Countdown 42 Day Election

California 12 days until early voting             

HOW TO DESTROY CONFIDENCE              

The CDC has been fighting with trump appointed officials for five months, those appointees have refused to accept the science from career medical professionals. The appointees judgements are creating conflict and destroying confidence in anything the CDC offers.  This Blog  post may be somewhat redundant to the 15 September blog post, however, it’s importance cannot be overstated, and perhaps, I too can gaslight. 

This blog post  is as a result of the revelation that on Monday of this week that  the CDC pulled the CDC guidelines concerning aerosol transmission.  This flies in  the face of some antidotal evidence that in enclosed spaces such as gyms and restaurant that the air circulation system could spread the virus in enclosed spaces.  There was a restaurant where the Covid-19 spreader was near the vent for the air conditioner and it spread outward from where that individual had sat.  It is also known and science has shown that an act like a sneeze travels over 12’.  The CDC pulled these guidelines so that schools, restaurants, bars and gyms can open in enclosed spaces potentially spreading the virus. 

The CDC had excused the pullback saying they are going to provide; “New guidance that clarifies the risk posed by aerosols will be posted once the update process is completed.” The guidance that was pulled suggested that the virus spread through small airborne particles that could travel further than 6’ in certain circumstances such as gym’s and restaurants and during choir practice.  The guidance said the aerosols are small enough and light enough to remain suspended in air, which means it would be risky to spend time in indoor areas without proper ventilation.  Professionals cannot figure if this error is an honest mistake or is there political influence. 

The CDC website should provide the best available information which is, Covid-19 is spread with aerosol transmission and masks prevent the spread.  Making wearing a mask mandatory would save thousands of lives.

From Wikipedia: Paul Elias Alexander PhD

Occupation: Health researcher

Alma mater: McMaster University

Thesis- Clinical practice and public health guidelines: “The making of appropriate strong recommendations when the confidence in effect estimates is low (2015).”

Discipline: Health research

Paul Elias Alexander, PhD is a Canadian researcher and a Trump administration official at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. He attracted attention in 2020 when, as an aide to HHS assistant secretary for public affairs Michael Caputo, he participated in efforts by the administration to control COVID-19 messaging from federal scientists and public health agencies.

Alexander has an undergraduate degree in epidemiology from McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, and a master’s degree from Oxford University.  In 2015 he earned a PhD degree from McMaster University’s Department of Health Research Methods, Evidence and Impact.

In late March 2020, Alexander was recruited by Michael Caputo, the newly appointed assistant secretary for public affairs at the United States Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), as his scientific advisor. The two had become friends when Caputo hosted a talk radio show on which Alexander often appeared to talk about scientific subjects. Caputo, who has no scientific background, said in an interview that President Donald Trump had told him to “bring expertise” to his new position and that “the first call I made after I got off the phone with the president” was to offer Alexander a job.

The Coronavirus pandemic and attempts to interfere with CDC reports

Alexander and Caputo came under scrutiny for their months-long efforts to exert control over the public messaging of scientists and health officials regarding the coronavirus pandemic in the United States, in particular for efforts to influence the public messaging of the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) so that it would be more compatible with Trump’s public statements. Alexander’s efforts were focused on the CDC’s widely read Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR), which Caputo and Alexander regarded as containing “political content”; Alexander tried unsuccessfully to get all issues of MMWR held up until personally approved by him.

Emails written by Alexander and Caputo detailed an attempt to silence career CDC scientists and question their findings as part of what current and former CDC officials called a “campaign of bullying and intimidation” that stretched for five months.  After Dr. Anne Schuchat, the principal deputy director of the CDC, who worked at the agency for 32 years, gave an interview to the Journal of the American Medical Association in which she urged the use of face masks to prevent the spread of the virus, Alexander emailed Caputo to call Schuchat “duplicitous” and claimed, “Her aim is to embarrass the president.” [He also asked Mr. Caputo to ”remind” her that during the H1N1 swine flu in 2009 thousands of Americans died “under her work.]”

On June 20, 2020, Alexander sent a message to CDC Director Robert R. Redfield, criticizing a CDC report about risks to pregnant [he said of Dr. Schuchat’s assessment of the dangers of Covid-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus, he fumed wrongly “the risk of death in children 0-19 years of age is basically 0 (zero)… PERIOD]. Alexander said that the report, whose limitations the CDC had acknowledged, would “frighten women” and give the impression that “the President and his administration can’t fix this and it is getting worse.” He said that in his “opinion and sense” the CDC was “undermining the president by what they put out”. A congressional committee has asked him to testify in September to give information about his interactions with CDC regarding COVID-19 deaths and infections, hydroxychloroquine as a treatment, and the impact the virus has on children. On August 8, 2020, Alexander wrote to Redfield that “CDC to me appears to be writing hit pieces on the administration”; he asked Redfield to change reports that had already been published and demanded that he be allowed to review and edit MMWR before publication.

In August and early September 2020, Alexander sent several messages to press officers at the National Institutes of Health attempting to direct Dr. Anthony Fauci’s media comments. Among his demands were that Fauci should refrain from promoting the wearing of masks by children in school and COVID-19 testing of children. Fauci later said that he had not received the messages and would not have been influenced by them if he had.

In a Facebook Live video posted on his personal website on September 14, 2020, Caputo promoted a variety of false claims and bizarre conspiracy theories. He accused the CDC of harboring a “resistance unit” determined to undermine Trump; accused the CDC scientists of “sedition” and “rotten science”; and called upon Trump supporters to prepare for an insurrection. In the same video, Caputo called Alexander a “genius” and defended his actions. Two days later, HHS announced that Caputo would take a 60-day medical leave of absence from HHS, and that Alexander would permanently leave the department. At a Senate hearing the same day, Redfield said he was “deeply saddened” by Caputo’s claims, said they are “not true”, and said that “The scientific integrity of the MMWR has not been compromised, and will not be compromised on my watch.” Two days after Alexander was ousted and Caputo went on leave, the CDC reversed its much-criticized statement saying that asymptomatic people who have been in close contact with a person infected with the coronavirus did not need to receive COVID-19 testing; the statement had been placed on the CDC website by HHS leadership and the White House, over the objections of scientists and without going through the usual CDC scientific review process.  [This stupidity has subsequently been reversed.]

[Dr. Alexander made a point-by-point assessment broken down into seven parts and forwarded by Mr. Caputo to Dr. Robert R. Redfield CDC Director.  All the points were made to attempt to control the message and support whatever the presidents message was at the time.]

McMaster University also distanced itself from Alexander, saying, “As a consultant, he is not speaking on behalf of McMaster University or the Department of Health Research Methods, Evidence, and Impact.” [nothing like having your own alma mater disown your work]

In an interview with the Toronto Globe and Mail after his departure from HHS, Alexander defended his actions, stating that he had wanted the CDC to make their reports “more upbeat so that people would feel more confident going out and spending money”, and that he “did not think agencies should contradict any president’s policy.” Alexander also asserted that he was better suited than CDC scientists to assess data, saying: “None of those people have my skills. I make the judgment whether this is crap.”

Remember the FDA is the ones that approve the vaccine.  The impact can be felt on the vaccine side as well.  The pressure to have a vaccine at “warp speed” ignores a few key elements, what about long term effects of the vaccine?  What shortcuts have been authorized to speed up the process sacrificing safety? 

How are you going to maintain the vaccine at -80 degrees?  Did these FDA clowns, Caputo and Alexander, also mess with the messaging associated with the FDA issue of the vaccine?  Politicization of public health issues has reaped the 200,000 deaths to date and counting.  Trump needs to quit being a cheerleader on the Covid-19 issue it’s not working. 

Trump refusing to recognize science makes one wonder about his ability to recognize the truth working off gut feelings and someone’s observation?