CDC's elite investigating corps marks 50th anniversary

A half century of disease detective work has resulted in huge gains for the nation's public health.

By Susan J. Landers, AMNews staff. May 7, 2001.

Washington -- When Elizabeth Bancroft, MD, envisioned life as a physician, she never imagined it would involve hunting for raccoon poop. But that's just what she was doing recently as she searched for the cause of an extremely rare, and possibly fatal, neurological disease that had landed a young Los Angeles county boy in the hospital.

The disease is caused by consuming raccoon feces infected with the parasite Baylisascaris procyonis.

Dr. Bancroft is surprisingly upbeat about her trek through Los Angeles backyards -- using her wheelchair no less -- as a field officer for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Epidemic Intelligence Service.

On that memorable day, she spent time questioning the child's mother about her son's activities, toured the backyard with a veterinarian looking for the feces (they found some), went to the hospital and spoke with the child's physicians and took the feces to the lab where the disease-causing roundworm was discovered.

"I know it sounds crazy, but it was the perfect day," she said. "I got to be a clinician talking to clinicians, I got to be an epidemiologist, I got to work in the field and I got to work in the lab. Investigations like that really stand out," she said.

Dr. Bancroft's successful quest is only one of thousands of such ventures undertaken by EIS investigators during the program's history. EIS celebrated its 50th anniversary at the end of April.

These "disease detectives" have aided in eradicating smallpox, identified ore smelters in Texas as a cause of lead poisoning in children, discovered that pet turtles were a significant source of salmonella and uncovered a connection between aspirin use and Reye's syndrome. In ongoing cases, investigators continue on the trail of the West Nile and Ebola viruses. [...]