SEIU and NUHW

David Macaray
Labor Needs a Southern Strategy

Christopher Brauchli
Involuntary Baptism

Mark Seth Lender
The Lion Tamer's Story

Robert Fantina
Lapel Pins, Arugula and Mustard

David Ker Thomson
Last Man Walking

Stephen Martin
Lipstick Nightmare for Spin Merchant

Charles R. Larson
Double Exile

Chase Madar
"Angels & Demons" and the Extraordinary Power of Imaginary Heretics

Kim Nicolini
Vaginas From Outer Space! Boldly Sitting Through Star Trek

David Yearsley
Handel's Ghost

Lorenzo Wolff
Killer Virtues

Poets' Basement
Gibbons, Jordan and Moser

Website of the Weekend
Catch F-22

May 14, 2009

Michael Hudson
Where Russia Went Wrong

Andy Worthington
The Poisoned Mosaic: Judge Condemns Guantánamo Evidence

Paul Craig Roberts
The Impotent President

Jonathan Cook
The Pope's Pilgrimage: Legitimizing Netanyahu?

Ray McGovern
See No Evil: Ugly Questions for General Myers

Lance Selfa
The Limits of Liberalism

David Green
The Deportation of Demjanjuk

Dave Lindorff
Obama Channels Cheney

Frida Berrigan
Nuclear Options

Sue Udry
The Bybee Question

Website of the Day
Our Bombs: Tracking US Air Strikes

May 13, 2009

Brian M. Downing
The Road Out of Iraq

Gareth Porter
Gen. McChrystal and Afghanistan

Robert Sandels
Obama and Latin America: No Light, All Tunnel

Ricardo Alarcón
Cuba: Measure of a Revolution

Eric Walberg
NATO in Georgia: Fun and Games

Dave Lindorff
The Sinking of GM: When Captains of Industry Don't Go Down with the Ship

Deepak Tripathi
A Culture of Abuse

William S. Lind
Back to the Balkans: Hillary and the Sleeping Dragon

Kevin Zeese
A Populist Health Care Rebellion

Franklin Lamb
Lebanon: From Perdition to Redemption?

Website of the Day
Beth McIntosh: The Wild Ride

May 12, 2009

Gary Leupp
The Bomb Iran Faction

Richard Neville
The AfPak Blues: Corpses of the Kids by the Truckload

Wajahat Ali
Obama Chooses a Reliable Dictatorship

Dean Baker
The Banker Boys Are Alright! Time to End the Bailouts

Franklin Lamb
What Palestinian Refugees Need From Lebanon's Elections

Norman Solomon
A Progressive Challenge to Jane Harman

Paul Craig Roberts
Beware the Hate Crimes Bill

Lisa M. Hamilton
Let's Grow a New Crop of Farmers

Bob Fitrakis /
Harvey Wasserman:
Why Isn't Obama Turning to Credit Unions?

David Macaray
Wading Through the Grassroots

Website of the Day
Electronic Police States

May 11, 2009

Andrea Peacock
No Justice for Libby

Michael Hudson
Gordon Brown Spills the Beans on the IMF

Patrick Cockburn
Who Killed 120 Civilians?

Ralph Nader
The Single-Payer Taboo

John Kelly
Pseudoscience and Wrongful Convictions in the War on Drugs

Saul Landau
Cuba's Biggest "Crime"

Dave Lindorff
Blaming the Dead Victims

David Michael Green
Get Obama

Anthony Papa
Gov. David Paterson Does the Right Thing

Paul Krassner
Jon Stewart and Truman, the War Criminal

Website of the Day
Generational Homelessness

May 8-10, 2009

Alexander Cockburn
Dead Souls

Jeffrey St. Clair
Echoes of Amchitka: 40 Years After America's Biggest Nuclear Blast, the Damage Continues

Paul Wolf
Obama's Axis of Obedience

Steve Niva
Iraq: The Return of the Suicide Bombers

Neve Gordon
Jailed for Caring

Mike Whitney
Has Bernanke Pulled the Economy Back From the Brink?

Warren Hinckle
DiFi vs. Marilyn Chambers

Serge Halimi
In Praise of Revolutions

Gareth Porter
The Pakistan Conundrum

Sharon Smith
Something Stinks at Whole Foods

Andy Worthington
Obama's New Gitmo Policy: Back to the Bush Era?

Mark Weisbrot
Hillary and Latin America

Rosa Miriam Elizalde Cyber Command and Cyber Dissident: More of the Same?

David Macaray
Recessions and Labor Unions

Missy Beattie
The Real Housewives of War

Ron Jacobs
Mothers and War

Diane Farsetta
About Face on Pentagon Pundits?

Ramzy Baroud
War Without Context

Phelie Maguire
Living Next to Settlers

Robert Fantina
Party of Rush

Kevin Zeese
A Break From the Past in the Drug War?

Margaret Flowers, MD
The Baucus 8: Why We Risked Arrest for Single-Payer

Dave Lindorff
The Joke's on Us

Richard Rhames
Revenge of the Tundra

Ben Sonnenberg
Let the Right One In: A Vampire Visits a Welfare State

Kim Nicolini
Sin Nombre: Giving Faces to People Who Don't Have Names

Stephen Martin
The Riotous Action of the Complete Banker

Charles R. Larson
The Commencement Address You'll Never Hear

David Yearsley
Jean Ferrard, Organist Extraordinary

Lorenzo Wolff
Death Cab for Cutie: Surprisingly Familiar

Poets' Basement
G.S. Heiligschreib and David Farrelly

Website of the Weekend
Zombie Bank

May 7, 2009

Paul Craig Roberts
Criminalizing Criticism of Israel

Chris Floyd
A Full-Court Press for Pakistan War

Andy Worthington
Mixed Messages on Torture

Alan Farago
No Place Like Home: a Stress Test for Land Use, Not Just Banks

Ray McGovern
Deux ex Machina on Torture?

Dave Lindorff
Stain Removal: Impeaching the Torture Judge

Eric Toussaint /
Damien Millet
Why is There Rampant Famine in the 21st Century?

Ana M. Malinow, MD
Why We Need a Single-Payer Health Care System

Jeff Armstrong
Freeing Leonard Peltier: What Would Warren Harding Do?

Norman Solomon
A Green New Deal

Website of the Day
The End of Lake Mead?

May 6, 2009

Doug Peacock
The Fate of the Yellowstone Grizzly

Patrick Cockburn
Afghans to Obama: Get Out, Take Karzai With You

Richard Neville
The Torturer's Apprentice

Manuel Garcia, Jr.
To Power a Nation: Nuclear Bombs or Sunshine?

Winslow T. Wheeler
Of Pork and Baloney: Obama's Defense Budget

Deepak Tripathi
Pakistan in Crisis

Stephen Soldz
A "Natural Reaction": APA Ethics Policy-Maker Endorses Torture

Reuven Kaminer
Nice is Not Enough: Obama vs. Netanyahu and Lieberman

David Macaray
The Chrysler-UAW Deal

Kevin Zeese
Why We Were Arrested at the Senate Finance Committee Hearings

Marjorie Cohn
Stanford Antiwar Alums Call for War Crimes Investigation of Condoleezza Rice

Coalition for an Ethical Psychology
Investigate Psychologist and Health Provider Complicity in Torture

Website of the Day
Who's Behind the Financial Meltdown?

May 5, 2009

William Blum
Torture and Mr. Obama

Uri Avnery
Netanyahu's Plan

Steven Higgs
Autism and Toxic Pollution

Dean Baker
Why Economists Should Learn Arithmetic

Daniel Wolff
The Education of Rachel Carson

Sibel Edmonds
The Broken Congress

Carole King Klein
A New Chance to Save the Northern Rockies

Fidel Castro
Giving One's All

Belén Fernández
Oil and Aguardiente in the Ecuadoran Elections

Dan Bacher
Schwarzenegger's Big Lie About Fish vs. Jobs

Website of the Day
"I Married Isis on the Fifth Day of May"

May 4, 2009

James G. Abourezk
The AIPAC Spy Case

Jeff Leys
Obama's War Budget

Patrick Cockburn
Afghan Ayatollahs Press Marital Rape Law

Andy Worthington
A Start on Guantánamo, But Not Enough

Jaime Avilés
Mexico's Plague-Bringers

David Swanson
An Even Worse Bybee Memo

Paul Craig Roberts
Working with Jack Kemp

P. Sainath
Celeb Crusades and the Death of Politics

Eugenia Tsao
Canada's Obama and the Cult of the Prof

Benjamin Dangl
Protest and Rubber Bullets in Paraquay

Sami Al-Arian
Mourning William Moffitt

Website of the Day
"Soldiers Are Cutting Us Down": Kent State, May 4, 1970

May 1 - 3, 2009

Alexander Cockburn
Game-Changers: Specter Jumps, Souter Quits

Gary Leupp
Dropping the AIPAC Spying Case

Peter Linebaugh
The Key to the Bastille

Jeffrey St. Clair /
Joshua Frank:
Half Life of a Toxic War: Iraq's Wrecked Environment

C. G. Estabrook
Minion of the Long War

Patrick Cockburn
Kabul's New Elite

Mike Whitney
Economy on the Ropes

Pierre Sprey /
Winslow Wheeler
What "Sweeping Overhaul" of the Pentagon?

Andy Worthington
Al-Marri's Plea Deal: Dictatorial Powers Unchallenged

Mairead Maguire
Stand Up to Israeli Apartheid: a Letter to Obama From a Nobel Peace Prize Laureate

Nadia Hijab
The Israel Boycott is Biting

Diane Farsetta
Life, Death and Water Policy

Michael Calderón-Zaks
The Déjà Vu Flu: Why Much of the Discussion About Swine Flu is Racist

Richard Rhames
When Piggies Come Home to Roost: Swine Flu and the Industrial Meat Gulags

Russell Mokhiber
Inside the Beltway Baucus

Ramzy Baroud
Clinton's Unpromising Start

Rannie Amiri
Understanding Lebanon's June Elections

Deb Reich
No Talking, Dammit!

Steven Higgs
Indiana Criminalizes Dissent: Roadblocks on the NAFTA Highway

Brian Cloughley
Malice in Blunderland

David Michael Green
The Party's Over

Farzana Versey
Sex, Swat and Susan Boyle

Jim Goodman
Think Before You Eat: Agriculture and the Environment

Carl Finamore
New Prescription for a Healthy Union Movement

Christopher Brauchli
The Sounds of Silence: the Texas Option

Susie Day
The Real Cause of Unemployment: Employees!

David Yearsley
Nuts Over Beethoven

Lorenzo Wolff
Three Minutes of Perfection

Peter Stone Brown
Dancing with Dylan

Poets' Basement Dominguez, Orloski and Springate

Website of the Weekend
May Day Europe

April 30, 2009

Ellen Cantarow
Obama and "Two States": Seamless Continuity From Bush Time

Dana L. Cloud
The McCarthyism That Horowitz Built

Paul W. Lovinger /
Jeannette Hassberg
A Nation of Laws

Binoy Kampmark
Swine at the Trough: the Business of Pandemics

Brian Downing
The Perils of Modernization in Afghanistan

Frank Snepp
Tortured by the Past

David Swanson
The Wrong Torture Question

Conn Hallinan
The Coming Asian Storm

Ron Jacobs
Not Dead Yet: an Interview with Jerry Gordon on the State of the Antiwar Movement

John Goekler
The Only Path to a Middle East Picnic?

Jasmine L. Tyler /
Anthony Papa
An End to Crack/Powder Cocaine Sentencing Disparity?

Website of the Day
Emergency Petition: Stop Coal Industry Intimidation of Activists

April 29, 2009

Joann Wypijewski
Death at Work in America

Patrick Cockburn
The Taliban's Roads to Kabul

Andy Worthington
Cheney's Twisted World

Chris Floyd
The Specter Diversion

Dave Lindorff
No More Excuses: a Specter is Haunting the Democrats

Jeremy Scahill
The Nuremberg Truth and Reconciliation Commission?

Doug Henwood
Zionist Lobby Targets Another Tenured Professor: an Interview with William Robinson

Michael Hudson
Will Iceland be Handed Over to a New Gang of Kleptocrats?

Russell Mokhiber
My Ron Pollack Problem--And Yours

Eric Toussaint
Ecuador at the Crossroads

Website of the Day
An Interview with Leslie and Andrew Cockburn on "American Casino"

April 28, 2009

Uri Avnery
A Little Red Light: On Israeli Fascism

Jeremy Scahill
Obama's Iraq: the Picture of Dorian Gray

Dean Baker
The Perfect Gift for Wall Street: a Financial Transactions Tax

Michael D. Yates
At the Factory Gate

Conn Hallinan
Georgian Plots? Saakavili's "Order No. 2"

John Stauber
Beyond MoveOn

Tom Barry
The Failed Border Security Initiative

Harvey Wasserman
Who Pays for America's Chernobyl Roulette?

Jeff Nygaard
Pirates, Profits and Propaganda

Frederico Fuentes
Why the U.S. Still Hates Cuba

Website of the Day
The Man Behind the Hood

April 27, 2009

Pam Martens
The Far Right's Plot to Capture New Hampshire

Patrick Cockburn
Torture? It Probably Killed More Americans Than 9/11

Andrew J. Bacevich Guardian of the Status Quo: Obama's Sins of Omission

Mitu Sengupta
The Bloodbath in Sri Lanka

Franklin Lamb
Hillary Does Beirut: The 165-Minute Swoop-In

Firmin DeBrabander
Crimes of Economic Madness

Dave Lindorff
Wide Open to Pandemic?

Russell Mokhiber
How Corrupt is That?

Mike Whitney
Pinter's Message to Obama

Mark Weisbrot
Overhauling the IMF

Rev. José M. Tirado
Iceland's New Dawn: How the Right Got Trounced

Website of the Day
American Casino

April 24-26, 2009

Alexander Cockburn
Putting the Bush Years on Trial

Marjorie Cohn
Torture Used to Try to Link Saddam with 9/11

Andy Worthington
Who Ordered the Torture of Abu Zubaydah?

Jeremy Scahill
Are Leading Democrats Afraid of a Special Prosecutor to Investigate Torture?

Chris Floyd
Top of the Heap: the Democrats' Teachable Moment on Torture

Mike Whitney
A Housing Crash Update

Anthony DiMaggio
Obama and the Housing Crisis

Chris Kromm
Democratic Lobbyists Key to Fight Against Employee Free Choice Act

Saul Landau
Seventeen Months in "the Hole:" an Interview with the Leader of the Cuban Five

Dave Lindorff
Free John Walker Lindh

Greg Moses
The Debt Looters

Joshua Frank
Calling for a Coal Moratorium: an Interview with Ted Nace

Fred Gardner
Collective Farming and the Lynch Case

Manuel Garcia, Jr.
Homework, Testing and Stealth Apartheid in Education

David Michael Green
Of Tea Parties and Teleprompters

Ramzy Baroud
Middle East Spies: a New Front in Gaza's Conflict

Rannie Amiri
Mubarak's Expanding Enemies List

Laura Carlsen
Mr. President, Calderon is Not Mexico

Richard Morse
The Haitian People Need a Lobbyist

Nikolas Kozloff
Protecting the Bald Eagle: a Task Now Falling to ... Hugo Chavez?

Kent Peterson
The Fight to Save Mexico's Mangroves

Robert Bryce
The Ethanol Scammers Rent a General

Niranjan Ramakrishnan The Financial Experts

Ron Jacobs
Torture is More Than Just "Harsh Tactics"

Richard Rhames
Roman Legends, Book Burning and History's Hunt

Stephen Martin
Wherefore Art Thou American Dream?

David Yearsley
Rodgers, Hammerstein, Michener and Nostalgia's Clammy Embrace

Poets' Basement
Khalil and Mankh

Website of the Weekend
Doug and Andrea Peacock on Grizzlies and Edward Abbey

April 23, 2009

Eamonn Fingleton
How the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times Buried the Madoff Scandal for at Least Four Years

Ray McGovern
Obama Plays Hamlet on Torture

Michael Ratner
The Torture Commission Trap

Alan Farago
The Quicksand Economy

Rob Larson
Business Gets Carded

Nadia Hijab
The Real Heroes of Durban

Fawzia Afzal-Khan
Deconstructing the Taliban

Dave Lindorff
Are Members of Congress Being Blackmailed?

Helen Redmond
Selling Out Single-Payer: the "Public Option" Con

Adam Federman
The Battle Over New York's Marcellus Shale

Website of the Day
An Interactive Map of Vanishing Employment Across the Country

April 22, 2009

Chris Floyd
The Fatal Thread: Torture, War and the Imperial Project

Joanne Mariner
Torture Evidence and Terror Blacklists

Vijay Prashad
Obama's Afghan Plan: Fracturing the Antiwar Movement

Gareth Porter
U.S. Lacks Capacity to Win Over Afghans

Dean Baker
The Tyranny of Bad Economics

Peter Morici
Housing Sales and Fixing the Economy

Winslow T. Wheeler
Eliminating Bad Pentagon Habits

Barucha Calamity Peller
The Battle to Take Back the New School

Harvey Wasserman
Chernobyl Could Happen Here

Aisha Brown /
Dedrick Muhammad
White Privilege in the Americas

Teo Ballvé
Obama's Feel Good Meeting with Colombia's Uribe

Website of the Day
Ahmedinejad's Durban Speech: What He Actually Said

April 21, 2009

Randy Rowland
Lindy Blake's Great Escape

Dave Lindorff
Jay Bybee's Conspiracy to Torture

Fidel Castro
The Secret Summit

George McGovern
Pull Out of Iraq This Year

Greg Moses
The Unemployment Channel

Benjamin Dangl
Argentina Remembers

Sonia Nettnin
Saving Lives in Gaza

Frank Barat
The Death of Bassem: a Shooting at the Wall in Bil'n

Binoy Kampmark
Legal Purgatory and John Demjanjuk

John V. Walsh
Code Red for Single Payer

David Macaray
SAG Should be Praised, Not Assailed

Website of the Day
Bonus Man: For Executive Assholes Everywhere

April 20, 2009

Mike Whitney
Housing Bust Comes Roaring Back, Worse Than Ever

Andrea Peacock
Histrionics and Legalisms in Missoula

Henry A. Giroux
Ten Years After Columbine: the Tragedy of Youth Deepens

Liaquat Ali Khan
Drone Attacks on Pakistan's Indigenous Tribes

Fred Gardner
Obama's DoJ Backs Prosecution of Medical Marijuana Providers

Stephen Soldz
Obama, Blair, Panetta and the Torture Memos: Praising Moral Cowards, Ignoring Real Heroes

Nadia Hijab
Obama's Multi-Polar Middle East

Dave Lindorff
The Meeting in Trinidad

P. Sainath
India's Press Nixes "R" Word

Nelson P Valdés
A Modest (Transition) Proposal to Obama

Mark Engler
American Empire Foreclosed?

Belén Fernández
The FARC Can't Dance

Website of the Day
Dear Mr. Buffett...

Weekend Edition
May 22-24, 2009

Witnessing Something New at the CDC

Some Positive Directions in Public Health?

By HEATHER GRAY

This is not a new assessment, but it’s fairly clear that the well being of independent science and public health policies fluctuate depending on leadership in Washington. Will Obama make a positive difference? He has stated that an ideologically based science that predominated under Bush will end with his administration. It’s early, but maybe there are some optimistic signs.

Below is a narrative of my interactions over the years with the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, Georgia, otherwise known as the CDC. The CDC, with all its many scientists, appears to be rather like the canary in the mine. Whatever happens politically, culturally and ideologically in America is in some way reflected in the CDC’s policies and public health outreach. And, a lot of secrecy seems to prevail in this work with occasional overt intimidation.

The CDC was created in Atlanta in 1946 as part of the U.S. Public Health Service to combat malaria. In 1947, it paid Atlanta’s Emory University $10 for 15 acres of land to create its permanent headquarters on Clifton Road in the Druid Hills area of DeKalb County. The benefactor of the deal at the time was the powerful and now deceased, Robert Woodruff, chair of the Coca Cola Company.

Starting with a budget of $1 million in 1946, the CDC’s budget is now $8.8 billion, has thousands of scientists and public health professionals and is engaged in a vast range of scientific pursuits and public health projects throughout the world. It is now part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. On it’s website it states the CDC’s mission is “Collaborating to create the expertise, information, and tools that people and communities need to protect their health – through health promotion, prevention of disease, injury and disability, and preparedness for new health threats.”

Who’s to know all of what’s at the CDC or what harbors in its cracks and hallways, but in addition to all its health care outreach, programs on nutrition, its sexually transmission disease work, and much more, it has the smallpox virus somewhere in its laboratories and other deadly and dangerous germs and molecules are there as well.

One way or the other the CDC has featured in my life. While I have lived in many countries and many cities in the U.S. and the world, the one place to which I have always returned is the Druid Hills area of DeKalb County in close proximity to Clifton Road and the CDC, which even now is a ten-minute walk from where I live.

To begin the discussion of the CDC I, oddly enough, need to start in Kuala Lumpar, Malaysia. In the 1970’s I lived in Singapore. On one of my trips to Malaysia, I happened upon a British scientist who told me he was in Malaysia to study the deficient diet of indigenous Malays who lived in the Malaysian jungle.

Sitting with him in the old train station in Kuala Lumpar I was reminded of the English writer Somerset Maugham whose 1920’s trail I always seemed to follow in Southeast Asia, from Singapore to Vietnam. The train station with its high ceiling, overhead fans and large stuffed chairs evoked the British colonial architecture and mentality that also reeked in this scientist’s mission. He told me that his study of the deficient diet of the Malay aborigines had been aborted because, he said, it was one of the best diets he’d ever encountered.

The diet of these hunters and gatherers included nuts, roots and vegetation from the jungle that, combined, was incredibly nutritious and vastly superior to the English diet. No surprise there I must say. Most any diet would be superior to the English meat pies, fried fish and chips, and sweets. Because of this finding, my scientist friend told me he had to completely change his hypothesis to justify his research in Malaysia. I don’t know what triggered the research in the first place, but at least he was willing to admit the colonial arrogance of assuming, in the first place, that the Malay diet was deficient as if whatever came out the west was best.

My discussion with the British scientist revealed that we had something in common – the Centers for Disease Control. He was a friend of Dr. David Sencer who, at the time, was the Director of the CDC and who had recently purchased the house where I grew up in the Druid Hills area close to Clifton Road, of course. So here I was in Kuala Lumpar with, no less, a CDC connection. This discussion in Kuala Lumpar about the CDC was the first I’d had in depth, but that would soon change.

Once back in Atlanta later in the 1970’s, for one reason or another, I seemed to find myself at the CDC for forums or to visit friends. From the 1970’s up until the infamous September 11, 2001 attack on the World Trade Towers, the CDC was a fairly informal place to visit. Then, suddenly, everything turned upside down.

But let me describe how it was. The CDC building on Clifton Road is huge. It has floors above ground, but then there is the basement, the sub-basement and the sub-sub-basement.

At the time I was both a student and researcher in medical sociology, so I was always seeking experts in various fields at the CDC. You could go inside the building and meander around until you found who you were looking for. I would often find myself seeking people from floors high up and then down to the sub-basement without restriction. There were probably some areas where I couldn’t go that were filled with dangerous microbes, but I preferred to stay away from that anyway!

In the past, you could park your car outside the main CDC entrance on Clifton Road for an indefinite period. In fact, official or restricted parking at the CDC was at first not available. You just parked somewhere in the huge parking areas behind the building. Then there was ultimately a parking area set-aside for visitors separate from employees. You told the guard in the parking area you were a visitor and you were in. Simple as that!

I remember when the CDC first started its “flex-time” in the 1980’s when they simultaneously implemented time cards. A friend of mine at the CDC commented, “If you’re going to have flex-time the assumption is you need to trust people, and not add more restrictions with time cards!” Then in the 1990’s, I was told that a policy was created requiring people to email memos rather then walk to offices to share information. I guess CDC officials thought emailing would be more efficient because people would spend more time at their desk working rather than socializing. But there were all kinds of complaints with this change. Many employees, I was told, wanted to talk with human beings rather than stare at their computers.

In the 1980’s I used to visit one of my sociology friends, Bill Darrow, who worked in the CDC’s “Sexually Transmitted Disease” (STD) division. Bill was a great-nephew of the renowned attorney Clarence Darrow of the Scopes or “Monkey” Trial fame from 1925. There were always great stories from Bill. Needless to say, STD research reveals enticing observations about human behavior. I remember one evening talking with Bill in his CDC office around 7PM when the phone rang. It was a man from California. Bill talked with him at length. He was in his 70’s and had managed to contract herpes, from sexual behavior of course, and wanted to know what could be done. As there is no cure for herpes, Bill told me later that he wasn’t sure whether to congratulate him or tell him he was sorry.

At that time I was seeking a topic for a master’s thesis. Bill advised me to use data from the CDC. He had access to the largest sampling ever compiled of questionnaire responses from older gay males (over 50) in America. I took his advice. Older gay males became my topic and I managed to dispel some myths associated with older gays. Older gays, for example, are generally thought to be socially isolated. But this, I found, was dependent on how long they’d been openly gay. In fact, these males tended to have social relationships in both the gay and heterosexual communities and generally have what appeared to be a far more engaging social life than gays who had not been open about their sexual orientation. As their social contacts tended to be impressively diverse,
I also speculated that these openly gay elders likely had a better social life than most heterosexual males their age.

Anyway, that’s some of what I gleaned from my CDC data. Had they known, the right wing in Congress would probably have dismantled the division or shredded the questionnaires.

While I was engaged in this research I seemed to become steeped in literature on a wide spectrum of sexual behavior, be it homosexual or heterosexual. This included on occasion research articles on abortion.

It was the 1980’s and to place this in context, Reagan was in the White House with a “pro-life” anti-abortion agenda. I knew there was a change at the CDC under Reagan. It was something you could almost touch, but I was not privy to all the political and policy changes at the CDC.

Then I came across a reference to an article in a Christian medical journal about delinquency and mental problems resulting when children are born and not wanted. The article inferred, and not overtly I might add, that because of the universal problems of unwanted children in which intervention rarely if ever works, women should not be denied abortion. There were a number of authors listed, one of whom was identified as a CDC scientist and I wanted to talk with him. But first I wanted to read the article as I had only seen the summary comments. So I went to the Emory University library for the journal and all issues were available, except the one with the article I wanted. I then went to Emory’s medical school library and the issue was missing there as well. I thought this was strange as I went back again and again to see if the issue I sought was back on the shelf and it never was. Finally, I ordered the article from the publisher.

As it turned out all copies of the article had been removed from the CDC (I was told that when making an inquiry) and I was not able to find the scientist. I don’t know if the Emory libraries were in league with this effort to deny circulation of the article, but it was nevertheless true that the issue in question was missing. What kind of freedom of expression was this? It felt like an inquisition of sorts and, as is often the case, issues regarding the health of women were central to this repression.

Only years later, when I shared my story, was I able to confirm from professors in Emory University’s public health division that this was, in fact, the work of the Reagan administration. I don’t know, however, what other research was denied the public, how many other researchers were impacted or the chilling effect these policies had overall.

The CDC has also served as a center for international sabbaticals and interactions for scientists and physicians. In the 1980’s during the Reagan years and the 1990’s under Clinton, I was involved in the anti-apartheid movement. During that time, one of my friends involved in the movement was Julie Cliff, an Australian physician living in Mozambique, who came to the CDC for a lengthy sabbatical. Others I knew from South Africa, Zimbabwe and, I’m sure, from throughout the African continent, came as well. But this was largely in the Clinton era when we saw more visitors generally from Africa who were touring the South or the U.S. generally. The international connections can be extremely important. Julie, I know, made invaluable contacts for her future work in Mozambique, including Helene Gayle who was at the CDC then and now heads CARE International here in Atlanta that fights global poverty with an emphasis on women.

One of Julie’s friends, who I met, was a physician from England who had worked for years in Africa. While working with the CDC she became involved in the CDC’s inoculation program in the rural South. I received a rather frantic call from her when she returned from one of these trips. She said that in south Georgia, where they were working with local physicians, they interviewed health care workers on public health conditions in the area. When she arrived home, she listened to the interviews and was surprised. In fact, when the CDC folks had left the room where the interviews were conducted, the recording machine had, unknowingly, been left on while the physicians and others continued talking. I gather this was information they did not want revealed to the CDC staff.

What concerned her was this: on the tape the south Georgia physicians and others said they were not sure what to do about some of the black workers on the large plantations in south Georgia. They said they knew that many of them had been kidnapped in downtown Atlanta by plantation managers and taken south to work in the fields. Similar to the conditions described by David Blackmon’s 2009 Pulitzer prize winning book “Slavery by Another Name”, these workers were paid meager salaries, kept in debt through accommodation and food expenses and found it next to impossible to leave. The physicians were confronted with moral and legal dilemmas, and, on the whole, my English physician friend understood that they were not going to risk their jobs or standing in the community by exposing the system.

I asked her if she wanted to talk about this on my radio show. It took some convincing, but she finally agreed. She was nervous, however, and used a pseudonym.

I had virtually no contact with anyone at the CDC during the Bush years and was not aware of anything-worthwhile happening. The only contact during this period was with the CDC communications department. In the late 1990’s agriculture and food security activists were aware that agribusiness and biotech companies, the likes of Monsanto and Cargill and others, had pooled millions of dollars to counter the anti-GMO movement throughout the world. Suddenly we heard criticism of organic production; that it was not safe to eat.

During the Bush administration a press release appeared from the CDC warning people about organically grown foods. I called the CDC communications department for an explanation. The press release was a fabrication, I was told, and was never released from the CDC. The poor woman had been inundated with calls. I asked her what she thought of organically grown food. Her response was that “there is nothing to say, but like any produce you need to wash it before you eat it.” Fair enough. I still don’t know if the release was, in fact, from the CDC. Like any agency in the government, there seems to be a variety of opinions and positions and those who will to comply to pressure against their will.

Now, since January 2009, we have the Obama administration and suddenly within Obama’s first 100 day period, I began to receive calls from the CDC that journalist Michael Pollan would be speaking, followed with a panel of CDC scientists. Author of “In Defense of Food”, “The Omnivore’s Dilemma” and other books, Pollan’s message is a radical departure from America’s agribusiness monopoly and food system propaganda. Pollan, in fact, says that America has produced a food system that makes you sick. He says if you’re shopping in a grocery store only purchase food in the periphery of the store where who you find the fresh fruits and vegetables rather than the processed food that makes you sick. In other words, eat like the Malay aborigines as much as possible. His presentation at the CDC was refreshing and what appears at the outset to be an encouraging sign. I venture to say that Pollan would never have been invited to the CDC with the “pro-corporate” Bush in the White House.

Following Pollan’s presentation I was then informed that the Senate Agriculture Committee would be holding a hearing on the “Farm-to-School Initiatives in the Child Nutrition Reauthorization” program. I attended. With Senate Agriculture Committee chair Tom Harkin and committee member Georgia’s Senator Saxby Chambliss asking questions, the packed audience heard from USDA representatives, physicians and a farmer about ways to improve nutrition in the school system and provide healthy nutritious food to our youth. Harkin said he wants to take soft drinks and unhealthy snack foods out of the schools. A good sign. We’ll see if he’s able to battle American business on that one!

But, as I said earlier, since 9/11, security changes at the CDC have been immense. Maybe being able to roam about the CDC where smallpox is in laboratories is not a great idea. But how much security is necessary? For one, the front of the building is completely blocked off. When I went to hear Pollan, I needed to drive my car to a gate, get out of my car so it could be searched inside, in the trunk, under the hood, and I needed to provide identification. Then I went through security again in the building where the lecture was to be held and where I signed in, received a visitor’s badge and then came to a telling me that I cannot precede any further without being accompanied. They didn’t seem to worry about that directive.

When I went to the CDC a few months later for the agriculture hearing I needed to do all the above with an added treat – driving close to the gate I was told to drive exceptionally slow as there were cameras installed on the pavement to look under my car.

What can I say? Is this progress? Did the CDC need more security? Maybe. But I admit I long for the old informality of hanging out with Bill Darrow in his CDC office at 7PM with my car parked in the front of the building. It seems clear that we’re incredibly paranoid of each other and probably will continue to be so for the indefinite future.

Overall, and not surprisingly, it also seems clear that science and pubic health policies are definitely impacted by who is in the White House and in Congress for that matter. So far, in these first few months of the Obama administration, though my exposure is yet limited, there appears to be encouraging signs at the CDC on both these fronts.

Heather Gray produces "Just Peace" on WRFG-Atlanta 89.3 FM covering local, regional, national and international news. She has been a part of the food security movement for 18 years in Africa, Asia and the United States. She lives in Atlanta, Georgia and can be reached at hmcgray@earthlink.net.

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