Posted on 09/06/2025 6:31:32 AM PDT by MtnClimber
By some strange coincidence, no sooner did I write yesterday’s post about the thoroughly corrupt CDC and its recently-fired Director, Susan Monarez, than there turns up in today’s Wall Street Journal an op-ed by the same Ms. Monarez trying to justify herself and the agency with regard to HHS Secretary RFK, Jr. The headline is “Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the CDC and Me.” The sub-headline (online edition only) is “I was fired after 29 days because I held the line and insisted on rigorous scientific review.” The article is behind the Journal’s paywall, so I will provide some substantial quotes.
The theme of the piece, well-summarized in the sub-headline, is that Ms. Monarez, with the help of CDC colleagues, was fired for trying to hold the line against “pressure to compromise science itself.” The particular question in Monarez’s firing was evaluation of the efficacy and risks of the Covid vaccines. But Monarez frames the issue in lofty principles of the honest scientists against the barbarians. Excerpts:
[H]undreds of CDC employees told me the same thing: We need to take immediate steps to rebuild public trust. That’s the CDC I know: service before self. . . . If discarding evidence for ideology becomes the norm, why should parents, physicians or the public trust the CDC’s guidance?. . . . Public health shouldn’t be partisan. Vaccines have saved millions of lives under administrations of both parties. Parents deserve a CDC they can trust to put children above politics, evidence above ideology and facts above fear.
Oddly Ms. Monarez writes as if CDC exemplifies these ideals, without ever saying a word about the facts, which are that CDC, over the course of decades, completely abandoned the principles of honest science in favor of bureaucratic aggrandizement and partisanship.
“Public health shouldn’t be partisan”? Really? How is “addressing the [fake] public health consequences of the climate crisis” not partisan? How is trying to make gun control a “public health” issue so that CDC can meddle in it not partisan? How is it not partisan when you accuse everybody who doesn’t acquiesce in land acknowledgements and abandonment of meritocracy of white supremacism?
The fact is that the business of CDC for decades has been repeatedly trying to scare the people out of their wits about some health issue in order to justify more power and bigger mission and more staff and a bigger budget for CDC.
And about those “hundreds of CDC employees” who think the agency must take immediate steps to “rebuild public trust.” All of those people were there when CDC veered off into the rank partisanship of climate change and gun control and land acknowledgements and accusations of white supremacy against political opponents, let alone into supporting (if not actually mandating) anti-Covid measures with no evidentiary support like lockdowns and masking requirements. And none of them thought this was any problem, or at least not enough of a problem to speak up. There is nothing any of these people could do at this point to rebuild trust with me, and I suspect the same is true for most other Americans.
And as to the crux of the current dispute, the efficacy of the Covid vaccines: Ms. Monarez states in her piece that the “vaccines have saved millions of lives.” Really? How do you know that? You are the one who is claiming the mantle of science, so kindly show us your proof. In my view, real science demands complete skepticism about all scientific claims. For a vaccine, one would start with the results of a double-blind trial against a placebo, with adequate sample size, sufficient to falsify the null hypothesis that the placebo works as well or better. With Covid, advocates of effectiveness of the vaccines also need to address the issue that many of the most vulnerable had already died by the time the vaccines started use, which may skew the results toward a false appearance of effectiveness. And then there is the issue of side effects. I have strong reason to believe that information as to adverse side effects of the Covid vaccines has been systematically downplayed and suppressed, and that CDC has played a significant role in this suppression. Prove me wrong!
In her piece, Ms. Monarez claims that “trusted experts” on the subject of the vaccines are being “removed” from advisory bodies, and those bodies are being “stacked” with anti-vaxxers. But are the people Ms. Monarez calls “trusted experts” actually neutral and skeptical scientists, or are they rather committed vaccine advocates, let alone shills for big pharma? I don’t know the answer to that, but I certainly have no reason to trust prior CDC selections for these bodies to come to the right answer. By the way, I don’t have any reason either to trust RFK, Jr. or the people he may select for these bodies. I’ll make my own decisions, thank you.
How about, just make any relevant studies available and we will decide for ourselves. Meanwhile, we can save a lot of money by firing everybody at CDC.
Manhattan Contrarian ping
“”” why should parents, physicians or the public trust the CDC’s guidance?. . .””””
News flash..., I never did trust them.
Ping
Always a worthwhile read
How is trying to make gun control a “public health” issue so that CDC can meddle in it not partisan?
If they were doing biased studies to promote “gun control” why should I trust them about anything?
Peter McCullough ( who BTW “never voted for Trump” ( ‘24-IDK) and seemingly was signed on fully to woke agenda until mugged by the medical establishment after his March’21 Covid treatment protocol in peer-reviewed Am. J. of Med. utilizing hydroxychloroquine) and Paul Myrick,( sterling reputation for ICU treatment achievements including high dose IV vitamin C for septic shock, pilloried and fired by his institution for questioning no treatment, vaccine only strategy employed the Fouch ) are about the only 2 people who could direct a high profile, unassailable inquiry IMHO.
“”climate change and gun control and land acknowledgements””
First two are known but what on earth are “land acknowledgements?”
Measles is an extremely contagious viral illness that spreads through the air when an infected person breathes, coughs, or sneezes. The best way to protect yourself and your family against measles is the safe and effective MMR vaccine.
Measles can cause serious health problems:
1 in 5
unvaccinated individuals who get measles in the U.S. require hospitalization.
1 in 20
children may develop pneumonia, the top cause of measles-related deaths in kids.
1 in 1,000
can experience brain inflammation (encephalitis), leading to seizures, hearing loss, or long-term disability.
1-3 in 1,000
measles cases in the U.S. are fatal.
https://ysph.yale.edu/research/information-sheets/measles/
“First two are known but what on earth are “land acknowledgements?””
That’s where we acknowledge the land was ‘stolen’ from the ‘native Americans’.
I was an engineer for 35 years. Over that time I was tasked with a variety of statistical analysis projects.
YES I was a smart ass and would always ask, “what do you want the answer to be?” It was ALWAYS a joke.
The last 10 years of my career, that was no longer a joke. It had become the norm. Fudge the numbers to get the answer you want.
As for the CDC reputation, They can all GO TO HELL!!
NUKE THE UNCONSTITUTIONAL $1 TRILLION HHS, CDC, AND UNCONSTITUTIONAL FEDERAL HEALTHCARE!!!!
The notion that all land in America was owned by and stolen from some indigenous tribe. Many democrat and progressive meetings start out with some Indian making a statement about the location the conference is being held out was originally occupied and owned by ‘fill in the blank’ tribe. They did that in Minnesota at the recent democrat con-fab last week.
The CDC from COVID?? Bahahahaha
“””YES I was a smart ass and would always ask, “what do you want the answer to be?” It was ALWAYS a joke.””””
Much like the people that do the polling. Let me know what you want the results to be and I will phrase the questions accordingly.
Bkmk
Must have to do with freed slaves or Indians.
land acknowledgements - A statement that acknowledges that we are living on land stolen from the indigenous people.
“A small sampling of our death records illustrate the common causes of death among children - consumption (tuberculosis), croup, whooping cough, smallpox, measles, cholera, typhus, typhoid fever, diphtheria, influenza, and scarlet fever.”
“Cholera, typhoid fever, diphtheria, and scarlet fever outbreaks were high, killing many children. In the 20th century, scarlet fever was the leading cause of death in children, with a mortality rate of 20%.”
“Reasons for the high mortality rate can be traced to several factors. First, nutrition was a problem. Many had access to a limit amount of food, and nutritional value was low in many cases. Second, the idea of cleanliness and hygiene practices weren’t introduced until the late 1800s. People didn’t wash their hands or bathe regularly. Waste was thrown into streets and rivers. Housing in urban areas was crowded and dirty. Third, people were unaware how certain diseases were spread.”
https://www.greenecountyohio.gov/Blog.aspx?IID=180
She was a political commissar and forced the CDC to follow the Democrat’s political narrative. Cheap imitation of Lysenko.
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