Centers for Disease Control & Prevention – CDC

Well this is where I work now. Woot woot for a new job! If you’re a visitor, they will ask to inspect your car including opening the trunk and the hood. High security. The building is gorgeous and it has a beautiful campus. Plenty of parking.

Where nary is heard a discouraging word…
The CDC is unique in being treated as if it’s a U.S. government organization with the public’s best interest, when in fact it is a private organization with private ‘Big Pharm and insurance company backed interests.
It easily dismisses U.S. issues with the excuse they are focused on global issues. Superbugs (antibiotic resistant bacteria) has low profit in big Pharm, and is similarly dismissed by the CDC. They do not seriously track superbugs in the U.S. by species or occurrence. There is money in fighting AIDS, so they beat the drum for that, yet the incidence of late stage Lyme Disease is double that of AIDS, and they really have no interest in Lyme Disease R&D or treatement. Their recommendations are 20 years behind the research, and their recommendations best serve medical insurance companies the enforce adherence to CDC archaic recommendations.
It sat back when U.S. pharmaceutical firms were purchased by foreign companies, and ignores that if rapid development of a vaccine is necessary there now is NO american firms to accomplish such a fête; –they are all European. Note that when a French based company dispensed Flu Vaccine, it was to France first, and dribbled to the U.S. as an ‘as needed’ basis… despite their initial promises.

For the CDC: ‘it’s just business.’ — BIG business.

The David J. Sencer Museum is the only part that is open to the public. It is large and interesting, and covers the history of CDC and gives some examples of their research. There are also rotating exhibits on current health issues. The downside is that most of the exhibits are posters or videos, with very little actual equipment. The gift shop is gone, as of March 2014.

The mothership.

I came here last fall (My bookmark says September) with my nursing class on a trip. We went here and to the Bodies exhibit. Both places were educational but I don’t know why you’d want to come for fun.
DON’T FORGET YOUR LICENSE. no pictures.
Hm. We got a little tour and a little lecture. Actually the lecture was on the long side. And then we got to wander around the ‘exhibits’ and other stuff that were up for display. Most of the exhibits looked like they were for school age children, such as elementary or middle school. You’ll probably lose them for high school. I definitely felt a little old trying to play the germ matching game. They also have displays that studied different epidemiological incidences in the US or Atlanta. One in particular was the incidence of homicide gun related deaths in O4W. That was interesting. The other one was the chart that shows how STD’s can be spread gross.
They let you try on a haz mat suit and I really wanted to so I did. It was a little sweaty in there, the perspiration builds up and it was a little gross. I don’t know why I thought that would be cool. Also It’s really hard to get in those things because the plastic is not very pliable.
Anyways, I guess if you’re a germ nerd this would be kinda fun or if you want try to scare your kids into washing their hands. I do think it’s cool it’s in Atlanta, I get a little proud about that.

Love the CDC… have been there for business a handful of times. The tour is great, but much is locked down for good reason. I was relieved not to run into Rick and his crew. Instead I was able to pay a visit to another Atlanta institution, The Clermont Lounge…

What a great and interesting self-​guided and directed exhibit on display. You tour at your own pace.
You go through a very secure check-​in, for both your car and person. Exhibit takes about 60 – 90 minutes. Informative and entertaining.

This is a place to go just to say you’ve been there. They house every disease known to man at the CDC «campus» as they refer to it, but there’s only one building visitors can actually enter.
We went because my husband is obsessed with epidemiology and I wanted to get pictures of the building but it turns out you can only take a picture of the sign. This is understandable considering the monstrosities housed within. We even had to get our car searched to go inside!
They have exhibits here quite often and we were able to catch one about art that identifies violence against women from around the globe.
Definitely check it out if you’re in Atlanta just so you can say you’ve been to the CDC!

WOW!
The website is detailed and a bit overloading. I decided to risk it with my little questions.
After the phone robot asking me what language and about 4 questions about my needs. child,? adult? travel? physician?.. my head almost exploded. a real person answered. He understood my question, repeated it back, put me on hold for less than 20 seconds and quoted me excellent research (understandable!) to answer my questions.
YAHOO! A real person who can speak English, can understand a person using medical terms and can answer with VERY relevant info.

The only reason I give this spot 4 stars is because it paints a big red target on Atlanta. After all, this place is teeming with «eradicated» diseases that we no longer have vaccines for. To sum it up, polio is not your friend!
On a more serious note, this is one cool spot. I’ve taken a tour here back in high school and it was informative and fun. My friends who work here now give the un-​confidential inside scoop about going-on’s (H1N1 comes to mind) and make me confident that it is mostly going right. There is some politics going on, but it’s a work place. Politics happen. The good news is that despite all the upper level management crap, there’s a lot of good that comes from the CDC, and maybe it’s best that it’s located here. It selfishly means that hey, Atlanta gets first dibs on any vaccines we might need that the CDC comes up with. ;)

To paraphrase the Unfrozen Caveman Lawyer, having the CDC in Atlanta both scares and confuses me. Knowing that the end of the world is potentially a few dozen yards underneath Clifton Ave. does not fill one with comfort, especially knowing how Atlanta can barely keep its sewers flowing and its gas tanks filled.
However I do get a little perverse thrill every time I see the notecard «Atlanta» whenever they cut to some office building with a palm tree in the background and a poorly made CDC sign out front in some crappy Sci-​Fi Channel movie about a flesh-​eating microbe that’s come to Earth to rape our cattle and eat our women. So I guess having the CDC here is a wash.
Anyway, I read the papers and I’ve read how the place is horribly mismanaged. But I also know people who work there and believe in what they do despite the management. And what they do, in a sentence, is keep us all safe. ALL of us. So to all you scienticians, support, IT and well, everybody but the sucky management who makes your life more difficult, four stars. (You’ll get five stars once you 1) get better managers and 2) cure AIDS. All right, if you cure AIDS, I’ll give you that fifth star anyway because, hey, AIDS cure.)

Where would we be without the Center for Disease Control? The more you learn about microbes, the scarier they become, and the more thankful you are about what the CDC does. I know its become vougue to bash all things government, but I have to say, I am really thankful this place exists. While they have had their mistakes, the 1976 flu scare comes to mind, their sucesses far outshadow them. Its because of people like these we live in a world without smallpox. This is my way of saying «Thank You» to the CDC.