J. Todd Weber Named Finalist in Service to America Medal Program

J. Todd Weber, chief of Centers for Disease Control's Prevention and Response Branch, has been named a finalist in the considerations of the Samuel J. Heyman Service to America Medals, which are presented annually by the nonprofit, nonpartisan Partnership for Public Service to celebrate excellence in the federal civil service. Details are here.

Based in Atlanta, Weber was nominated for his work in Quickly identifying contaminated medicine as the cause of a major meningitis outbreak in 2012, and led the national public health response, alerting 14,000 potentially exposed patients and providing treatment information to the medical community. According to the Medals website,

In September 2012, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) began receiving reports from health officials in Tennessee about patients diagnosed with a rare form of meningitis. This worrisome information set off alarm bells at the CDC, which quickly launched an emergency response team led by Dr. Jonathan Todd Weber, chief of CDC’s Prevention and Response Branch.
Weber and his team ultimately linked the outbreak to injections of a steroid, which had been produced by the New England Compounding Center in Massachusetts and distributed to 76 facilities in 23 states. While the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the Massachusetts Board of Pharmacy investigated the firm and halted further shipments of what turned out to be contaminated medication, the CDC worked with state and local health departments and clinical facilities to notify, in record time, approximately 14,000 potentially exposed patients.

Weber's CDC bio says that he is the Incident Manager of the Multistate Meningitis Outbreak and Chief of the Prevention and Response Branch of the Division of Healthcare Quality Promotion, US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The branch investigates and responds to emerging infections and related adverse events among patients and healthcare personnel. Prior to this position, he was assigned to the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control in Stockholm, Sweden for four years where he worked principally on pandemic influenza preparedness, as well as healthcare associated infections and antimicrobial resistance. 

During his 22 years at CDC, Weber has held various positions, including Director, Office of Antimicrobial Resistance in the Coordinating Center for Infectious Diseases and has worked in the divisions of Bacterial and Mycotic Diseases, Sexually Transmitted Disease Prevention, and the Division of HIV/AIDS Prevention. He is a Fellow in the American College of Physicians and the Infectious Diseases Society of America.