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The country's rapidly rising suicide rate is a tragedy, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are doing more to address two of the most common ways people are taking their lives: addiction and firearms, the new director of the The agency said in his first interview role.
"That should get people to take a break"
Robert Redfield
About the suicide rate, in an interview that also addressed its goals to end the HIV / AIDS epidemic in the United States, improve immunization rates and strengthen public health systems in countries where epidemics are a risk.
In half of the United States, suicide rates have increased by more than 30% since 1999, the CDC recently reported. "That's a lot," said Dr. Redfield.
Noting that firearms are the most common form of suicide, he added that the CDC has recently increased the number of states in which it tracks violent deaths and would conduct research on violence. army if Congress financed it. "We are allowed to do it," he said. "We just need a funding mechanism."
Dr. Redfield added that the CDC is intensifying its efforts to combat opioid abuse, another common factor behind suicide and one of its top priorities for the agency. "We will continue to develop our efforts," he said, including developing guidelines for the prescription of opioids for acute pain and using a new system that can track overdoses of any kind. opioids in a timely manner.
The most recent opioid data was several months old, said Dr. Redfield. Now, "we will be able to track this epidemic in real time, which I think is really important to be able to respond."
Dr. Redfield, 66, has personal experience with the effects of addiction: A close family member has struggled with opioids. "I think part of my understanding of the epidemic has come from seeing her not only as a public health person and not just as a doctor," he said. "It's something that has also touched me personally.
"Stigma is the enemy of public health," he said, adding that it is important to find "a way to destigmatize" opioid abuse. "We have managed to do this to a certain extent for HIV, and I think it has been a success, but it's not over."
A veteran of HIV / AIDS research, Dr. Redfield took office at the CDC in March after the initial appointment of the Trump administration,
Brenda Fitzgerald,
resigned over conflicts of financial interests. Some congressional Democrats and HIV activists have expressed reservations about his appointment, citing controversial positions in his work, including a post that he held until March in an organization that advocates the fight against HIV / AIDS. abstinence up to marriage as the main HIV prevention tool. He was also criticized for supporting compulsory HIV testing in the military in the late 1980s, a criticism of the policy said that she was stigmatizing.
Dr. Redfield said that he was a young doctor who did not set up the Department of Defense's policy, but added that the policy was solid. "We gave men and women the opportunity to stop transmitting this virus to someone they loved," he said. "In a way, I think the environment within the military medical community was less stigmatizing because we were more open to treating this as a medical problem."
Drug treatment is the most important prevention method for people at risk of HIV infection, said Dr. Redfield – an approach called pre-exposure prophylaxis, or PrEP. "Although behavioral strategies are important, they have always been limited, and with the advent of PrEP, we know we have a biological mechanism that can prevent infection," she said. he said. "The data is solid."
According to him, HIV / AIDS could be eliminated in "seven years or maybe a little more," he said, diagnosing and using comprehensive prevention strategies, including PrEP, circumcision and condom. use. He cited the states of Washington and New York as leaders in this effort, with "resetting" campaigns.
Dr. Redfield said his top priority is to protect Americans from major global epidemic threats, namely pandemic influenza and antimicrobial resistance. The CDC is facing potential budget cuts, including a global health security agenda in which the agency helps other countries build their capacity to fight the epidemic.
The CDC's efforts in recent years to help the Democratic Republic of Congo build laboratories and train emergency responders have been successful in the country's rapid response to its recent outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Ebola, he said. "I think the DRC is a great example of success," he said.
He said he would work to ensure that funding continues for priority epidemic programs. "I expect we will continue to get the funding we need to do the global health mission we have," he said.
Dr. Redfield also said that the CDC experts are examining whether gynecologists should perform more cancer screening before common procedures such as hysterectomies, because surgeries run the risk of spreading undetected cancers.
New research suggests that older women are at increased risk for malignant tumors in fibroids, and "this needs to be critically examined," he said. "They're really looking at all the data, and then they'll decide next steps."
The director was first hired for his position with a salary of $ 375,000, a reduction from his previous compensation, but much more than the former CDC directors were paid. Dr. Redfield asked that the salary be reduced after being publicly examined. "It is not a question of money," he said. "It's never been, it's about the mission."
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