The CDC’s own lead reviewer on the Midwest Reanimation Cluster wants out — and the office deciding his fate is the one he’s trying to leave

The CDC’s Office of Anomalous Public Health Incidents confirmed Thursday that Dr. Roland Ferch, the lead assessor overseeing the agency’s ongoing Midwest Reanimation Cluster containment review, has submitted a formal request for reassignment to, and I’m quoting the internal document here, ‘any other desk, in any other building, in any other state.’ The request is currently under review by the Office of Anomalous Public Health Incidents. The same office Dr. Ferch is trying to leave. I spoke to six people with knowledge of the situation. None of them laughed when I pointed this out, which I found more unsettling than the request itself.

What the Request Actually Says

I obtained a partial copy of the reassignment request through a source I won’t name. The document runs four pages. The first two are standard HR boilerplate. The third page contains what my source described as ‘an unusually detailed personal statement,’ and the fourth page is, according to two separate people who have seen it, a hand-drawn map with several locations circled in red marker and the notation ‘NOT THESE’ written across the top. Dr. Ferch has not responded to requests for comment. His office assistant told me he was ‘in a meeting,’ which is what they said the last three times I called, and I have now been calling for eleven days.

Community Notice

Roland has been doing anomalous public health work for sixteen years. He processed the Appalachian Spore Event. He processed Tulsa. He processed the thing in Duluth that we still don’t have a name for. This is the first time he has asked to leave a review before the review was finished.

— Senior CDC official, speaking without authorization

The Midwest Reanimation Cluster — the formal designation the CDC began using in February for what WTC has been covering since last October — currently encompasses activity across parts of four states. The cluster has been associated with fourteen confirmed Infected Zombie sightings under CDC classification protocols, along with a larger number of incidents the agency has categorized as ‘probable’ or, in one case, ‘we are still discussing the appropriate terminology.’ Dr. Ferch was appointed lead assessor in December, six weeks into the review. His predecessor on the assessment team took early retirement. His predecessor’s predecessor is, I am told, ‘doing fine’ and ‘not in Oregon,’ which is the kind of reassurance nobody offers unless Oregon has come up.

The irony isn’t lost on anyone here. The man who decides whether the containment review is working has decided, for himself, that it isn’t working. And we get to decide if he can leave. It’s not a situation covered by the existing protocols.

— OAPHI administrative coordinator, reached by phone, identity withheld at their request

There is a version of this story where a federal assessor requests reassignment and it means nothing — bureaucratic fatigue, a better opportunity, a personal reason that has nothing to do with what he’s been reviewing for five months. I’ve been doing this for nine years. I have a wall in my office in Pendleton that tracks how these things go. I’ve looked at that wall a lot this week. The version of this story where it means nothing is not the version the wall suggests. I’ll keep calling Dr. Ferch’s office. His assistant knows my name now. That’s something.