r. Jeffrey P. Koplan, the departing director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, yesterday again defended his agency's handling of the anthrax attack and the way the investigation was communicated to the public.

Dr. Koplan spoke in an interview as he announced that he would become vice president for academic health affairs at Emory University, which like the disease control agency is in Atlanta.

When Dr. Koplan announced his resignation as C.D.C.'s director last month, news reports suggested that he was leaving under pressure from officials of the agency's parent, the Department of Health and Human Services.

But yesterday, Dr. Koplan (pronounced COPE-lun) said: "I resigned totally of my own volition. Whatever people's perceptions are, I can only say that this was my choice."

Dr. Koplan said he stayed as director nearly twice as long as he had expected when then health secretary, Donna Shalala, hired him for the last two years of President Bill Clinton's second term in 1998. In the last three years, C.D.C.'s budget has doubled to $7.7 billion from $2.5 billion in 1998.

Dr. Koplan's move comes in the wake of widespread criticism of the centers and the Department of Health and Human Services for lack of better preparation for bioterrorism and poor communication in the early days of the anthrax attacks last fall. But on the other hand, the agency was widely praised for its scientific work.

Government officials were criticized then for communicating poorly with health professionals and the public. Tommy G. Thompson, the health secretary, and other officials were criticized for giving information that many believed should have come from medical professionals.

Now, Dr. Koplan said, "we're all agreed that it's worthwhile early on to have a public health professional talking to the press" about bioterrorism related health issues.

Also, there were rumors that Dr. Koplan had threatened to resign in the first days of the anthrax attack unless his agency was allowed to talk. "That is absolutely untrue," Dr. Koplan said yesterday. He also said that to have resigned "in the midst of the anthrax attack would have been both unprofessional, unpatriotic and inappropriate."

But Dr. Koplan said he was "never, ever told that you can talk about this and you cannot talk about that."

The disease control agency, critics have contended, is unaccustomed to the rough and tumble of Washington politics.

But, Dr. Koplan said: "What's most important in an investigation of an outbreak like this is not the rough and tumble of Washington politics but the rough and tumble of dealing with a dangerous infectious agent when loose in the field, and that is where we apply our attention. That is the wrestling match I prefer for us to get into, not Washington politics. Let those up there dwell with that."

Dr. Koplan said that the attention devoted to bioterrorism was deserved but that other health issues needed to be addressed. "H.I.V. is right up at the top, as are malaria, tuberculosis, tobacco use, overweight and obesity," he said.

Dr. Koplan said he recently returned from China, where AIDS is a significant problem and threatens to have an effect as devastating there as it has been in Africa.

"There is a wide range of other ailments that should not fall off the page as we appropriately pay attention" to bioterrorism and other public health problems, Dr. Koplan said.

Wherever public health is practiced, it, along with environmental and occupational health issues, has long been intertwined with politics.

Yet in recent years, Dr. Koplan said, he has noted the increased effect of politics on public health in many areas like maternal and child health, child rearing, family planning, abortion, violence and tobacco use.

"You can hardly touch a public health issue these days that does not have a political element to it, and I do not mean capital P partisan party politics, but a small p," Dr. Koplan said. "Any one of the issues can end up in a newspaper."

Investigations of outbreaks of disease that drew little attention in the past now often become hot-button issues, and all political parties tend to become involved, Dr. Koplan said.

"There has become a certain tendency for an opposition party to say, `You guys are not doing enough or are not doing it fast enough or are not doing it well enough,' " Dr. Koplan said. "Then if, even just two weeks later, the other party is in charge, then it takes the issue on," Dr. Koplan said.

Dr. Koplan said that when he became director, "I never knew I would be getting into this." But he stressed that he welcomed the increased attention by politicians.

Dr. Koplan said the extra time as director allowed him to strengthen the national public health structure and advance plans for new buildings and laboratories so the agency can continue to attract top scientists.

Also, the agency has significantly increased financial and technical support for state and local health departments and developed ways for officials to evaluate program results.

Other accomplishments he cited include bolstering public health programs to reduce the effect of afflictions like diabetes, heart disease and cancer on an aging population and more actively coordinating clinical care and public health. C.D.C. has also strengthened immunization and other programs for children and adults. At the same time, it has striven to expand its work with a variety of partners in global health, he said.