Cohen worries for future of CDC, Burr criticizes its past during talk on global health

Two former North Carolina political heavyweights — former Sen. Richard Burr and Dr. Mandy Cohen, director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention — sat down this week to discuss global health security.

Cohen, a Democrat, served as director of the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services during the pandemic. President Joe Biden appointed her as head of the CDC in 2023.

She said the CDC’s global approach to disease outbreaks is the most cost-effective way to protect people at home, with the goal of stopping the spread before it reaches the United States.

Cohen knows cuts are coming for the CDC but says she hopes budget writers approach them with a scalpel rather than an ax.

“We can't protect the health of the country, be proactive, have the data infrastructure, do genomic sequencing, have the diagnostic tests that I think we need to protect folks if we just lob off, you know, 22%,” she said. “We have to be thoughtful about doing it.”

Burr, a Republican and former chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, now co-chairs a bipartisan policy group focused on global health security.

He praised Cohen for her leadership of the CDC but said he is concerned about a culture there that he believes is resistant to change.

“Are they capable of looking at duplication, or looking at greater efficiency? Because that involves a degree of technology incorporation that I’ve found not necessarily to be welcomed in the past,” he said.

Cohen’s term will end this month when the Trump administration takes over. President-elect Trump has nominated former GOP Congressman Dr. Dave Weldon to replace her.