In just 18 months, with the deadly Ebola crisis raging in West Africa and inching its way into the United States, the reputation of the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) has plunged.
A
CBS News poll found that public confidence in the CDC's ability to handle the crisis has dropped to 37 percent from a high of 60 percent in a Gallup poll in May of last year.
Today, fully 60 percent of those surveyed say the CDC is doing a "fair/poor" job of protecting the public, ranking the agency behind the military, the FBI, the CIA, the Department of Homeland Security, the Environmental Protection Agency and the Secret Service in terms of public confidence.
Story continues below video:
Pollster and political consultant Frank Luntz told CBS News, "The institutions that have the greatest impact on us, the CDC, the FDA, the EPA, those that are responsible for our health and safety, have had the biggest collapse. In fact in some cases it's a 20-30 point drop in the last 15-18 months."
Revelations that the CDC approved Ebola-infected and symptomatic Dallas nurse Amber Joy Vinson to take commercial flights; that protocol errors caused two Dallas hospital nurses to become infected while treating Liberian Thomas Eric Duncan, the first Ebola patient diagnosed in the U.S., who later died; the refusal of the White House to order a travel ban on passengers from West African countries; and the statement by CDC Director Tom Frieden that "Ebola is not a significant public health threat to the United States" have
eroded public confidence in health authorities.
Frieden admitted that as many as 50 health care workers may have been exposed and infected,
The New York Times reports.
"People are reaching out for those guardrails and they aren't there and that creates a sense of anxiety," CBS political director John Dickerson told the station.
"The trust and credibility of the administration and government are waning as the American public loses confidence each day with demonstrated failures of the current strategy," Rep. Tim Murphy, R-Pennsylvania, said at a House Energy and Commerce Committee meeting in which Friedan came under heavy criticism.
"That trust must be restored, but will only be restored with honest and thorough action," CBS reported.
Of those surveyed in the poll between Oct. 15-16, 65 percent said they feel the country is on the "wrong track," and only 26 percent said it is headed in the "right direction."
Just 13 percent of Republicans, compared to 49 percent of Democrats, rated the CDC as positive in the CBS poll.
Luntz told CBS, "What's interesting is the highest trust and confidence came during the Reagan administration, which was the most anti-government, and the lowest level of trust is right now.
"When we don't have faith in the scientific community, when we don't have faith in the health care community, what can we have faith in?"
© 2025 Newsmax. All rights reserved.