It seems unreasonable that in the middle of a pandemic, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) should have to be fighting not just a novel virus that has exploded around the planet, but his own boss. Still, that’s exactly where Dr. Robert Redfield is—and where he has been for months.
All the way back in February, a CDC official warned that COVID-19’s “disruption to everyday life may be severe.“ Immediately, that official was sidelined. Over the summer, the CDC’s role as the keeper of public health data was taken away and given to private contractors. In September, the White House simply bypassed scientists at CDC and inserted their own new guidelines that ran completely counter to public health. And just this week it was revealed that the CDC had prepared a plan for requiring masks on public transportation, only to have it completely dismissed by Mike Pence. Meanwhile, Donald Trump has repeatedly mocked and condemned the agency, and even claimed that the CDC had changed the mortality rate from COVID-19 to far less than 1%—which never happened. All this leaves the Trump-appointed Redfield with one hell of a dilemma. As the nation reels from the impact of the coronavirus, his agency is being ripped apart around him.
But a doctor of near-infinite renown, himself a former CDC director, has a suggestion for Redfield: Go big and go home. Redfield needs to stand up, speak out, and explain what’s actually going on. It might be a convincing plea … to anyone other than Robert Redfield.
On paper, Redfield certainly doesn’t look like a bad choice for running the CDC. Both his parents were scientists at the National Institutes of Health, where Dr. Anthony Fauci works today. He did a stint at Walter Reed and did most of his research in infectious disease. He’s a genuine virologist who helped found a research organization specifically dedicated to treating the families of viruses that cause chronic disease in people. All of that sounds good.
Unfortunately … that’s on paper. Hugely incomplete paper. As The Los Angeles Times reported in 1989, when then Major Robert Redfield was in charge of a AIDS program in the military, his response included isolating soldiers suspected of having HIV in “AIDS hotels.”
At Redfield’s urging, the Department of Defense began the world’s largest mandatory program of HIV screening in October, 1985. Since then, every recruit has been screened, and those whose tests are positive are barred from the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marines.
Official policy said that HIV positive soldiers were able to remain in the military. Unofficially, their status was used as the basis of investigations that saw thousands removed from service. Most of them were given dishonorable discharges that left them without benefits and damaged their ability to work outside the military. As the Financial Times reported back in May, Redfield saw AIDS in a way very much like that of Ronald Reagan; as the “product of an immoral society.”
Since then, Redfield has praised the effectiveness of an AIDS treatment called VacSyn, claiming that it reduced the viral load of HIV. It didn’t. And he led a program for the treatment of AIDS in Africa … a program that focused on sexual abstinence. Kaiser Health News notes that Redfield’s career has been filled with allegations of “research misconduct” and mistakes. Writing for CNN in 2018, Pulitzer Prize- winning science reporter Laurie Garret called Redfield “an abysmal choice” to head the CDC. She later referred to Redfield as “about the worst person you could think of to be heading the CDC at this time.”
Redfield seemed to fulfill that prophecy in the first three months of 2020, when he insisted that the U.S. not import an existing German-made test for COVID-19, but wait until the CDC developed its own test. In February, the CDC distributed the first 800 copies of a test kit to state and local health labs. But those tests had flaws both in the results they returned, and in the instructions. Rather than fix that kit, the CDC inexplicably went back to square one and produced a completely different kit after a delay of weeks, during which cases of COVID-19 were circulating around the nation undetected. Even when tests began to trickle out, the shortage resulted in testing criteria that meant only people who almost certainly had COVID-19 were getting tested … an nearly worthless effort.
But if Redfield was rigid in his view toward the people he was supposed to be helping, he was infinitely flexible in responding to Trump. Redfield stood by while Trump proclaimed that he understood the pandemic better than the doctors. Redfield stood by as Dr. Nancy Messonnier, the official who had warned back in February that COVID-19 was going to impact the lives of every American, was stifled. He stood by as Trump accused the CDC, FDA, and NIH of being part of the “deep state,” and alleged they were purposely slowing down development of vaccines and treatments. Redfield stood by as Trump repeatedly made false statements about CDC guidelines or public health statistics, and he … is still there.
Fauci supposedly “loathes” Redfield, and for what seems to be good reasons. After all, when the White House wanted to push out new testing guidelines containing life-threatening advice, they waited until Fauci was literally unconscious during an operation. They didn’t have to worry about Redfield fighting the insertion of unscientific information. They never worry about Redfield.
So when former CDC director and respected epidemiologist William Foege sent Redfield a private letter in September urging him to publicly renounce the lies, bad policies, and intentional harm being done by the Trump White House, there no doubt it came with the best of intentions.
Dear Bob,
I start each day thinking about the terrible burden you bear. I don’t know what I would actually do in your position, but I do know what I wish I would do.
The first thing would be to face the truth. You and I both know that:
- Despite the White House spin attempts, this will go down as a colossal failure of the public health system of this country. The biggest challenge in a century and we let the country down. The public health texts of the future will use this as a lesson on how not to handle an infectious disease pandemic.
- The cause will be the incompetence and illogic of the White House program.
- The White House has had no hesitation to blame and disgrace the CDC, you, and state governors. They will blame you for the disaster. In six months, they have caused the CDC to go from gold to tarnished brass.
Foege is a global hero. He’s the man who formed the strategy that led to the absolute eradication of smallpox in the 1970s—an effort that is often credited as the single greatest accomplishment in medical history. A disease that killed 300 million people in the 20th century alone, was removed from the planet. The list of awards and honors that follow his name is almost as great as the number of people he has saved.
And he tried hard to push Redfield into taking the kind of action that he might have taken himself.
You could, upfront, acknowledge the tragedy of responding poorly, apologize for what has happened and your role in acquiescing, set a course for how the CDC would now lead the country if there was no political interference, give them the ability to report such interference to a neutral ombudsman, and assure them you will defend their attempts to save this country. Don’t shy away from the fact that this has been an unacceptable toll on our nation. It is a slaughter, and not just a political dispute.
The letter is a call, not to arms, but to truth. A demand for accepting failure and fighting to do better. It’s exactly what needs to be done. And it’s heartbreaking in so many ways. But mostly because it’s clearly coming from a good man, and going to the wrong man.
The White House will, of course, respond with fury. But you will have right on your side. Like Martin Luther you can say, “Here I stand, I cannot do otherwise.”
Foege sent this letter to Redfield in September. What has Redfield done since then?