Beyond Broken: What The CDC Crisis Tells Us About Public Health
It's not them. It's us.
The CDC’s new director has already been fired.
She lasted a few weeks.
Why?
Well, it turns out even Trump’s own picks for public health agencies won’t promote RFK Jr.’s insane, eugenicist, white supremacist movement to make America “healthy” again by encouraging the spread of disease and withholding vaccines. It looks like Susan Monarez actually deserves a little credit here.
Monarez replaced Dave Weldon, a rather staunch anti-vaxxer. While she’s not exactly a hero, can we really say she would’ve been that much worse than Mandy Cohen or Rochelle Walensky? After all, they also wound up selling out—just in a way that didn’t trigger everyone as much.
Specifically, Monarez refused to tow the line on vaccines and autism. So RFK Jr. fired her, or he’s trying to fire her.
It’s unclear if she’s technically out yet. She has a team of lawyers defending her, saying only the president has the authority to get rid of a CDC director. At this point, we’re pretty much waiting for the president to make things official. There’s a chance Trump backs down, but it’s not looking good. The White House has already picked her replacement. Meanwhile, guards escorted several more CDC leaders out of the building today. It’s pretty brazen fascism.
Every time something like this happens, it’s important to remember that the CDC lost all credibility years ago. You can find all the receipts here. We’re talking about an agency that waited until well after the fact to tell the public that a deadly, disabling virus was indeed airborne. We’re talking about an agency that spent years telling us to wash our hands to avoid infection with airborne viruses. We’re talking about an agency that manipulated their own data to achieve an artificial drop in excess mortalities, to mislead the public into thinking they were safe.
We’re talking about an agency that stood by and watched while doctors spread nonsense about immunity debt on the news. Thanks to their negligence, nearly 6 million children have developed chronic illness. When a mainstream rag like Newsweek finally has to stop and ask, “Why are so many children getting Long Covid?” it’s a sign that someone has done a very, very bad job.
We’re talking about an agency that literally doesn’t know the right side up of an N95 mask. I mean, are you kidding me here?
I’ve shared this image before. I’ve got it saved on my computer. I might frame it. This here is the conclusive proof that there’s been something deeply wrong with the CDC for a long time. You could literally play “spot the mistakes” with this post, and they never took it down. They never corrected it. They never apologized or even responded to the vast majority of the responses. The agency’s erosion didn’t start under Trump. It’s been going downhill for many, many years.
In case we need to state the obvious about this CDC post:
The patient is masking, but not the doctor?
The mask is not an N95 mask.
It has “N95” photoshopped on.
It’s upside down.
Of course, the mainstream media is fixating on vaccines because they don’t want to talk about the real problems with public health. They don’t want to admit what we’ve seen with our own eyes, an unsettling truth:
The CDC has always been political.
It’s simply getting more visible. Like so many other problems, it’s getting too big to ignore. And it’s not just the CDC. The public has willingly gulped down misinformation for nearly a generation. Regardless of their political views, most Americans have no idea how their immune systems work. They think getting sick trains your body to fight colds. You can show them article after article indicating otherwise, and they won’t listen to you.
Of course, it’s not entirely hopeless.
Over the last few months, we’ve met a tiny handful of people still masking in real life. Every now and then, you can even convince someone to start wearing a mask again or upgrade to an N95. What’s really going on?
Here’s my take:
Most Americans have no idea who’s directing the CDC, and they don’t care. They don’t care about restrictions on mRNA vaccines. They have no idea why any of this matters, because that’s how both parties have conditioned them. That leaves us with a few practical paths forward. I’ll outline them.
First, we form our own public health groups. Many of us in the Covid aware world have already done that. We’ve developed our own scientific and medical literacy. It’s a sad thing to acknowledge, but many of us actually know more than our doctors, especially the ones who haven’t read an article since med school. By the way, nobody in the mainstream world ever seems to nod to the sheer number of bad doctors out there who don’t know what they’re doing, and they have far too much control over the lives of their patients.
Second, we do the CDC’s job for them. Since they don’t know the right side up of an N95 mask, we take on the responsibility of trying to educate anyone who will listen. Again, many of us have been doing that for years. We’ve done far more than the CDC ever did to save lives during a public health emergency.
So, here’s the positive twist:
If you’ve been doing all this, you deserve a little credit. You’ve been carrying public health on your back for half a decade now, while a bunch of flunkies in D.C. fight over the right to spread different kinds of misinformation. While friends and random internet trolls bash you for your “negativity” and ask what you’ve been doing, you’ve been out there educating, advocating, and saving lives.
When this or that big voice in public health rushes to the CDC’s defense and sheds tears over how much they’ve done for us, I feel compelled to tell the world it’s not what the CDC has done for us. It’s what we’ve done for each other. I’m ten times more grateful for my social media connections who clued me into HOCl than I am for anyone at the CDC who’s been fired.
I know that might sound a bit harsh, but it’s the truth. The CDC didn’t save my life. The CDC didn’t protect my family from Long Covid.
People like you did.
A lot of my articles actually evolve from conversations with readers. They mention something, and then I go on a deep dive and write it up for everyone. I’m not a genius or a saint. Writing is just my superpower. It’s the one thing I’ve got that helps the rest of the world, so that’s what I do.
Five years in, some of you are still crowdsourcing funds to put up billboards trying to get people to take airborne diseases seriously. You’re still sharing articles. You’re still running private online groups and discussion threads. Maybe you weren’t always polite and diplomatic about it, but you did it. You’re still doing it. You should never have had to do this, but you’re stepping up.
When that friend who didn’t listen comes to you with their Long Covid symptoms, you don’t laugh at them. You give them all the information that the CDC, NIH, and their sibling organizations aren’t sharing.
When the CDC brushes off mpox or bird flu, there you are with actual facts and an actual plan for what to do when they won’t budge.
I’m proud to be a part of that.
No matter how cruel the world gets, no matter what’s done to us, some of us still choose to be there when we can.
You are public health.
We are public health.
Thanks so much for this Jessica and for all your efforts to help us keep up with the latest science and research about COVID and other public health dangers. You are so right, we have had to search out public health information from each other. I am grateful to you for your recent article about HOCl and how it helped your child. I used it in a cool mist humidifier during my teen's recent stomach flu and I really think it helped. You are sharing the practical advice so many of us would want from our PH agencies. Thank you.
The role we can play is incredible. You’ve been huge in this advocacy.