CDC History of Tuberculosis Control - Medical and Public Health ...

control staff at CDC and across the nation.
The last of the special TB project grants were
phased out by 1973. The TB Research Section
was transferred from Washington to Atlanta
with Jerry Weismeuller as Chief, but many of
the TB Research Section staff retired or moved
on to other positions rather than move to
Atlanta. In 1974 the TB Branch again became
the TB Division. In 1976, Larry Farer became
Director of the TB Division and Dixie Snider
became Chief of the Research Branch. John
Seggerson came to CDC as the Chief of Field
Services in late 1977, replacing Larry Sparks
who had served there before going to the
CDC Washington office and later serving as
Executive Director for NIOSH and then as
Deputy Director of NCIPC. Jerry Brimberry
worked as a TB consultant with Larry Sparks
and later moved on to Executive Officer of the
Diabetes Field Services Branch. The last of the
original TB Medical Officer field assignees,
Eric Brenner, left the field for Atlanta and the
TB Division in 1978. In the late 1970s and
early 1980s, the role of the TB Division program
consultants was enhanced and they
became the lead contacts with health department
TB control programs for the Division,
establishing ongoing contact and close working
relationships between the Division and the
field. A long parade of very effective and
motivated TB program consultants moved
through the Division and on to higher level
positions: Charlie Watkins transferred to the
regional offices and then to CDC Chief of
Regional Affairs; Wilmon Rushing became
one of the first CDC AIDS officials and
moved up to the NCID Associate Director for
Management; Willis Forrester became Chief of
Field Services for the AIDS program; Chris
Hayden became Chief of the TB Communications
and Education Branch; Mack Anders
headed the TB Division field staff; George
Rogers is the PHS Deputy Regional Health
Administrator Director (Chicago), and Carl
Schieffelbein is the current DTBE Associate
Director for Special Projects. (The current
DTBE Field Services Section Chiefs, Joe
Scavotto and Greg Andrews, were also DTBE
Notable Events in TB Control
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program consultants.)
1980 was an especially difficult time for TB
programs when the block grants were completely
phased out for a short time, there were
no categorical TB grants, and TB program
managers had to scramble to cover lost resources.
This was a tough time also for TB
Division Public Health Advisor field assignees,
some of whom had to accept assignments in
other programs, while many stayed on in TB
field assignments where local health departments
were able to cover their salary costs
with state or local funds under the Intergovernmental
Personnel Assignment Act. Things
began to look up again in 1981 and 1982 when
categorical TB project grants were again
funded, although initially on a very small
scale. Since the TB Medical Officer field
assignee activity had been phased out by 1978,
the Division began recruiting physicians and
other scientists from the EIS officer group for
TB Division medical posts beginning with
Rick O’Brien, George Cauthen, Ken Powell,
Bess Miller, Hans Reider, and Alan Bloch,
who were the first of this respected group.
The TB individual case report was introduced
in the mid-1980s, enhancing the national TB
surveillance system. Nonetheless, through the
late 1970s and early 1980s, many TB programs
increasingly felt the impact of cutting resources
that began in the early 1970s. The first
documented outbreak of drug-resistant TB
occurred in 1976 and 1977 in rural Alcorn
County, Mississippi. TB-related resources and
infrastructure continued to deteriorate in most
areas, and in the early 1980s, HIV/AIDS
began to affect TB, at first in Florida and then
in the New York City metropolitan area and
elsewhere. Because of the decline of the
infrastructure, many health departments were
simply unable to cope with the emerging TBrelated
problems associated with AIDS, along
with increasing numbers of foreign-born TB
patients and other problems having an impact
on TB. By the mid-1980s the long-time decline
in the Nation’s TB morbidity trend