Key officials responsible for leading US research on infectious disease threats have been barred from speaking directly with the World Health Organization — effectively shutting some of them out of the global discussions on virus outbreaks, according to documents and multiple sources who spoke to CNN.
The Trump administration issued the directive stopping individuals at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases from communicating with the WHO.
The federal health subagency was led for decades by Dr. Anthony Fauci and oversaw developing treatments for public health emergencies including HIV/AIDs and Covid-19.
What next? Disband all the fire departments? Convert all the hospitals to branches of McDonald’s? Set all the forests on fire?
The restrictions hobble quick cooperation with global counterparts, multiple current and former health officials said. One staffer characterized it as unheard of during a US response to emerging public health emergencies.
The more unheard of the better, as far as Trump is concerned. He likes to be Special.
The directive is part of a broader Trump administration retreat from participation in global health forums — the US withdrew from WHO in January at President Donald Trump’s direction, a move that was widely criticized by public health officials — and as many US health agencies are operating with interim heads.
Among the vacant positions are the director of the infectious disease agency; surgeon general; head of the Food and Drug Administration; deputy health secretary; and head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention — a leadership vacuum that observers say is unprecedented.
They like doing unprecedented things. They think it makes them look Special.
Taken together, it’s an unprecedented moment for national health leadership, said Dr. Dan Jernigan, a former CDC official who resigned after Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. ousted Dr. Susan Monarez, the sole confirmed director of this administration, last August.
“Not in my 31 years at CDC” has there been a moment like this, said Jernigan, noting that a slew of other top positions are also unfilled.
Knowledge-envy. Trump and Robert Kennedy are ignorant fools with no medical expertise, so they want to get rid of all people who know more than they do. Public health is one place to start.
The limited cooperation with the WHO is a vestige of residual Trump and Republican frustration for the way the organization handled the Covid-19 pandemic, said Jeremy Konyndyk, president of Refugees International and a former Obama and Biden administration State Department official.
Chains of communication that previously existed but have now been wiped out would have alerted US health officials sooner to the unfolding Ebola crisis, Konyndyk said.
“We have public health leadership in this country now that have written off most of the institutions with global health,” he said.
At the same time, several of the on-the-ground medical organizations in the Democratic Republic of Congo and neighboring countries have been severely hampered. They were previously funded by the US Agency for International Development, a division of the State Department that was dismantled amid the sweeping cuts made by the Department of Government Efficiency last year.
Musk’s revenge.
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