CDC's top modeler makes estimates, courts controversy

Critics accuse expert of over-dramatizing predictions

In this Friday, June 12, 2015 photo, Martin Meltzer stands in the Emergency Operations Center at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta. Within the CDC, he's been lauded for a number of projects. One was creation of free software _ called FluAid _ that gave local health officials an idea how pandemic flu might affect different geographic areas. He's also been praised for co-creating a model that helped CDC officials make the case for dropping a long-standing federal restriction that prevented HIV-infected foreigners from staying and working in the United States. The restriction was dropped in 2010. - photo by Associated Press

W Epidemic Predictor Ledb — In this Friday, June 12, 2015 photo, Martin Meltzer stands in the Emergency Operations Center at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta. Within the CDC, he's been lauded for a number of projects. One was creation of free software _ called FluAid _ that gave local health officials an idea how pandemic flu might affect different geographic areas. He's also been praised for co-creating a model that helped CDC officials make the case for dropping a long-standing federal restriction that prevented HIV-infected foreigners from staying and working in the United States. The restriction was dropped in 2010. - photo by Associated Press

ATLANTA — Last fall, when Martin Meltzer calculated that 1.4 million people might contract Ebola in West Africa, the world paid attention. This was, he said, a worst-case scenario. But Meltzer is the most famous disease modeler for the nation's pre-eminent public health agency, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

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