Dem
47
GOP
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As long as we are on the subject of the nation's health, which the Trump administration is apparently determined to destroy, HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy got a stern talking to yesterday, in a New York Times op-ed headlined "We Ran the C.D.C.: Kennedy Is Endangering Every American's Health." Here's the meat of the piece:
What the health and human services secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., has done to the C.D.C. and to our nation's public health system over the past several months—culminating in his decision to fire Dr. Susan Monarez as C.D.C. director days ago—is unlike anything we had ever seen at the agency and unlike anything our country had ever experienced.
Mr. Kennedy has fired thousands of federal health workers and severely weakened programs designed to protect Americans from cancer, heart attacks, strokes, lead poisoning, injury, violence and more. Amid the largest measles outbreak in the United States in a generation, he's focused on unproven treatments while downplaying vaccines. He canceled investments in promising medical research that will leave us ill prepared for future health emergencies. He replaced experts on federal health advisory committees with unqualified individuals who share his dangerous and unscientific views. He announced the end of U.S. support for global vaccination programs that protect millions of children and keep Americans safe, citing flawed research and making inaccurate statements. And he championed federal legislation that will cause millions of people with health insurance through Medicaid to lose their coverage. Firing Dr. Monarez—which led to the resignations of top C.D.C. officials—adds considerable fuel to this raging fire.
We are worried about the wide-ranging impact that all these decisions will have on America's health security. Residents of rural communities and people with disabilities will have even more limited access to health care. Families with low incomes who rely most heavily on community health clinics and support from state and local health departments will have fewer resources available to them. Children risk losing access to lifesaving vaccines because of the cost.
This is unacceptable, and it should alarm every American, regardless of political leanings.
The co-authors of the piece are Drs. William Foege (led the CDC under Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan), William Roper (George H.W. Bush), David Satcher (Bill Clinton), Jeffrey Koplan (Clinton and George W. Bush), Richard Besser and Tom Frieden (Barack Obama), Anne Schuchat (Donald Trump) and Rochelle P. Walensky and Mandy K. Cohen (Joe Biden).
The CDC is in chaos right now, because after Kennedy cashiered Monarez, her top deputies also quit. Unfortunately, Junior does not give a damn about chaos at the CDC, or a letter from the former directors of the CDC. He's a True Believer, and he's on a crusade. Anyone who opposes him is just ill-informed, or part of "the establishment," or both.
Donald Trump shares Kennedy's utter lack of concern over chaos at the CDC, or a letter from the former directors of same. Where Donald Sr. and Robert Jr. differ, however, is that Trump is not a True Believer. He is, in fact, the polar opposite of a True Believer on most issues, including public health. The President just goes whatever way he thinks the MAGA political winds are blowing. If Trump thinks the base wants [X], then he wants [X], as long as it does not conflict with his own personal and financial interests.
Recently, Trump has been following the Kennedy line, and railing against COVID vaccines. Yesterday morning, he posted this to his sickening social media platform:
It is very important that the Drug Companies justify the success of their various Covid Drugs. Many people think they are a miracle that saved Millions of lives. Others disagree! With CDC being ripped apart over this question, I want the answer, and I want it NOW. I have been shown information from Pfizer, and others, that is extraordinary, but they never seem to show those results to the public. Why not??? They go off to the next "hunt" and let everyone rip themselves apart, including Bobby Kennedy Jr. and CDC, trying to figure out the success or failure of the Drug Companies Covid work. They show me GREAT numbers and results, but they don't seem to be showing them to many others. I want them to show them NOW, to CDC and the public, and clear up this MESS, one way or the other!!! I hope OPERATION WARP SPEED was as "BRILLIANT" as many say it was. If not, we all want to know about it, and why??? Thank you for your attention to this very important matter! President DJT
Given how very much Trump loves to claim credit for things, it's instructive that he's "asking questions" about Operation Warp Speed, which is almost certainly the greatest achievement of his first term. If he wasn't trying to pander to the base, he'd be crowing to the heavens about how "his" Operation Warp Speed is the greatest achievement in the history of medicine, and that people have been telling him it's an even better accomplishment than the development of penicillin or Viagra, and how he really deserves the Nobel Prize for Medicine.
What Trump has forgotten—or, more likely, has revisionist historied inside his head—is that the pandemic is what devastated his first term. But for all the death and suffering, coupled with Trump's ambivalence about the vaccine and promulgation of quack "treatments" like ivermectin, he probably would have been reelected.
Now, history is clearly repeating itself. There's the limits on, and the pooh-poohing of, the COVID vaccine, not to mention all the other vaccines. There's the cuts to NIH funding (see above). There's the jettisoning of actual professionals who know what they are doing, at the CDC, the NIH, and other parts of the federal bureaucracy. There's the cuts to VA healthcare, not to mention the cuts to Medicaid. That the U.S. is headed for a public health crisis certainly seems obvious to us, perhaps even more obvious than the ruinous effects of the tariffs.
If and when the public health crisis arrives, and if and when it begins to affect Trump's approval rating and the political prospects of Republicans running for election, Trump will do what he does, and try to shift the blame. Kennedy should make sure not to sign too long-term a lease in D.C., because the day is surely coming when he gets scapegoated and canned. Trump's problem is that didn't work last time, and it won't work this time. Meanwhile, if the tariffs really begin to wreck the GOP, Trump can reverse them, and maybe stanch the bleeding. But if there is an epidemic of disease, or six, or even another pandemic, the cat will be out of the bag, with no hope of putting it back in. It's another dimension, in addition to the economy, and the current foreign affairs messes, and the corruption, that could be very salient in 2026. (Z)