The official name of the CDC is the Centers for Disease Control “and Prevention.” Tasked with prevention of disease is an agency that does not appear in the CDC’s flow chart, the Epidemic Intelligence Service (EIS). According to the CDC:
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EIS officers are CDC’s disease detectives who learn from and work alongside subject matter experts while providing service to domestic and international partner…
Worn-out shoe leather with a prominent hole worn through has been a recurring visual theme of EIS through the decades, a reference to the practice of EIS officers personally investigating disease outbreaks at the local population level, in all parts of the world…
EIS has a 75-year history of success in training disease detectives. EIS officers step up at a moment’s notice to investigate public health threats in the United States and around the world. From the Smallpox Eradication Program in the 1960s to the measles outbreak in 2025, EIS officers are called on to protect people and save lives…
A notable omission is the COVID pandemic from 2020-2023, which raises questions about CDC and EIS leadership. Consider Dr. Anne Schuchat, who began her CDC career with the EIS in 1988 and is thought to be the model for Dr. Erin Mears, Kate Winslet’s character in Contagion, from 2011.
In 2016, Schuchet became the first head of the CDC’s “National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases (NCIRD). From January 20-July 7, 2017 and January 31-March 26 in 2018 Schuchet served as acting CDC director — without confirmation by the U.S. Senate. CDC Chief Operating Officer Sherri Burger called Schuchat “our Anthony Fauci.” A government bureaucrat since 1968, Fauci was never once confirmed by the U.S. Senate.
In early 2020, out of the public eye, Messonnier held a series of telephone briefings that set forth everything Fauci would later say. A “novel coronavirus” emerged from a “market” in Wuhan, China. There was no immunity for the new virus which would spread rapidly. Schools and businesses would have to be shut down, and so forth.
The CDC had a team in China for many years, Messonnier told reporters, but she was “not at liberty” to speak about travel to the United States from Wuhan. Reporters got no explanation of who, exactly, was setting the rules. In sessions from January 7 to March 9, 2020, Messonnier never once mentioned the Epidemic Intelligence Service, whose intrepid “officers” had obviously failed to detect the new coronavirus and prevent its arrival in the USA.
In May of 2021, Messonnier suddenly resigned from the CDC. Hailed as a “true hero” by Joe Biden’s CDC director Rochelle Walensky, Messonnier moved on to the Skoll Foundation, but members of Congress remained curious.
On October 8, 2021, the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis interviewed Messonnier, who was accompanied by three attorneys from the WilmerHale law firm. The CDC’s true hero was not sworn in but instructed to answer truthfully because false statements could lead to “criminal prosecution.” As the redacted transcript reveals, one of Messonnier’s attorneys advised her not to answer a question about a telephone call with CDC director Robert Redfield. The Trump pick, an experienced virologist, saw evidence of laboratory origin for COVID, and in June 2021 Redfield told reporters he received death threats.
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The committee wondered if President Trump had interfered with Messonnier, who said he hadn’t. The alleged CDC “hero” told the committee she began her career with the EIS, and that her 2020 telebriefings were carefully scripted by a “communications team” of Dan Jernigan, Jay Butler, and Anne Schuchat. Messonnier did not reveal that her scriptwriters were all veterans of the EIS. In early 2020, Schuchat was Principal Deputy Director of the CDC and believed to be the prime candidate to direct the agency. So it came as a surprise that in May of 2021, the same month Messonnier stepped down, Dr. Schuchat suddenly resigned from the CDC.
By that time, Americans had seen their businesses shut down, with no warning or compensation. Schools had been suddenly closed, depriving students of crucial learning time. Workers and even military members had been fired for refusing untested vaccines that did not prevent infection or transmission. Hospitalized seniors had been sent back into nursing homes, where they perished by the thousands. Government officials told the people to mask up, observe social distancing rules, and avoid gathering with loved ones.
The American people had never been told that Dr. Nancy Messonnier, a bemedalled captain in the U.S. Public Health Service, was a veteran of the EIS. The people were not told that Messonnier’s telebriefings were scripted by EIS veterans, including Dr. Anne Schuchat, a bemedalled “rear admiral” in the Public Health Service.
According to an October 2020 ProPublica report titled “Inside the Fall of the CDC,” during COVID the American and Chinese CDC “were almost seen as one.” In her scripted briefings, Messonnier was careful to praise China and parroted PRC talking points. The people were never told that the Epidemic Intelligence Service includes nationals from many countries, including the People’s Republic of China. Messonnier and her team never explained whose interests the Chinese EIS officers represented.
Fauci funded the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) to perform gain-of-function research that makes viruses more lethal and transmissible. Last year Joe Biden pardoned Fauci without indicating any crime he committed. This year, Fauci took the Fifth Amendment more than 100 times, so if people thought he committed crimes it would be hard to blame them. On the other hand, Joe Biden issued no presidential pardon for doctors Schuchat and Messonnier. Congress should now call the EIS and CDC veterans to testify, under oath.
When did CDC and EIS bosses know that Fauci funded the Wuhan Institute of Virology to conduct gain-of-function research? Is evidence of a COVID lab origin part of a conspiracy theory? Were any EIS officers working within the CDC team in China and for how many years? Was anybody in the CDC or EIS demoted, disciplined, or dismissed over the failure to stop the COVID virus?
What was it about travel from Wuhan that Messonnier was “not at liberty” to discuss? Did any CDC or EIS officials delete communications or records? Has the People’s Republic of China ever done anything with which the CDC and EIS disagreed? And so on. The people have a right to know, and some realities are already apparent.
The vaunted EIS functions as the covert division of the CDC, so drop “epidemic” from the title and rebrand CDC as the Centers for Deception Control. If nobody is held accountable and Congress fails to break up this failed agency, the people lose and white-coat supremacy wins. In 2026 moving forward, it’s all about memory against forgetting
Lloyd Billingsley is a policy fellow at the Independent Institute in Oakland, Calif.
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Image: CDC