CDC Head, Dr. Robert Redfield Controversy On Controlling Viruses, Political & Religious Beliefs
'Trump’s CDC Director Has a History of Controversial Opinions on Controlling Viruses.' Robert Redfield has long allied himself with conservative politicians and their pet theories about disease. By Russ Choma, Mother Jones, March 7, 2020. Excerpts:
..But as the CDC, the central agency in charge of public health, struggles to get a handle on key messaging and coronavirus testing efforts, the credentials of its director Robert Redfield are in the spotlight. From the start of his administration, Trump has struggled to fill top positions with qualified candidates; the world of people who can do a particular job and who show enough personal or political loyalty is often quite small.
Redfield, 68, is a well-known virologist who spent decades working on HIV/AIDS research in the military and as the head of the University of Maryland’s Institute of Human Virology. He also has a long history of being a close ally to conservative politicians and their pet theories on HIV and AIDS.
In the 1980s and early 1990s, as an Army doctor stationed at Walter Reed Medical Center, Redfield worked on setting up protocols to handle service members infected with AIDS. Even by the standards of the era, when much was still unknown about the virus, his suggestions were controversial. He advocated quarantining infected soldiers, spreading their diagnosis across the chain of command with little concern for their privacy, and investigating their sexual histories. Redfield advocated similar ideas outside of the military, aligning himself with a conservative Christian group called Americans for a Sound HIV/AIDS Policy (ASAP) which supported similar steps in the general public (mandatory testing and quarantines) to control the spread of the virus. According to Foreign Policy, in the introduction of a book by ASAP’s founder, Redfield rejected the medical norms for handling the epidemic and called for a more faith-based approach:
“It is time to reject the temptation of denial of the AIDS/HIV crisis; to reject false prophets who preach the quick-fix strategies of condoms and free needles; to reject those who preach prejudice; and to reject those who try to replace God as judge. The time has come for the Christian community—members and leaders alike—to confront the epidemic,” he wrote. Redfield named the breakdown of family values and increasing number of single-parent households as key factors responsible for the spread of AIDS.
In the 1990s, Redfield endorsed an unproven HIV vaccine as a huge breakthrough. It wasn’t, and Redfield was investigated for scientific misconduct for his role in continuing to push the vaccine. (He was later cleared of accusations of misconduct.) He also publicly lobbied for legislation sponsored by a conservative member of Congress that would force medical workers to get tested for HIV and AIDS and lose their licenses to practice if they were infected. More recently, in the early 2000s, Redfield remained adamant that the best way to contain the AIDS epidemic in Africa was to encourage abstinence, monogamy, and the use of condoms only as a last resort. Redfield was not the Trump administration’s first choice for CDC director; she resigned after she was found to have traded tobacco stocks while running the CDC. Despite loud calls from CDC watchdogs like the Center for Science in the Public Interest, which accused Redfield of having a bad record “and an extreme religious agenda,” Redfield was appointed in 2018...
More, https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2020/03/trumps-cdc-director-has-a-history-of-controversial-opinions-on-controlling-viruses/
- Warning-Signs-About-Trump-Appointee-Dr-Robert-Redfield-To-CDC-Starting-To-Be-Proven-True?
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2020/3/7/1925417/-
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