Senator Patty Murray, a Washington State Democrat who chaired the Senate health committee during the coronavirus pandemic, called the new director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention last week to ask why the agency had refused to report several measles deaths in Pennsylvania. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who oversees the C.D.C., suggested that the governor’s staff might have “fabricated” the deaths. The agency’s director, Dr. Erica Schwartz, told Ms. Murray that the C.D.C. was working to draft a more precise definition of a measles death. Ms. Murray was appalled, saying, “In my mind it’s to obscure how many people are dying.”
To Ms. Murray, the conversation was another example of how the nation’s health agencies have been hobbled by partisan politics. On Wednesday, she plans to announce the “Public Health for America Working Group” to draft a legislative blueprint for insulating the C.D.C. from political pressure. The group includes a pulmonologist, a former Food and Drug Administration official and a nurse. Ms. Murray expects the group to be nonpartisan.
The C.D.C. made “some pretty dramatic, pretty public mistakes” during the pandemic, said Dr. Rochelle Walensky, its first director during the Biden administration. But the Trump administration and Mr. Kennedy have shattered old norms. Dr. Mandy Cohen, who succeeded Dr. Walensky, said her staff discouraged her from discussing priorities with the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices. Mr. Kennedy fired the entire committee after he became secretary. One fired appointee, Dr. Helen Chu, is part of Ms. Murray’s new working group.
Source: New York Times Top Stories · Summarized by HeadlinesBriefing