PARTNER PROFILE
minutes with
Rudolph Johnson
Dr. Johnson is the chief of the Emergency
Response Branch (ERB) in the Division of
Laboratory Sciences at the National Center
for Environmental Health in the US Centers
for Disease Control and Prevention. He is a
technical leader for the Laboratory Response
Network for Chemical Threats (LRN-C),
supporting the LRN-C’s needs by serving as a
reference lab for the network and partnering
with participants to ensure their readiness to
respond to public health emergencies.
Recently, under Johnson’s leadership, ERB
has been supporting the national outbreak of
e-cigarette, or vaping, product use associated
lung injury (EVALI) as the receiving and
distribution laboratory for clinical samples
and vaping products. In addition, Johnson has
recently served as the acting director of the
Division of Emergency Operations for CDC’s
Center for Preparedness and Response. In this
role he was responsible for the strategic senior
leadership and management of the Division’s
daily operations.
Johnson earned his BS in Chemistry from
Virginia Military Institute in Lexington,
Virginia, and a PhD in Analytical Chemistry
from Purdue University in West Lafayette,
Indiana.
What drew you to public health?
What I really like is helping people so they
can live their lives. And that’s why I like
public health—it’s very much behind the
scenes but provides help to people every
day. Prior to coming to CDC and public
health, I worked for BASF Corporation,
which is famous for its motto of “We don’t
make things, we make things better.” And
public health is a lot like that—you take
people’s lives as they already are, and you
try to help in any way you can without
really interfering. Every day that public
health moves forward successfully in a
very positive way is a day you’ve done
your job correctly.
How important is good customer service
to a public health career?
I think it’s a critical requirement both for
your personal satisfaction and making
sure everything works correctly. Public
health is about outreach and making
sure that people understand not only
how you can help them, but also what
you need from them. The “customers”
can range from the public health care
system to a state level laboratory to
non-government organizations. With all
these different partners, there are quite
a few opportunities for collaboration.
So, collaboration in my mind, is public
health’s form of customer service.
You’re finding someone who’s trying to
accomplish their mission and, by working
together, you can have an even greater
impact.
How has the opioid epidemic—declared
a continuing public health emergency
for 2020—changed the way that public
health laboratories tests for chemical
threats?
Opioids are a very challenging part of
public health in that they are necessary
but present a public health risk. Public
health needs to recognize the benefits of
opioids and also develop the safeguards
against their misuse. And that requires
working together with federal and
state law enforcement to ensure that
laboratories have the proper information
on new, illicit substances.
When the epidemic began, there were
many different designer opioids. And
one of the issues that we ran into was
the laws were adjusting to make new
forms of opioids illegal so people wouldn’t
misuse them. We worked together with
policymakers to review the laws to ensure
they were chemically accurate. This way,
misuse would be minimized but people
who used the drugs medicinally could
continue to access them.
10 LAB MATTERS Spring 2020
PublicHealthLabs
@APHL APHL.org