Craig Leutzinger Oral History

Interview Transcript
	   

INTERVIEW

Audio File: Craig Leutzinger Audio File
Transcribed: January 23, 2008

Interviewer:     I am Hailey [inaudible 00.10].  I am helping David Sensor
      to collect oral histories of workers who helped to eradicate smallpox.
       This is Craig Leutzinger and he'll be talking to us today and we have
      a couple of questions for you Craig.  Craig will you tell us a little
      bit about yourself, about your background?

Interviewee:     I joined CDC in nineteen seventy and...

Interviewer:     Go back before that Craig.

Interviewee:     Oh, even before that.  Well, I was raised in Southern
      California.  I went to the University of California, Riverside.  I
      anticipated going to Air Force pilot training but I failed the
      physical.  So, I was looking for work and eventually saw an ad for the
      U.S. Public Health Service Syphilis Eradication Program and I answered
      that ad and after several months they offered me a job in Baltimore.
      So, went to Baltimore and started my career with CDC doing syphilis
      contact tracing.  Five years later I was with the STD program in
      Washington D.C. and they were asking for people who might be
      interested in participating in the smallpox eradication program.  At
      that particular time they were looking for people interested in going
      to India or Bangladesh and I asked to be considered and I was picked
      to join a team that went to Bangladesh in May of nineteen seventy five
      as I recall.

Interviewer:     And was it your first time out the country?

Interviewee:     Other than Mexico, yes.

Interviewer:     And what kind of training did they offer you?  Did the CDC
      give you any advice or training program or anything?

Interviewee:     It was pretty fast.  I think we - there was about a dozen
      of us and we came from all over country and we were in Atlanta for I
      think no more than a day.  We got some minimal briefings and then flew
      to Delhi via London, spent one day in Delhi mostly acclimatizing
      ourselves.  We didn't get any training that I recall.  Then we thought
      we were - when we arrived the day after that in Dakar we thought we
      were going to get some training before going to the field but the
      leaders there had decided that we would better getting on the job
      training in the field.  So the very next day we split up and went to
      various districts in Bangladesh.  I went with one other...