Director of Centers for Disease Control Resigns

Dr. Jeffrey P. Koplan, who guided the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention through the challenge of responding to last year’s anthrax attacks, announced Thursday that he would resign as director of the public health agency.

The resignation, which will take effect March 31, will add to the list of federal health agencies with no permanent leader. There is no surgeon general or Food and Drug Administration commissioner, and an acting director has led the National Institutes of Health for more than two years.

Within the NIH, at least five of the 19 major institutes have no permanent director, including those that oversee federal funding for research on mental health, neurological disorders, drug abuse, alcoholism and biological imaging. At least one smaller federal health agency, the Health Resources and Services Administration, also has an acting chief.

“I am extremely worried that we have these absences at a time when there is attention to health for the usual reasons, and now for the unusual reason of bioterrorism,” said Dr. Linda Rosenstock, dean of the UCLA School of Public Health. “It’s a frightening situation to have at a time when you would look for stability in leadership, not volatility.”

Koplan, 57, has spent nearly all of his professional life at the CDC and became director in 1998, under President Clinton. A CDC spokeswoman said that Koplan, like other agency heads who serve at the pleasure of each administration, had tendered his resignation when President Bush took office. But Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy G. Thompson asked him to stay.

Koplan announced his decision to senior staff members at a meeting Thursday afternoon. In a written statement, he did not explain why he was leaving what he called “the best job in public health.”

The agency is charged with safeguarding the public’s health, which requires it to track disease outbreaks, manage food-borne illnesses and work on immunization programs, on-the-job injury reduction and a wide range of other health problems.

The agency drew mixed reviews last year for its response to the anthrax attacks that killed at least five people and infected more than a dozen others. Faced with the nation’s first case of bioterrorism by mail, government officials first assured the public that their mail was safe, then warned that thousands of letters had possibly been infected by those few letters known to have carried anthrax bacteria.

Koplan was also accused of evading his responsibility when he refused to advise people exposed to anthrax on whether to be vaccinated, saying he lacked scientific evidence. And the federal government in general was faulted for releasing information on the attacks through political leaders, some of whom offered incorrect information, rather than through federal scientists and physicians.

Bill Roper, CDC director from 1990 to 1993 and a close friend of Koplan, said the anthrax attacks had no bearing on Koplan’s departure.

“Is he leaving because of anthrax? Of course not,” Roper said. “Is he leaving because the secretary asked him to leave or urged him to leave? I know for certain that’s not the case,” said Roper, referring to Thompson. “He was not asked to resign.”

Roper, dean of the School of Public Health at the University of North Carolina, said Koplan is “the best of the best” among CDC chiefs. He credited Koplan with building the political support necessary to boost the agency’s budget and improve its infrastructure.

“The CDC has been chronically underfunded,” said Anthony Mazzaschi, associate vice president for research at the Assn. of American Medical Colleges, “but Jeffrey Koplan was an effective and passionate advocate of public funding and public health.”

In a statement, Thompson called Koplan’s departure “a loss for the department . . . and for our country,” and said he had “touched and improved the lives of millions of people worldwide.”