The new director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) opened his term Thursday with a speech emphasizing data-based science and the CDC’s duty to intervene in public health crises.
According to the Washington Post, Robert Redfield Jr. is a longtime AIDS specialist, focusing his career on “chronic human infections.” Previously, he directed the Institute of Human Virology at the University of Maryland medical school.
During the 45-minute speech, he reportedly highlighted the importance of vaccines and called the opioid epidemic “the public health crisis of our time.”
His appointment has not come without criticism, however. He is known to have held controversial positions at the height of the AIDS epidemic, like mandatory HIV testing, and he lacks experience with governmental public health organizations, according to the Washington Post.
Redfield is taking the helm after former CDC Director Brenda Fitzgerald resigned in late January after only a half a year with the agency, when a Politico report revealed some of her financial entanglements, including stocks in the tobacco industry, support that is at odds with the CDC’s position on smoking.
The CDC has received increased attention in recent months even before Fitzgerald’s resignation, when it was leaked in December that employees were instructed not to use certain words in the 2019 fiscal year budget narratives including “evidence-based” and “science-based.”
Redfield was appointed by Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar on March 21 and sworn in on Monday.
Redfield never directed the Institute of Human Virology. Oddly no mention of his problematic management of the gp160 HIV vaccine trial—he was cleared of wrongdoing despite apparent cherry picking of cases but removed from the project, which was completed by colleague and had null findings.
What a bizarrely targeted comment.
Well, we can hope that he (Redfield) means it. At least he SAID the right things. Fingers crossed…
New CDC Director Honored To Lead ‘Science-Based, Data-Driven Agency’
Yeah, yeah, her first decision will be that air pollution is not a concern and that cigarettes are perfectly safe.
It’s remarkable that -in this time where right wingers have run roughshod over science and reason- this almost seems like a radical notion. He’s like Galileo in the Middle Ages. I expect conservatives to persecute him shortly.