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The Washington Post has featured another story on the scandal. -- Jul 21

In an extraordinary turn of events, a noted CDC scientist has publicly charged his own government agency with improperly diverting funds away from authorized CFS research. Since those charges were leveled, the HHS Office of Inspector-General has confirmed them with its own audit, and now Congress's General Accounting Office is launching its own separate investigation. The Director of the CDC has proposed major reforms to preclude such errors from happenning again. The scandal has recently been the subject of Congressional hearings (Feb. 2000).

Dr. William Reeves, the Center for Disease Control's pointman on CFS research, filed a complaint with the U.S. Health and Human Services Inspector-General in July 1998 to demand an investigation of the diverted funds. CDC administrators then canceled a scheduled study of CFS in youths. Dr. Reeves claimed in a written statement that he was told by another CDC official that when there were fiscal shortfalls in other programs, CDC administrator Dr. Brian Mahy "always made up such deficits with CFS and other similar monies". Reeves detailed that in recent years as many as half or more of the millions of dollars specifically earmarked for CFS research had been secretly diverted to other programs. Reeves claims that the CDC's reports to Congress about these expenditures were in fact false statements. Reeves has filed for protection under the "Whistlerblower's Act", a law that protects the jobs of government employees while they report government waste, fraud or abuse.

In an Associated Press newswire story about these events, patient leader John Friedlich was quoted as saying that said the predominant attitude among CDC scientists for years has been that CFS "is not important, is not a real illness and they're not going to commit to try to learn more about it." These events were also reported on the front page of the Congressional Quarterly Daily Monitor (Sept. 9, 1998), an influential publication read by lawmakers in Washington, DC, and in later stories by the Associated Press (July 1999) and the Washington Post ( May 1999 and July 1999).

The HHS Inspector-General released a report in May 1999 which confirmed the charges of diversion of funds. Under pressure from the CFS community, the General Accounting Office (GAO, Congress's investigative agency) has announced that it is launching its own investigation of the CDC, which will additionally review CFS issues at the National Institutes of Health (NIH). The GAO investigation was promped by a request from Senator Harry Reid.

Patient groups are circulating a petition and are asking Congress to focus on this issue. The Director of the CDC has issued a statement which offers an apology and outlines a plan to oversee future expenditures of CFS research at CDC, but which does not comment on the charges of scientific bias being leveled by the CFS community.

The Director of the CDC Jeffrey Koplan held a meeting with CFS advocates on Oct. 13, 1999 to find out what can be done to make amends. Dr. Koplan avoided answering questions about scientific bias and how the diversion of funds came about in the first place. Instead he stated that he would take personal charge of major reforms that would address as many concerns as possible. Most of the CFS leaders who attended the meeting said afterwards that despite whatever promises may have been made by the CDC, they would be looking for results.

In February 2000, news reports indicated that CDC funds from another research area (hantavirus) had also been diverted, and by the same person who had diverted the CFS funds (Dr. Brian Mahy). A Congressional Commerce subcommittee declared that it would be launching its own investigation of these matters. The U.S. Secretary fo Health and Human Services, Donna Shalala, announced that she would be ordering her own reforms.

At a hearing before the House Appropriations Committee (Feb. 10), CDC Director Koplan announced that there would be an additional outside audit of the CDC's accounts, and that Dr. Brian Mahy had been re-assigned away from the CDC division he had been running. The Congressmen expressed faith in the integrity of the CDC Director and his agency, but wanted to know that the problems would be resolved. The CDC Director had a much more difficult time before a Senate hearing on Feb. 29. Senators interrogated Dr. Koplan and apparently did not accept his explanations.

The GAO released its own report in June 2000 which confirmed the Inspector-General's report, and which also noted a steady decline in CFS research since 1996.

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