White House Removes Public Health Experts from Coronavirus Discussions

[babylonsister]

White House Removes Public Health Experts from Coronavirus Discussions
Michael Halpern, Deputy director, Center for Science & Democracy | March 11, 2020, 3:33 pm EDT
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The White House held dozens of meetings about coronavirus response that excluded government experts because the discussions were unnecessarily classified over the objections of HHS Secretary Alex Azar, reports Reuters. Experts were not just barred from speaking openly about what we knew about the emerging pandemic. Apparently, they weren’t even allowed in the room.

“It is not normal to classify discussions about a response to a public health crisis,” an unnamed official from the Republican George W. Bush administration told the wire service. Yet this is President Trump’s approach to nearly every public health and environmental threat: find some way to exclude the experts, stop them from speaking publicly, and make decisions in a vacuum. The deliberate sidelining of public health experts and science leads to bad policy, and ultimately, to more sickness and death.

Instead of prioritizing transparency and facts, the White House is choosing secrecy and confusing contradictions. This has likely allowed the coronavirus to spread more quickly and widely in the United States, with massive consequences for the entire US population and especially for those who contract the disease, plus all of the collateral damage that comes with this kind of large-scale disruption.

People are desperate for accurate and up-to-date information about this pandemic, and CDC experts are doing their best. But their work is in spite of the administration, not in concert with it.

Every day without full transparency means we are less prepared and more vulnerable. Scientists must be at the table to help slow the spread of coronavirus, and they should be able to share what they know without being subject to political control.

I urge all scientists to add their signature to this letter urging the White House to let us hear directly from the experts.

https://blog.ucsusa.org/michael-halpern/white-house-removes-public-health-experts-from-coronavirus-discussions?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=fb&fbclid=IwAR0qspb2LPaQOLl_UIywLm6ba_IPtX_yKiAkU82Ifa0fLv7Rvr7H8Y_BjlM

[NRaleighLiberal]

1. we are so, so fucked.

[superpatriotman]

2. Jared's on it

All is well?

[BigmanPigman]

7. You beat me to it.

I feel so safe now.

[enough]

3. One word in the article says it all: "unnamed." As long as former and current

Republican officials are unwilling to speak on the record, nothing will change.

[KatyaR]

4. Kick for exposure.

[procon]

5. We're doomed.

Worse than a Banana Republic, Trump is ruining this country and killing Americans to save his bloated ego. Without experts how are these morons making any informed decisions?

Do they have a Magic 8 Ball, call Faux News and ask some celebrity TV show host, or is Dr. Trump just pulling feel good disinformation out of his ass?

They don't seem to care that people are getting sick and they are making it all worse which means people are going to die.

[bluestarone]

6. This is tRUMPS downfall!

It HAS to be! He's KILLING citizens of this country by his fucking decisions!! Senate rethugs better do something!

[2naSalit]

8. A lot of people are saying this...

And I'm not joking, that's what I'm hearing in town.

[scarletwoman]

9. It's obvious. Those discussions are NOT about protecting public health - they're about protecting

Trump's re-election chances, and/or how to push through more of the Repug agenda, and/or how to make a $$$profit from the problem.

These meetings are classified because they hope to be able to pull these things off without anyone catching on in time to organize a resistance.