The Lancet is a highly respected, peer-reviewed weekly medical journal that has screwed up a few times such as by letting the awful, thoroughly invalidated Autism/vaccine study between its covers. And yet, despite a few screw-ups, it still one of the most respected general medical journals in the world. Today, in a rare editorial, it goes after Trump, hammer and tong, particularly for destroying the effectiveness of the CDC. And, it ens with a remarkably political—albeit highly warranted statement—that part of the solution needs to be beating Trump’s ass—and other parts--in December. It is pretty easy to infer that a global medical journal such as this would only turn political under extreme exigent circumstances. The message is a powerful one.
www.thelancet.com/...
The COVID-19 pandemic continues to worsen in the USA...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.
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... 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?...
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.
There is no doubt that the CDC has made mistakes, especially on testing in the early stages of the pandemic.
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 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.
In other words, the Lancet gets political by saying that especially during a crisis public health needs a leader that isn’t primarily political, and that this could never be Trump.