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We need muscular, defiant doctors like this [1]

['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.']

Date: 2025-02-01

I write a primary care-focused Substack.

I want your reaction to this, too.

A couple readers have specifically asked me not to bring up politics anymore in my writing. They just want “uplifting” stuff to continue. I aim to keep that tone when I can, but the disemboweling of American public health institutions, formerly considered among the finest in the world despite imperfections, compels a reactionary tone.

As a family doctor who cares about prevention and community health, it would be cowardly to look the other way, or even worse, to normalize the many blatant assertions of centralized power and agenda over distributed truth and expertise.

A few examples from just the past week:

Communication Freeze: Federal health agencies, including the CDC, FDA, and NIH, were ordered to halt all external communications, including scientific reports, website updates, and health advisories. This included suspending the CDC's Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR) and other public health updates. Public domain Vaccine Information Sheets we use everyday in primary care to counsel patients have vanished —instead we get a “Page you’re looking for was not found” error message. Some critical information about the H5N1 outbreak has simply been deleted

Research and Meetings Canceled : Scientific meetings and grant review panels were abruptly canceled, delaying critical research on issues like the bird flu outbreak. NIH travel and training workshops were also suspended. Not traveling affects scientists’ ability to present their work. The NIH Clinical Center can no longer recruit patients into clinical trials because of cancelled meetings and silenced information on clinical trials.

Approval Restrictions: All public materials, including regulations, press releases, and social media posts, now require approval from a political appointee before dissemination.

Work with WHO Halted : Federal health agencies were directed to stop collaborations with the World Health Organization (WHO), following an executive order withdrawing the U.S. from the organization

Hiring Freeze: A government-wide hiring freeze was imposed, with job ads rescinded and offers pulled at agencies like NIH.

In-Person Work Mandate : Federal health workers were required to return to in-person work, exacerbating workforce shortages.

Global Gag Rule Reinstated: The administration reinstated restrictions on funding for international reproductive health services.

RFK Junior for Secretary of HHS: It’s such a waste of time to even consider these sorts of nominees, chosen for their lack of qualifications and usually antithetical agendas to the missions of the institutions. But focusing on vaccines at least, Kennedy claimed to support vaccines during the confirmation hearings, contradicting his incredibly long and well-documented history of promoting vaccine misinformation, including debunked claims linking vaccines to autism. Senators highlighted his past statements and actions, such as his nonprofit selling anti-vaccine merchandise, the millions of dollars he personally makes from anti-vaccination organizations and lawsuits, all of which raise doubts about his sincerity to say the least.

Any one of these items is not OK. None of it is normal.

It’s not “disruption” in any kind of potentially positive, constructive way. It’s just destruction for the sole purpose of centralizing power in our information networks at the expense of truth, real time public health surveillance, and open communication.

It’s not going to all be OK… but you won’t know it’s not OK unless you keep reading the words of those with actual expertise, the decentralized network of scientifically informed truth that’s now being forced into a reluctant Resistance. This further calcifies the notion of politics in science, and further coalesces a conservative tribe against public health, even as we try to defend it with evidence, data, and truth. Communication. More defiant doctors, nurses, public health workers, scientists, researchers, elected leaders. Good people.

We can only hope for some luck, some bravery, some awakening.

Some regret.

~ ~ ~

Join me and my Resistance friends.

~ ~

Sources for the examples cited: [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9] [10] [11][12] [13]

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[1] Url: https://dailykos.com/stories/2025/2/1/2300599/-We-need-muscular-defiant-doctors-like-this?pm_campaign=front_page&pm_source=trending&pm_medium=web

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