Replace Trump And Bolster The CDC, A Leading Medical Journal Urges
Esteemed medical journal The Lancet on Friday took an unusual step towards calling on American voters to remove President Donald Trump from office in November, condemning the Trump administration's "incoherent" response to the coronavirus pandemic and expressing shock at the CDC's inability to cope with the public health crisis.
The journal's frustration with Trump centered on the president's downplaying of the pandemic and his refusal to coordinate a robust national effort of social distancing, lockdown orders, and a testing regime to stem the Covid-19 outbreak.
"The administration is obsessed with magic bullets—vaccines, new medicines, or a hope that the virus will simply disappear," wrote the editors. "But only a steadfast reliance on basic public health principles, like test, trace, and isolate, will see the emergency brought to an end, and this requires an effective national public health agency."
Washington Post journalist Christopher Ingraham called the editorial a "scathing indictment" of the Trump administration's approach to the pandemic.
Public health experts including Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, and Dr. Rick Bright, a whistleblower at the Health and Human Services Department who was ignored by leaders in January when he pushed to procure medical supplies, have issued dire warnings in recent days about the need to ramp up testing and avoid reopening the economy too quickly.
But the CDC, once a "national pillar of public health," has been "marginalized" and undermined by the Trump administration since even before the pandemic began, hampering its ability to lead the nation's response, The Lancet editorial reads.
CDC Director Robert Redfield is heard from infrequently at press briefings, and in April joined Trump in suggesting the anti-malarial drug hydroxychloroquine could be useful as an experimental treatment for Covid-19 patients, saying "I think I would be confident to try hydroxychloroquine" and that the drug "does appear to be safe."
"The CDC needs a director who can provide leadership without the threat of being silenced and who has the technical capacity to lead today's complicated effort," wrote The Lancet editors. Last summer, an "intelligence vacuum" was left at the United States' CDC office in China when the administration called back the last remaining officer there, months before the first case of Covid-19 was reported in Wuhan.
The director of the agency's National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, Nancy Messonnier, has not been seen at a press briefing on the pandemic since late February, when she warned that Americans should prepare for strict social distancing and disruption to their daily lives. Messonnier's message was one that Trump has consistently resisted, preferring to push for quickly reopening the country just days after the White House reluctantly enforced a shutdown in March, and complaining that governors who have pleaded for more medical equipment were doing so only to hurt Trump's reelection chances.
The CDC's failure to take control of the pandemic—including its admission in mid-February, as the virus was beginning to spread across the U.S. that the test kits the agency had developed were flawed—has left the U.S. "nowhere near able to provide the basic surveillance or laboratory testing infrastructure needed to combat the COVID-19 pandemic," wrote the editors.
The Lancet linked the CDC's ineffectiveness partially to decades of weak support for the agency by Republican presidents, including Presidents Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush, who failed to provide funding to fight HIV/AIDS and to provide global reproductive health programs.
"Funding to the CDC for a long time has been subject to conservative politics that have increasingly eroded the agency's ability to mount effective, evidence-based public health responses," wrote The Lancet. "The Trump administration's further erosion of the CDC will harm global cooperation in science and public health, as it is trying to do by defunding WHO."
Seeking to lay a pile of critical failings at Trump's feet, the editorial — titled "Reviving the U.S. CDC" — says a federal agency that was once "the gold standard for global disease detection and control" has devolved into an "ineffective and nominal adviser" on the U.S. response to a disease that poses a public health threat of historic proportions.
The Trump administration has "chipped away at the CDC's capacity to combat infectious diseases" in a number of ways, The Lancet says, citing the reduction of CDC staff in China and the withdrawal of the last American CDC expert from the Chinese CDC campus last July – moves that left an "intelligence vacuum" when the novel coronavirus was detected in Hubei province in late 2019.
And The Lancet says that partly because of the CDC's own errors – chiefly a mistaken early insistence on maintaining control of coronavirus testing — "The USA is still nowhere near able to provide the basic surveillance or laboratory testing infrastructure needed to combat the COVID-19 pandemic."
The journal accuses the Trump administration of accelerating the "erosion" of the CDC that it says took place under earlier Republican administrations that used the CDC and its funding to score political points – actions that, The Lancet says, previously limited the agency's ability to combat emergencies such as the HIV/AIDS crisis.
During the current coronavirus crisis, the Trump White House has repeatedly undermined the leading U.S. authorities on infectious diseases, The Lancet states. It adds, "The CDC needs a director who can provide leadership without the threat of being silenced."
The editorial criticizes the U.S. administration for minimizing the visibility of the CDC's Dr. Nancy Messonnier after she gave a frank — and accurate — warning to Americans, saying people should prepare themselves to face school closings, workplace shutdowns and the cancellation of large gatherings and public events.
After making those statements on Feb. 25, Messonnier, director of the Center for the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, was not included at White House briefings; since then, she has played a more limited public role.
The day after Messonnier spoke in February, Trump put Vice President Pence in charge of the White House coronavirus task force, raising the profile of the administration's main platform for discussing COVID-19.
But, The Lancet notes, the task force has recently made headlines for rejecting detailed guidance drafted by the CDC that aimed to give clear direction to businesses, restaurants, schools, camps, churches and other entities on ways daily life could safely resume as shutdown orders are eased.
Accusing the Trump administration of weakening one of the country's most vital agencies, The Lancet states, "A strong CDC is needed to respond to public health threats, both domestic and international, and to help prevent the next inevitable pandemic."
The Lancet is a weekly journal that has become one of the world's leading medical periodicals since its founding in 1823. In recent years, the journal has published dozens of articles about the U.S. health system and the politics that surround it.
After President Trump was elected, The Lancet issued an editorial calling on members of civil society, and especially members of the scientific, medical, and public health communities, to promote a "pro-health political agenda."
"The goal must be to hold President Trump accountable to that agenda," the journal said.
Friday's editorial was published one day after Rick Bright, a career government scientist, testified to a congressional panel about his removal from leading the U.S. agency in charge of developing a vaccine against COVID-19. He was sidelined, Bright said Thursday, because he resisted efforts within the Trump administration to promote chloroquine and a related drug, hydroxychloroquine, as treatments for coronavirus patients.
The president and his allies had touted chloroquine as a breakthrough, despite sparse evidence of any potential benefits. Numerous medical and health agencies have recommended against using the drugs to fight COVID-19, citing potentially fatal risks.
Administration officials have denied Bright's allegations of retaliation. Trump said of his testimony, "I watched this guy for a little while this morning. To me, he's nothing more than a really disgruntled, unhappy person."
The editors concluded by calling on Americans to vote Trump out of office in the general election as a way of protecting the nation from further damage to its public health response.
"Americans must put a president in the White House come January 2021, who will understand that public health should not be guided by partisan politics," the editorial reads.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
"The Lancet isn't playing. They want Trump out," wrote physician Barry Schapiro. "His anti-science, anti-intellectual, fantastical thinking that there's a magic bullet or a miracle cure has crippled our response. There is good science behind pandemic response and it's been ignored."
https://www.npr.org/sections/corona...lster-the-cdc-a-leading-medical-journal-urges
https://www.commondreams.org/news/2...ncet-eviscerates-us-president-over-incoherent
Esteemed medical journal The Lancet on Friday took an unusual step towards calling on American voters to remove President Donald Trump from office in November, condemning the Trump administration's "incoherent" response to the coronavirus pandemic and expressing shock at the CDC's inability to cope with the public health crisis.
The journal's frustration with Trump centered on the president's downplaying of the pandemic and his refusal to coordinate a robust national effort of social distancing, lockdown orders, and a testing regime to stem the Covid-19 outbreak.
"The administration is obsessed with magic bullets—vaccines, new medicines, or a hope that the virus will simply disappear," wrote the editors. "But only a steadfast reliance on basic public health principles, like test, trace, and isolate, will see the emergency brought to an end, and this requires an effective national public health agency."
Washington Post journalist Christopher Ingraham called the editorial a "scathing indictment" of the Trump administration's approach to the pandemic.
Public health experts including Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, and Dr. Rick Bright, a whistleblower at the Health and Human Services Department who was ignored by leaders in January when he pushed to procure medical supplies, have issued dire warnings in recent days about the need to ramp up testing and avoid reopening the economy too quickly.
But the CDC, once a "national pillar of public health," has been "marginalized" and undermined by the Trump administration since even before the pandemic began, hampering its ability to lead the nation's response, The Lancet editorial reads.
CDC Director Robert Redfield is heard from infrequently at press briefings, and in April joined Trump in suggesting the anti-malarial drug hydroxychloroquine could be useful as an experimental treatment for Covid-19 patients, saying "I think I would be confident to try hydroxychloroquine" and that the drug "does appear to be safe."
"The CDC needs a director who can provide leadership without the threat of being silenced and who has the technical capacity to lead today's complicated effort," wrote The Lancet editors. Last summer, an "intelligence vacuum" was left at the United States' CDC office in China when the administration called back the last remaining officer there, months before the first case of Covid-19 was reported in Wuhan.
The director of the agency's National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, Nancy Messonnier, has not been seen at a press briefing on the pandemic since late February, when she warned that Americans should prepare for strict social distancing and disruption to their daily lives. Messonnier's message was one that Trump has consistently resisted, preferring to push for quickly reopening the country just days after the White House reluctantly enforced a shutdown in March, and complaining that governors who have pleaded for more medical equipment were doing so only to hurt Trump's reelection chances.
The CDC's failure to take control of the pandemic—including its admission in mid-February, as the virus was beginning to spread across the U.S. that the test kits the agency had developed were flawed—has left the U.S. "nowhere near able to provide the basic surveillance or laboratory testing infrastructure needed to combat the COVID-19 pandemic," wrote the editors.
The Lancet linked the CDC's ineffectiveness partially to decades of weak support for the agency by Republican presidents, including Presidents Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush, who failed to provide funding to fight HIV/AIDS and to provide global reproductive health programs.
"Funding to the CDC for a long time has been subject to conservative politics that have increasingly eroded the agency's ability to mount effective, evidence-based public health responses," wrote The Lancet. "The Trump administration's further erosion of the CDC will harm global cooperation in science and public health, as it is trying to do by defunding WHO."
Seeking to lay a pile of critical failings at Trump's feet, the editorial — titled "Reviving the U.S. CDC" — says a federal agency that was once "the gold standard for global disease detection and control" has devolved into an "ineffective and nominal adviser" on the U.S. response to a disease that poses a public health threat of historic proportions.
The Trump administration has "chipped away at the CDC's capacity to combat infectious diseases" in a number of ways, The Lancet says, citing the reduction of CDC staff in China and the withdrawal of the last American CDC expert from the Chinese CDC campus last July – moves that left an "intelligence vacuum" when the novel coronavirus was detected in Hubei province in late 2019.
And The Lancet says that partly because of the CDC's own errors – chiefly a mistaken early insistence on maintaining control of coronavirus testing — "The USA is still nowhere near able to provide the basic surveillance or laboratory testing infrastructure needed to combat the COVID-19 pandemic."
The journal accuses the Trump administration of accelerating the "erosion" of the CDC that it says took place under earlier Republican administrations that used the CDC and its funding to score political points – actions that, The Lancet says, previously limited the agency's ability to combat emergencies such as the HIV/AIDS crisis.
During the current coronavirus crisis, the Trump White House has repeatedly undermined the leading U.S. authorities on infectious diseases, The Lancet states. It adds, "The CDC needs a director who can provide leadership without the threat of being silenced."
The editorial criticizes the U.S. administration for minimizing the visibility of the CDC's Dr. Nancy Messonnier after she gave a frank — and accurate — warning to Americans, saying people should prepare themselves to face school closings, workplace shutdowns and the cancellation of large gatherings and public events.
After making those statements on Feb. 25, Messonnier, director of the Center for the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, was not included at White House briefings; since then, she has played a more limited public role.
The day after Messonnier spoke in February, Trump put Vice President Pence in charge of the White House coronavirus task force, raising the profile of the administration's main platform for discussing COVID-19.
But, The Lancet notes, the task force has recently made headlines for rejecting detailed guidance drafted by the CDC that aimed to give clear direction to businesses, restaurants, schools, camps, churches and other entities on ways daily life could safely resume as shutdown orders are eased.
Accusing the Trump administration of weakening one of the country's most vital agencies, The Lancet states, "A strong CDC is needed to respond to public health threats, both domestic and international, and to help prevent the next inevitable pandemic."
The Lancet is a weekly journal that has become one of the world's leading medical periodicals since its founding in 1823. In recent years, the journal has published dozens of articles about the U.S. health system and the politics that surround it.
After President Trump was elected, The Lancet issued an editorial calling on members of civil society, and especially members of the scientific, medical, and public health communities, to promote a "pro-health political agenda."
"The goal must be to hold President Trump accountable to that agenda," the journal said.
Friday's editorial was published one day after Rick Bright, a career government scientist, testified to a congressional panel about his removal from leading the U.S. agency in charge of developing a vaccine against COVID-19. He was sidelined, Bright said Thursday, because he resisted efforts within the Trump administration to promote chloroquine and a related drug, hydroxychloroquine, as treatments for coronavirus patients.
The president and his allies had touted chloroquine as a breakthrough, despite sparse evidence of any potential benefits. Numerous medical and health agencies have recommended against using the drugs to fight COVID-19, citing potentially fatal risks.
Administration officials have denied Bright's allegations of retaliation. Trump said of his testimony, "I watched this guy for a little while this morning. To me, he's nothing more than a really disgruntled, unhappy person."
The editors concluded by calling on Americans to vote Trump out of office in the general election as a way of protecting the nation from further damage to its public health response.
"Americans must put a president in the White House come January 2021, who will understand that public health should not be guided by partisan politics," the editorial reads.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
"The Lancet isn't playing. They want Trump out," wrote physician Barry Schapiro. "His anti-science, anti-intellectual, fantastical thinking that there's a magic bullet or a miracle cure has crippled our response. There is good science behind pandemic response and it's been ignored."
https://www.npr.org/sections/corona...lster-the-cdc-a-leading-medical-journal-urges
https://www.commondreams.org/news/2...ncet-eviscerates-us-president-over-incoherent
