Yay, and Also Boo

Yay! The CFS Advisory Committee will meet on Tuesday, March 11th from 12-5pm. This is the makeup day for the meeting cancelled on December 10, 2013. Boo! This is another webinar, and one can only hope the technical aspects will be smoother than the mess in December.

Yay! Registration is not required for this webinar. Boo! No instructions have been posted for joining the meeting.

Yay! The agenda is available. Boo! The minutes from the December 11, 2013 meeting are not.

Yay! The public comment originally scheduled for December 10 has been placed on this meeting’s agenda. Boo! No other public comment – including written comment – is being accepted for this meeting.

Yay! We will hear updates from the agencies who did not present at the December meeting. Boo! We are not scheduled to hear anything from NIH and CDC – which means no update on the multisite study or the P2P meeting. Given the importance of both, this is a gaping hole in the agenda.

Yay! We will hear more from the two working groups. Boo! It remains to be seen if they have made significant progress in the last three months. I hope so.

Yay! I’ve been told there will still be a “spring meeting.” Boo! No idea when that will be, whether it will be in person, etc etc etc. Edited to add: An email on the CFSAC listserv dated November 12, 2013 stated that spring 2014 CFSAC meeting will be an in-person meeting.

Yay! CFSAC meetings are, at the very least, a chance to learn more about what is or is not being done at the agencies. Boo! There is no time on the agenda for public Q&A, so we have to rely on the CFSAC members to ask the right questions. This has been a problem in the past. In fact, the lack of questions from members means that many issues are discussed at one meeting and then never followed up on at subsequent meetings. Case in point: CFSAC asked to see copies of the CDC’s revised Toolkit prior to its release, and further suggested that a black box warning regarding exercise be placed on the CDC’s website. There has never been follow up on the record for either issue.

As an aside, I refreshed my memory of the December meeting by rereading my commentary and I had forgotten how disastrous that meeting was. It’s hard to imagine next week’s meeting being worse, but I’m also not getting my hopes up. CFSAC has a long way to go to make up for the deficiencies of the December 2013 meeting.

 

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4 Responses to Yay, and Also Boo

  1. Kathy says:

    Yay! I hope this post is an indication that you are feeling better!! Wishing you the best.

  2. Ren says:

    With bureaucracy (boo!) in mind: “Widespread commercial distribution of ice was so new that 300 tons of the precious commodity melted at one port while customs officials tried to figure out how to classify it.” Hmmm, doesn’t that somehow seem familiar?? // Welcome back, Jennie (yay!)

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