The Lancet is a peer- reviewed general medical journal, one of the oldest (1823) and best known in the world. This week, The Lancet has an editorial tracing the failure of the Trump regime (and other Republican regimes going back to St. Ronnie of Hollywood) to be supportive of the mission of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, leading to that institution's subsequent decline at the worst possible time. The core problem, which obviously won't be addressed while the current regime is in office, is the anti- science, pro- politics posture that pervades the regime's approach:
... 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 CDC needs a director who can provide leadership without the threat of being silenced and who has the technical capacity to lead today's complicated effort.
The Lancet has waded into politics before (sometimes controversially), but it's take on the CDC is clearly spot- on to any objective observer. In this case, it doubtless reflects the viewpoint of tens of thousands of medical professionals worldwide who have been appalled by the bungled, self- serving approach by Trump and his sycophantic functionaries to the pandemic, at the cost of countless lives.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.
Once again, there's no greater cause for us as Americans than to bring to an end this despicable, rotted- out regime and as many of its rotted- out enablers as can be voted out of office on November 3.
