OPINION:
Last week, several top officials at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention were fired or resigned in protest over their refusal to implement Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s Make America Healthy Again agenda.
The mainstream media classified the firings as “stunning” and a “mass exodus of top leaders,” leading to “chaos at the nation’s top public health agency.” However, as a working mom of three young boys who endured the never-ending COVID-19 lockdowns, vaccine mandates and school closures, which these public officials exacerbated, I welcome the restructuring.
The biggest mistake of the first Trump administration was putting too much faith in the hands of these public health officials, amplifying the likes of Dr. Anthony Fauci and Dr. Deborah Birx. “Fifteen days to slow the spread” became two years of public debate on the virus’ origin, the virtues of wearing masks and getting the jab, and the effectiveness of these life-altering “solutions.”
Those of us who questioned these public officials were demonized and told we were “grandma killers” for wanting to visit our relatives, worship in church and maintain our communities. Our thoughts and opinions were monitored, suppressed and banned online by the Biden administration working hand in glove with Big Tech. This, as we watched our young children struggle with social isolation and develop learning impediments from having to wear masks and attend classes online.
Then, with time, everything we suspected and argued turned out to be true.
The origin of the virus that caused COVID-19 was most likely a lab in Wuhan, China.
At a congressional hearing, Dr. Fauci acknowledged that the CDC recommendation to stay 6 feet away from others to ward off infection was not based on data.
The mRNA vaccination didn’t prevent infection or spread of the virus; it just limited COVID-19’s severity.
The CDC recommendation that everyone wear a mask, N95 or otherwise, turned out not to make any difference for reducing the spread of respiratory illnesses, including COVID-19, according to an analysis of scientific studies published in 2023 by an Oxford epidemiologist.
As CDC director, Dr. Rochelle Walensky bypassed customary scientific processes to allow the American Federation of Teachers, a teachers union and Democratic Party donor, to rewrite key portions of the school reopening guidance. As a result, thousands of schools nationwide remained shuttered throughout the 2020-2021 school year.
No, the children weren’t “resilient.”
Although children were the least affected by the virus, school closures during COVID-19 led to massive learning losses that have not been recovered.
Schoolchildren in Maine, Oregon and Vermont are still about a full year behind typical pre-COVID reading levels. In Florida and Michigan, the gap is about three-quarters of a year, and in Massachusetts, Ohio and Pennsylvania, it is half a year.
According to the National Center for Education Statistics’ most recent report card, not one state in the nation has returned to pre-pandemic levels in both math and reading.
To add insult to injury, many of these public health officials — who, since April 2020, had urged Americans to take every precaution necessary to stop the spread — greenlit Black Lives Matter protests across the country during the height of the pandemic emergency.
“Suddenly, public health officials say social justice matters more than social distance,” a Politico headline read in June 2020. The article was accompanied by a picture of protesters in scrubs with a sign that read: “White coats for Black lives.”
The article detailed the thinking of people like former CDC Director Tom Frieden, who spoke against efforts to rush reopening but supported the mass protests.
“Their claim: If we don’t address racial inequality, it’ll be that much harder to fight COVID-19,” Politico wrote.
It was absolutely jarring. And political. And had nothing to do with science.
Now, Politico reports that “America’s once-powerful doctors are struggling to remain relevant in Trump’s Washington.”
Good.
On Sunday, ABC’s “This Week” interviewed Dr. Demetre Daskalakis, who resigned last week from his position leading the CDC’s National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases. This gave him a platform to describe how Mr. Kennedy’s CDC is “generating policies that do not reflect scientific reality and are designed to hurt rather than improve the public’s health.”
I would be remiss not to note that Dr. Daskalakis is a gay man who, while serving as President Biden’s deputy monkeypox coordinator in 2023, downplayed the outbreak’s disproportional effect on the gay community. The virus primarily affects men who have sex with other men.
During an interview with MSNBC during the 2023 outbreak, he said the Biden administration aims to “support people’s joy as opposed to calling them risky.”
“One person’s idea of risk is another person’s idea of a great festival or Friday night,” he detailed.
Now he’s gone. I didn’t waste my time listening to his exit interview on ABC.
The CDC’s dysfunction, politicization and public health ineptitude are some of the reasons Donald Trump is back in the White House.
Restoring trust in our “scientific community” starts with firing those who mislead us.
• Kelly Sadler is the commentary editor at The Washington Times.
Please read our comment policy before commenting.