He received a BA in cultural anthropology and a Masters in Public Health from Yale, an MD from Vanderbilt, and is board certified in Internal Medicine.
Following his retirement after 25 years of service in the USPHS he continued in the CDC administration as a civilian employee.
He has participated in or supervised numerous domestic and overseas epidemiological investigations all over the world, most notably the 1984 Rajneeshee bioterror attack, the 2008 United States salmonellosis outbreak, the 2010-2013 Haiti cholera outbreak, establishment of Pulsenet, and the West African Ebola virus epidemic.
Although it can produce bloody diarrhea, severe dehydration requiring fluid replacement therapy, and hemolytic uremic syndrome- HUS- which can lead to permanent kidney impairment or failure or death, it is not the same strain and is much newer and likely even more aggressive than the much better known and more common E. coli O157:H7 strain.
E. coli strains, both pathological and naturally occurring non-pathological ones, in the human intestinal tract trade genetic characteristics among themselves- and among other microbially related species- fairly easily, allowing for more aggressive and thus more resistant strains to develop.