In February 2025, when funding cuts were happening, and again earlier this month during the government shutdown, a group that briefly entered the news cycle was the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC’s) “Epidemic Intelligence Service” or EIS. In February, the cuts were based on removal of 10% of the agency’s staff by terminating all probationary employees. This included an entire class of EIS officers, since a new class begins each year. Following public outcries from groups, like the Association for Professionals in Infection Control and Epidemiology (APIC), this group was quickly re-instated. In October, government officials blamed a “coding error,” but offered no other explanation other than stating that the error had been corrected.
So, what are EIS officers and why were they reinstated? Maryn McKenna’s 2004 book, Beating Back the Devil, can help with that. McKenna followed the 2002 EIS class and shared stories along the way about other EIS officers and their impact. As McKenna describes, “The CDC is the Pentagon of public health in America, … The EIS is its Special Forces.” (p. 2).
Each year, the CDC welcomes a new class of EIS officers who have committed two years of their careers — and their lives — to protecting the public’s health. While they submit their preferences regarding where they would like to work, much like medical school matching, they don’t know exactly where they will be placed or what they will be working on, and if a public health emergency arises — all bets are off. They will be among the first sent to the frontline; they are our country’s “boots on the ground” in the midst of a developing epidemic situation.
McKenna does a nice job of accomplishing two seemingly disparate goals — introducing individuals and what their lives are like as EIS officers and describing the historical importance and impact of the EIS program. By introducing the 2002 class and their backgrounds, McKenna accomplishes the former, helping readers get a sense of the commitment these individuals and their families make to protecting the country. Interspersed with those stories, McKenna accomplishes the latter goal by highlighting some prominent historical successes of the EIS.
The EIS was founded by CDC’s chief epidemiologist, Alexander Duncan Langmuir. After starting at the CDC in 1949, Langmuir was struggling to find other epidemiologists to join him due to small numbers in this profession at the time as well as a more traditional career path into academia after training. To solve this issue, he created a program to train epidemiologists internally. Recruitment for the new program benefitted from the coincident timing of the Korean War because drafted physicians could choose to spend two years at the Public Health Service instead of in one of the branches of the military. In addition to increasing the candidate pool, the Korean War affected the work of those first officers due to concerns around the use of bioweapons. Fearing that a biological weapon could be used to infect soldiers who would carry the disease back to the U.S., the EIS became a group ready to respond to any state or local health department that had needed assistance with an epidemic. While outwardly supporting the work of epidemics wherever needed, within the program, the goals were focused on teaching the officers how to investigate outbreaks, conduct surveillance, and evaluate data to prevent and control the spread of diseases. The program was a success. Between 1951 and 2002, more than 2,700 EIS officers completed the two-year stint.
In historical chapters, McKenna describes how EIS officers assisted with key historical public health situations. For example, she describes the role of EIS officers in figuring out what happened during the Cutter Incident, a situation with the first polio vaccine that caused children to get polio from the vaccine because the virus was not completely inactivated. EIS officers also contributed to identifying AIDS in 1981 and tracing the anthrax attacks in 2001. McKenna also describes examples that are likely less memorable to general readers, but which put EIS officers in danger as they sought answers, like a cholera outbreak in a war zone in Zaire in 1994 and the SARS outbreak in Vietnam in 2003.
The stories in McKenna’s book remind us why we need this group of committed individuals that most people have never heard of. As the saying goes, “when public health works, it’s invisible.” EIS officers are some of those unknown faces putting their lives on hold and, in some cases, on the line, so the rest of us can sleep more easily.
In February 2025, when funding cuts were happening, and again earlier this month during the government shutdown, a group that briefly entered the news cycle was the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC’s) “Epidemic Intelligence Service” or EIS. In February, the cuts were based on removal of 10% of the agency’s staff by terminating all probationary employees. This included an entire class of EIS officers, since a new class begins each year. Following public outcries from groups, like the Association for Professionals in Infection Control and Epidemiology (APIC), this group was quickly re-instated. In October, government officials blamed a “coding error,” but offered no other explanation other than stating that the error had been corrected.
So, what are EIS officers and why were they reinstated? Maryn McKenna’s 2004 book, Beating Back the Devil, can help with that. McKenna followed the 2002 EIS class and shared stories along the way about other EIS officers and their impact. As McKenna describes, “The CDC is the Pentagon of public health in America, … The EIS is its Special Forces.” (p. 2).
Each year, the CDC welcomes a new class of EIS officers who have committed two years of their careers — and their lives — to protecting the public’s health. While they submit their preferences regarding where they would like to work, much like medical school matching, they don’t know exactly where they will be placed or what they will be working on, and if a public health emergency arises — all bets are off. They will be among the first sent to the frontline; they are our country’s “boots on the ground” in the midst of a developing epidemic situation.
McKenna does a nice job of accomplishing two seemingly disparate goals — introducing individuals and what their lives are like as EIS officers and describing the historical importance and impact of the EIS program. By introducing the 2002 class and their backgrounds, McKenna accomplishes the former, helping readers get a sense of the commitment these individuals and their families make to protecting the country. Interspersed with those stories, McKenna accomplishes the latter goal by highlighting some prominent historical successes of the EIS.
The EIS was founded by CDC’s chief epidemiologist, Alexander Duncan Langmuir. After starting at the CDC in 1949, Langmuir was struggling to find other epidemiologists to join him due to small numbers in this profession at the time as well as a more traditional career path into academia after training. To solve this issue, he created a program to train epidemiologists internally. Recruitment for the new program benefitted from the coincident timing of the Korean War because drafted physicians could choose to spend two years at the Public Health Service instead of in one of the branches of the military. In addition to increasing the candidate pool, the Korean War affected the work of those first officers due to concerns around the use of bioweapons. Fearing that a biological weapon could be used to infect soldiers who would carry the disease back to the U.S., the EIS became a group ready to respond to any state or local health department that had needed assistance with an epidemic. While outwardly supporting the work of epidemics wherever needed, within the program, the goals were focused on teaching the officers how to investigate outbreaks, conduct surveillance, and evaluate data to prevent and control the spread of diseases. The program was a success. Between 1951 and 2002, more than 2,700 EIS officers completed the two-year stint.
In historical chapters, McKenna describes how EIS officers assisted with key historical public health situations. For example, she describes the role of EIS officers in figuring out what happened during the Cutter Incident, a situation with the first polio vaccine that caused children to get polio from the vaccine because the virus was not completely inactivated. EIS officers also contributed to identifying AIDS in 1981 and tracing the anthrax attacks in 2001. McKenna also describes examples that are likely less memorable to general readers, but which put EIS officers in danger as they sought answers, like a cholera outbreak in a war zone in Zaire in 1994 and the SARS outbreak in Vietnam in 2003.
The stories in McKenna’s book remind us why we need this group of committed individuals that most people have never heard of. As the saying goes, “when public health works, it’s invisible.” EIS officers are some of those unknown faces putting their lives on hold and, in some cases, on the line, so the rest of us can sleep more easily.