Last Thursday dozens of staffers, both low- and high-level, walked off their jobs at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), protesting the firing of the CDC director and the subsequent resignation of three senior-level executives. This defiant walkout illustrated the dangerous arrogance of this federal agency that thinks it is above accountability to the president and the American people.
In a pitiful op-ed published by the New York Times on Monday, prior CDC directors whine about the shake-up at the agency by RFK Jr., as the Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS). Notably, the CDC directors under the George W. Bush and first Trump Administrations did not sign onto this protest.
This op-ed by former CDC officials absurdly tries to take credit for the CDC for an American lifespan that increased over half a century, which is due to improved hygiene and medical technology, and fewer accident fatalities. The CDC performance during Covid was so abysmal that poor countries managed the disease better than the CDC and Food and Drug Administration (FDA) did.
The former CDC directors sarcastically put the word “treatments” in quotation marks as though that cannot be a viable alternative to vaccination. Measles is known to be worse in those who have a vitamin A deficiency, as the CDC admits on its website, and RFK Jr. should be praised for promoting greater awareness about this vitamin.
RFK Jr., to whom Trump refers as Bobby, then appointed successful Silicon Valley entrepreneur Jim O’Neill as the acting director of the CDC. His first public statement right out of the gate on X was spot on: “Public health is a noble calling. When it is driven by transparent data and rigorous science, it earns public trust and keeps the world safe.”
Contrary to the measles fearmongering by former CDC officials, O’Neill implied that it was “new screening technology to detect infections from foreign travelers,” as developed by the Trump Administration, which partly “stopped the Texas measles outbreak.” He added that RFK Jr.’s good appointments have “ended the misuse of the childhood immunization schedule for Covid vaccine mandates.”
This perspective of Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) is refreshing. On Monday morning, President Trump signaled his support for RFK Jr.’s incoming new CDC leadership by saying, “It is very important that the Drug Companies justify the success of their various Covid Drugs.”
“Many people think they are a miracle that saved Millions of lives. Others disagree! With CDC being ripped apart over this question, I want the answer, and I want it NOW,” Trump added.
By asking for more transparency about what really happened in Big Pharma’s response to Covid, “I want them to … clear up this MESS, one way or the other!!! I hope OPERATION WARP SPEED was as ‘BRILLIANT’ as many say it was. If not, we all want to know about it, and why???” Trump stated.
This punctured the appeal to Trump by the Old Guard at the CDC, who tried to get on his good side by praising the first Trump Administration’s support of Operation Warp Speed. It “produced highly effective and safe vaccines that saved millions of lives during the Covid-19 pandemic,” the former CDC officials asserted.
But what about the interference by Big Pharma, the CDC, and the FDA with access by Americans to inexpensive early Covid treatments like ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine? Congress funded the use of treatments other than vaccines during Covid, and several states have made ivermectin, for which a Nobel Prize was granted, available over-the-counter as is common in foreign countries.
But Big Pharma does not profit from ivermectin as it makes billions of dollars from mandatory vaccination, and every official who misled the public by disparaging ivermectin should be fired. During the Biden Administration, on Aug. 26, 2021, the CDC issued an emergency CDC Health Advisory through its Alert Network by declaring that “Ivermectin is not authorized or approved by FDA for prevention or treatment of COVID-19.”
CDC officials know that 25% of all prescriptions are for “off-label” uses that have never been specifically approved by the FDA, and never will be. It was deliberately misleading for the CDC to emphasize that the FDA had not approved ivermectin for treating COVID, because generic medication is rarely approved for additional uses, as that is costly and unnecessary.
Yet this deception by the CDC and FDA was then invoked by hospitals to deny ivermectin to patients dying from COVID, and when some courts ordered hospitals to allow the treatment to save the patients, hospitals fought for a reversal on appeal. It is welcome that RFK Jr. has fired leadership at the CDC, and the mass walkout there last week shows that more house-cleaning is needed at this Big Pharma-controlled agency.
John and Andy Schlafly are the sons of Phyllis Schlafly (1924-2016) and lead the continuing Phyllis Schlafly Eagles organization with writing and policy work.
Editor’s Note: Thanks to President Trump, illegal immigration into our great country has virtually stopped. Despite the radical left's lies, new legislation wasn't needed to secure our border, just a new president.
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