{"id":8573,"date":"2026-04-12T09:39:26","date_gmt":"2026-04-12T09:39:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/2026\/04\/12\/i-jumped-at-it-australias-new-cdc-chief-on-trust-misinformation-and-never-being-surprised-by-a-health-threat-the-guardian\/"},"modified":"2026-04-12T09:39:26","modified_gmt":"2026-04-12T09:39:26","slug":"i-jumped-at-it-australias-new-cdc-chief-on-trust-misinformation-and-never-being-surprised-by-a-health-threat-the-guardian","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/2026\/04\/12\/i-jumped-at-it-australias-new-cdc-chief-on-trust-misinformation-and-never-being-surprised-by-a-health-threat-the-guardian\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018I jumped at it\u2019: Australia\u2019s new CDC chief on trust, misinformation and never being surprised by a health threat – The Guardian"},"content":{"rendered":"

Zoe Wainer\u2019s parents started the country\u2019s first public abortion clinic. Now she is making history too, as the inaugural head of the Australian Centre for Disease Control
Get our breaking news email<\/a>, free app<\/a> or daily news podcast<\/a>
I<\/span>n 1987 when the HIV pandemic was at its peak, the doctor and epidemiologist Prof Robert Douglas wrote a report for the Medical Journal of Australia<\/a> describing how disease control was \u201cfragmented, inadequate and poorly coordinated\u201d, lamenting a lack of national coordination.
\u201cNow is the time to begin to plan for a national system of disease control,\u201d he wrote, calling for state and federal governments to share a strategy and \u201cplay their proper roles in the prevention of disease and the minimisation of its effects\u201d.
Almost 40 years later, and after numerous pandemics including swine flu, mpox and seasonal influenza during which peak medical<\/a> and health bodies and experts repeatedly<\/a> called for a centre for disease control, Australia finally has one.
In January, the Australian Centre for Disease Control (CDC) was established as a statutory, independent commonwealth authority to oversee national health surveillance, pandemic preparedness and public health advice, with Prof Zoe Wainer at its helm as director general.
After decades of pressure and debate over what an Australian CDC should be, Wainer says she \u201cabsolutely jumped at\u201d the opportunity to lead it.
\u201cIt\u2019s an extraordinary opportunity and investment that the nation\u2019s made to keep Australia safe from public health threats and emergencies,\u201d she says.
\u201cThe role is to ensure that Australia is never surprised by a health threat, never isolated in responding to a health threat, and always contributing to a stronger regional and global public health system.\u201d
Despite high expectations, and concerns about the CDC\u2019s budget and remit<\/a>, she says stakeholders have so far been overwhelmingly hopeful and supportive.
Wainer has taken the role at a time when misinformation is contributing to a resurgence of preventable diseases such as measles, and as climate change drives the spread of infections like Japanese encephalitis beyond the Torres Strait and on to the mainland.
She hopes that the CDC\u2019s independence from government and commitment to transparent data and advice sharing will be enough to counteract what the director of CSIRO\u2019s health and biosecurity unit, Prof Brett Sutton, has described as a \u201cvery substantial threat\u201d.<\/a>
\u201cIt\u2019s a really challenging area for all of us,\u201d Wainer says.
\u201cI think transparency is a really important part [of the solution to misinformation] \u2026 to have that conversation with the community and not expect them to necessarily take on what we say. We have to be able to understand what the concerns of community are.
\u201cWe\u2019re pretty confident that as we build the CDC, we will work very closely with our stakeholders to try to understand, if there is a lack of trust, what might be driving that.\u201d
She would not be drawn into the decimation of the US CDC<\/a> by Donald Trump, in which unqualified people have been appointed to senior roles, spreading misinformation and harmful advice<\/a>. \u201cTheir decisions that are matter for the United States government,\u201d she says.
In its first years of operation, Australia\u2019s CDC will focus on connecting state and federal data surveillance and monitoring, with a lack of real-time data sharing identified as a weaknesses of Australia\u2019s response to the Covid-19 pandemic.
\u201cIt\u2019s a big project of ours to really try to bring that data linkage together,\u201d she says.
Another core focus will be on \u201cOne Health\u201d \u2013 an approach that recognises the health of humans, domestic and wild animals, and the wider environment are linked and interdependent, and that experts across these sectors must collaborate if disease is to be prevented and controlled.
It\u2019s why collaboration with First Nations people and organisations will be critical to the CDC\u2019s work, Wainer says.
\u201cMy understanding, from speaking to many Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, is that they\u2019ve understood that deep connection between land, water, climate, people and animals for tens of thousands of years,\u201d she says.
Wainer, who has a clinical background as a cardiothoracic surgeon and a master\u2019s of public health, says her work always been strongly informed by a social justice lens.
Growing up, \u201csocial justice was by far the most important thing that the family was committed to\u201d, she says.
Her father, Dr Bertram Wainer, was a doctor and prominent women\u2019s health advocate<\/a> who campaigned to make abortion safe and accessible. In the late 60s and 70s, he exposed corruption involving police, politicians and illegal abortion networks, and established Australia\u2019s first public abortion clinic.
These efforts resulted in him facing serious threats to his life.
Wainer\u2019s mother, Dr Jo Wainer<\/a>, helped to establish the clinic, appalled that so many women were being subject to unsafe abortions performed by unqualified, and corrupt people.
After her husband died, she established a multidisciplinary women\u2019s health clinic. A social scientist, she researched the experience of women rural doctors and sex differences in health and medical research \u2013 also a key focus of her daughter\u2019s career. She also worked as a journalist for the ABC.
\u201cMum and Dad did extraordinary work in the name of public health,\u201d Wainer says. \u201cI always end up in public health in my career. It\u2019s just been a trajectory.\u201d
Wainer\u2019s father died when she was 13, and she says \u201cI have no doubt he\u2019d be very proud\u201d to see her leading Australia\u2019s first CDC. Her mother, who turns 80 this year, remains an advocate for women\u2019s health and wildlife causes.
While working as a surgeon, Wainer did seven outreach trips to lower and middle income countries to operate on children with congenital disorders and rheumatic heart disease<\/a>, an entirely preventable disease found in the most disadvantaged areas of developing countries in Africa, the Middle East and central and south Asia, but also in Australia, in remote Indigenous communities.
Before leading the CDC, she was deputy secretary for community and public health in the Victorian department of health, leading one of Australia\u2019s largest public health divisions, and conducting Australia\u2019s first inquiry into women\u2019s pain<\/a>.
\u201cI\u2019ve always looked at next career moves as: \u2018How can I take the skills, my attributes, my experience, and contribute it to the best benefit of my community?\u2019\u201d Wainer says.
\u201cWhen the opportunity came up to be the inaugural director general for the Australian Centre for Disease Control, I absolutely jumped at it, because it meets that kind of internal value set that I have.\u201d<\/p>\n

source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Zoe Wainer\u2019s parents started the country\u2019s first public abortion clinic. Now she is making history too, as the inaugural head of the Australian Centre for Disease ControlGet our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcastIn 1987 when the HIV pandemic was at its peak, the doctor and epidemiologist Prof Robert Douglas wrote a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":8574,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-8573","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-health"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8573","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8573"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8573\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8574"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8573"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8573"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8573"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}