WASHINGTON — A Republican senator Tuesday released a report critical of spending at the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), saying the agency "has wasted and continues to waste hundreds of millions of tax dollars, but keeps asking taxpayers for more."
Sen. Tom Coburn, a practicing physician and ranking member of an oversight subcommittee, issued a 115-page minority office report questioning the CDC's spending on projects including an employee fitness center with $200,000 in equipment such as zero-gravity chairs and a mood-enhancing light show, and a $1.7 million effort to have accurate medical information portrayed in movies and TV shows.
A CDC spokesman said the agency provided Coburn with "exhaustive information" and had reorganized its management to improve efficiency.
"We strive day in and day out to fulfill our commitment to the American taxpayer," CDC spokesman Tom Skinner said.
Coburn said he believes the CDC does important work to protect and improve public health that should not be undermined by wasteful spending. The Oklahoma senator said he plans to issue similar reports about other agencies but did not say which ones.
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Coburn's report on the CDC provided details on a massive construction project at the CDC's headquarters in Atlanta that has exceeded $1 billion.
The new buildings include a $106 million communications center with a 70-foot-wide-by-25-foot-tall wall of plasma video screens for visitors, the report says. The center is named after Sen. Tom Harkin, an Iowa Democrat who was the ranking member of the Senate Appropriations subcommittee overseeing CDC spending. A video production studio at the center cost $18.6 million, the report says.
The new construction includes a $110 million headquarters building named after Sen. Arlen Specter, a Pennsylvania Republican who is the former chairman of the subcommittee shaping the CDC budget. Coburn's report says the CDC spent $9.8 million on furniture for the building.
Another building at the campus houses the new fitness center, whose amenities include "quiet rooms" where workers can relax in zero-gravity chairs while watching a show of pastel-colored lights, the report says. Skinner said the buildings and their furnishings aren't a waste of money.
"We have first-rate facilities for first-rate employees," Skinner said. "After years of neglect, we finally have what we need to move forward and accomplish our mission."
Coburn's report criticizes the $1.7 million the agency has spent since 2001 on a Hollywood liaison office providing expertise for TV shows such as ER and 24. The current project director is a former CDC employee who worked on its "Entertainment Education Program" before leaving the agency in 2002, the report says.
Coburn called such spending wasteful in his report. "It is hard to argue in this day and age that television producers do not have an incentive, without federal taxpayer involvement, to get their story lines correct," the report says.
Skinner defends the program as "an unusual and effective way to reach people" with messages about their health.
"It's been a positive program for us and one we think has been well received and instrumental about getting information about health protection to millions of people," Skinner said.
