David Sencer | Former CDC director, 86

David Sencer, 86, a former director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention who brought together the best minds in science and medicine to advise him on the potential swine flu epidemic of 1976 - and then was fired when the project went awry - died Monday of suspected heart failure at Emory University Hospital in Atlanta.

In 1976, Dr. Sencer recommended to President Gerald Ford the launch of a national vaccination campaign. The campaign was halted in December of that year, though, after 32 vaccine recipients died, others contracted Guillain-Barre syndrome, an autoimmune disorder, and the flu epidemic never materialized. Dr. Sencer was fired Feb. 7, 1977, losing a coveted post he had held since 1966.

But respect for the scientist remained strong in the public-health community, said Elvin Hilyer, a retired CDC official from Dahlonega, Ga.

"We were faced with a potential catastrophe, so the CDC did what it always does," Hilyer said. "It brought together the best minds in science and medicine to advise him on what to do."

Dr. Sencer started out in a county health department in Idaho as a tuberculosis epidemiologist. He was the CDC's longest-serving top official.

The scientist held various positions after he left the health agency and for four years was New York City's health commissioner during the AIDS crisis in the 1980s.

In Atlanta, he was a senior editor for the Global Health Chronicles project, a joint effort of Emory University Libraries, the Rollins School of Public Health and the CDC. Its purpose: to look at public-health efforts to prevent, control, and eradicate global diseases. He helped found Emory's school of public health.

- Cox Newspapers