4 former CDC heads say Trump's undermining of agency puts lives at risk

[ffr]

Source: Axios

Four former directors of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention blasted the Trump administration's "repeated efforts to subvert" agency guidelines related to reopening schools, accusing the White House in a scathing Washington Post op-ed of undermining science with "partisan potshots."

Why it matters: Former directors Tom Frieden, Jeffrey Koplan and David Satcher and acting head Richard Besser served in parts of the Obama, Bush and Clinton administrations. They said they "cannot recall over our collective tenure a single time when political pressure led to a change in the interpretation of scientific evidence."

The backdrop: In his push to reopen schools this fall in order to help juice the economy, Trump last week criticized the CDC's guidelines as "very tough & expensive" and demanded that the agency issue new ones.

* Education Secretary Betsy DeVos then said on Sunday that the CDC guidance is simply a recommendation and that kids "cannot afford" to not return to in-person learning.

Read more: https://www.axios.com/cdc-trump-health-guidelines-undermining-3d3fd22c-d067-4a4e-90c6-6f6d46763af9.html

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WaPo op-Ed mentioned

The bottom line: "We're seeing the terrible effect of undermining the CDC play out in our population. Willful disregard for public health guidelines is, unsurprisingly, leading to a sharp rise in infections and deaths," the authors wrote.

Republicans are the death panels. Period!

[diva77]

1. K&R Would like to see Dems run some rabid ads against Cruella DeVious as well as all the other

science-denying "elected" & appointed officials

[Champp]

2. CDC need to do a Mass Resignation

Now that the Trump Republicans have pissed all over them, and cut them out of the loop.

We will never again know how many Americans Trump and the Republicans have killed with their gross and intentional negligence. Republicans are burying the truth.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

3. Today's news about redirecting hospital numbers to the WH instead of CDC is more undermining

It is info taxpayers have paid for and should not be subject to political filtering.

[Cha]

4. No Shit!