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Esteemed medical journal blasts Trump's coronavirus response in 'stunning' editorial

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Via:  John Russell  •  4 years ago  •  20 comments

By:   brendanmorrow (theweek)

Esteemed medical journal blasts Trump's coronavirus response in 'stunning' editorial
 

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An esteemed medical journal has called out President Trump for his administration's response to the coronavirus crisis in a highly-critical editorial.

In an editorial   published this week,   The Lancet , a peer-reviewed medical journal, blasts the national response to the coronavirus pandemic as "inconsistent and incoherent" and criticizes that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention "has seen its role minimized and become an ineffective and nominal adviser" during the crisis.

"The Trump administration further chipped away at the CDC's capacity to combat infectious diseases," the editorial reads. "More recently, the Trump administration has questioned guidelines that the CDC has provided. These actions have undermined the CDC's leadership and its work during the COVID-19 pandemic."

It also criticizes the administration for being "obsessed with magic bullets," including a "hope that the virus will simply disappear," alluding to a   claim President Trump has made . The editorial ultimately concludes by suggesting Trump should not be re-elected.

"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 op-ed reads.

The New York   Times ' Maggie Haberman in a Friday   appearance on CNN   called the editorial "stunning," as "I don't think I have ever heard of such a thing from a medical journal."   Brendan Morrow


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JohnRussell
Professor Principal
1  seeder  JohnRussell    4 years ago

The editorial ultimately concludes by suggesting Trump should not be re-elected.

 
 
 
bugsy
Professor Participates
1.1  bugsy  replied to  JohnRussell @1    4 years ago

Maybe you can staple this article to the list of 2000 "former DOJ" that think Barr needs to step down and file them both under "nobody cares".

 
 
 
squiggy
Junior Silent
1.2  squiggy  replied to  JohnRussell @1    4 years ago

""Americans must put a president in the White House..."

I'm certainly stunned. Whom might they be pulling for?

 
 
 
bugsy
Professor Participates
1.2.1  bugsy  replied to  squiggy @1.2    4 years ago

This guy?

superbowl-sunday.jpg

 
 
 
JohnRussell
Professor Principal
3  seeder  JohnRussell    4 years ago
The COVID-19 pandemic continues to worsen in the USA with 1·3 million cases and an estimated death toll of 80 684 as of May 12. States that were initially the hardest hit, such as New York and New Jersey, have decelerated the rate of infections and deaths after the implementation of 2 months of lockdown. However, the emergence of new outbreaks in Minnesota, where the stay-at-home order is set to lift in mid-May, and Iowa, which did not enact any restrictions on movement or commerce, has prompted pointed new questions about the inconsistent and incoherent national response to the COVID-19 crisis.
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The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the flagship agency for the nation's public health, has seen its role minimised and become an ineffective and nominal adviser in the response to contain the spread of the virus. The strained relationship between the CDC and the federal government was further laid bare when, according to   The Washington Post , Deborah Birx, the head of the US COVID-19 Task Force and a former director of the CDC's Global HIV/AIDS Division, cast doubt on the CDC's COVID-19 mortality and case data by reportedly saying: “ There is nothing from the CDC that I can trust ”. This is an unhelpful statement, but also a shocking indictment of an agency that was once regarded as the gold standard for global disease detection and control. How did an agency that was the first point of contact for many national health authorities facing a public health threat become so ill-prepared to protect the public's health?
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In the decades following its founding in 1946, the CDC became a national pillar of public health and globally respected. It trained cadres of applied epidemiologists to be deployed in the USA and abroad. CDC scientists have helped to discover new viruses and develop accurate tests for them. CDC support was instrumental in helping WHO to eradicate smallpox. However, 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. In the 1980s, the Reagan administration resisted providing the sufficient budget that the CDC needed to fight the HIV/AIDS crisis. The George W Bush administration put restrictions on global and domestic HIV prevention and reproductive health programming.
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The Trump administration further chipped away at the CDC's capacity to combat infectious diseases. CDC staff in China were cut back with the last remaining CDC officer recalled home from the   China CDC in July, 2019 , leaving an intelligence vacuum when COVID-19 began to emerge. In a press conference on Feb 25, Nancy Messonnier, director of the CDC's National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, warned US citizens to prepare for major disruptions to movement and everyday life. Messonnier subsequently no longer appeared at White House briefings on COVID-19. More recently, the Trump administration has questioned guidelines that the CDC has provided. These actions have undermined the CDC's leadership and its work during the COVID-19 pandemic.
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There is no doubt that the CDC has made mistakes, especially on testing in the early stages of the pandemic. The agency was so convinced that it had contained the virus that it retained control of all diagnostic testing for severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2, but this was followed by the admission on Feb 12 that the CDC had developed   faulty test kits . The USA is still nowhere near able to provide the basic surveillance or laboratory testing infrastructure needed to combat the COVID-19 pandemic.
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But punishing the agency by marginalising and hobbling it is not the solution. The Administration is obsessed with magic bullets—vaccines, new medicines, or a hope that the virus will simply disappear. 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. 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.
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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. A strong CDC is needed to respond to public health threats, both domestic and international, and to help prevent the next inevitable pandemic. 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.
 
 
 
Greg Jones
Professor Participates
4  Greg Jones    4 years ago

Not sure why you keep posting this bilge. Nationwide, new cases and deaths are trending down.

We don't need any more political opinions from the medical "experts"...they need to shut up and get back into their laboratories and find solutions instead of come up with partisan sound bites.

 
 
 
Tacos!
Professor Guide
5  Tacos!    4 years ago
blasts the national response to the coronavirus pandemic as "inconsistent and incoherent"

I would say a lot of the recommendations we have heard from medical experts has also been inconsistent and incoherent. Look at how long it took to decide this was a pandemic. Look at the doubts about how it spreads. Look at the shifting advice we have had on masks. Look at what the data on cases are versus what some studies say - i.e. that the real rate of infection is 50x to 85x what the published numbers are. Look at how that impacts mortality rates.

And you want consistent policy based on all that? That's pretty hypocritical coming from medical experts who change their stories twice a week.

In addition, these are medical experts. They're not experts on running the country. They're not economics experts. What do they know about feeding families or keeping industries going? There is a lot more to consider in making policy decisions than simply responding to worst case medical scenarios. 

 
 
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