Thread by @BrantHadaway

1/ This underscores why I believe that @CDC should be reorganized to be more like @NTSB. A brief 🧵

https://twitter.com/DrJBhattacharya/status/1584986863567503360

@cdc @NTSB 2/ "In 1967, Congress consolidated all transportation agencies into a new U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) and established the NTSB as an independent agency placed within the DOT for administrative purposes. In creating the NTSB,...

ntsb.gov/about/history/…

@cdc @NTSB 3/ "... Congress envisioned that a single organization with a clearly defined mission could more effectively promote a higher level of safety in the transportation system than the individual modal agencies working separately." However, Congress soon recognized that ...

@cdc @NTSB 4/ ... the only way to assure NTSB's independence was to move it completely outside of DOT, so that NTSB would not come under any pressure from agencies with regulatory authority. In other words...

@cdc @NTSB 5/ "Because the DOT has broad operational and regulatory responsibilities [over] the transportation system, and transportation accidents may suggest deficiencies in that system, the NTSB's independence was deemed necessary for proper oversight."

@cdc @NTSB 6/ The NTSB's independence and its lack of regulatory authority give it the ability to focus on dispassionate fact-finding, and to make safety recommendations, without any concerns for regulatory capture or inter-agency pressure. This is key to its respect & trustworthiness.

@cdc @NTSB 7/ The agencies charged with regulatory authority, such as FAA, have to consider economic factors and the promotion of transportation in addition to safety. In other words, they are charged with the cost/benefit analysis. NTSB is not. NTSB just reports the facts.

@cdc @NTSB 8/ It would behoove Congress to consider a similar approach to restructuring #CDC. We need a federal public health agency that is just like NTSB, one that is strictly charged with fact-finding and with making recommendations for regulation and legislation, but without any ...

@cdc @NTSB 9/ ... regulatory authority of its own. In order to assure that CDC is properly walled off from the regulatory functions of HHS (as NTSB is walled off from DOT), we would have to move CDC outside of HHS. This would also give Congress an opportunity to reduce CDC's mission creep.

@cdc @NTSB 10/ CDC would have to be limited to an investigative role, of looking at causes --> effects, in relation to infectious disease. This would mean no more pronouncements on things that have nothing to do with infectious disease, such as gun violence and gender identity issues.

@cdc @NTSB 11/ Had #CDC been restructured along these lines prior to 2020, there's a fair chance that we would already know the answer to the question of where COVID-19 originated. If the finding was a lab leak, CDC could have mad a series of recommendations on controlling ...

@cdc @NTSB 12/ ... gain of function research. If the finding was zoonosis, an independent, fact-finding #CDC could have made recommendations about controlling the wildlife trade. But so far, we have gotten neither. Gain of function research continues apace, w/out any public input, ...

@cdc @NTSB 13/ ... and we know very little about what's being done to regulate wildlife markets. We are flying completely blind, and it too-often seems that the very people who should be giving us forthright answers have cotton stuffed in their ears. The collapse of trust in CDC and ...

@cdc @NTSB 14/ ... other public health agencies has been the result.

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