Do CDC Employees Need Zero-Gravity Chairs?

Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., is on the trail of federal waste again. This time his target is the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In a new report detailed in USA Today, Coburn questions a billion-dollar construction project at the agency's headquarters in Atlanta. The project includes a $106 million communications center, an $18.6 million video production studio, and a new employee fitness center with "$200,000 in equipment such as zero-gravity chairs and a mood-enhancing light show."

The CDC says the agency needs "first-rate facilities for first-rate employees."

Coburn also decries the $1.7 million the CDC has spent on a Hollywood liaison office aimed at improving the accuracy of medical information in TV shows. "It is hard to argue in this day and age that television producers do not have an incentive, without federal taxpayer involvement, to get their story lines correct," Coburn's report says.

Is it? TV producers need to make their shows compelling and dramatic, but they don't gain much by investing their own time and energy in medical accuracy. In fact, they could lose a lot if being accurate made their shows less sensational. Of course, you can argue that it's still not worth spending taxpayer dollars to try to get Hollywood producers to stick to the facts, but that's a different issue than whether they would do it by themselves without any prodding. And remember, the military's done much to burnish its image by aggressively reaching out to Hollywood. So have other agencies over the past decade.