Then and Now (The CDC's Enmeshment in Politics)
Posted: Thu Jul 28, 2022 2:54 pm
Occasionally I'm right. And on the topic of the CDC, I have to say that I pretty much nailed it.
In March 2019--a full year prior to the emergence of CoVid--I opined that the CDC was a fundamentally political agency that could not be trusted to provide a candid or rational response to public health issues. I stated:
"As with virtually every government agency that is no longer accountable to the people (and that is controlled by the same cast of characters that control everything else that matters), we can no longer trust that the CDC's policies have our best interests in mind or that the "facts" with which they deal are not just politically useful fictions. Specifically, we live in an era where radical egalitarianism prevails. To acknowledge that illegal immigrants from third world countries are largely responsible for the resurgence in childhood diseases and that there are other more logical ways of preventing their transmission (i.e., closing the southern border) is all but forbidden if you value your agency job. The more politically expedient path is to begin with the premise that everybody is equally likely to harbor disease and to end with the conclusion that everyone is equally responsible for preventing that by getting shot up--whether or not that actually makes sense. We've seen this song and dance before in a million different forms. For example, anybody who's ever worked around kids knows that socioeconomic factors (more directly, hygiene) is a pretty good predictor of who's going to have lice. But try finding anything but repudiation of that reality in any official public health publication. Same for the Gardasil and Hepatitis C debates. Everyone's equally at risk, or so they say. Unless and until the CDC is willing to call a spade a spade without sticking their finger in the air to see which way the social and political winds are blowing, I remain skeptical of everything they say."
And this:
"If the CDC wants to be regarded as credible, it can't involve itself in the politicization of disease. . . Think back to the AIDS crisis of the '80s when public health officials went out of their way to downplay the obvious causal connection between the disease and certain high-risk sexual practices--and promoting the idea of "safe" high-risk sex instead of coming right out and saying if you do this stuff you've got a good chance of dying. That's just one example. The CDC has been at the center of a number of hotly politicized public health issues, and by all appearances its policies have been swayed by the same influences as other public officials."
And this:
"In the early eighties, when the AIDS epidemic was first getting started, it WAS a disease specific to gays, IV drug users and prostitutes. I was working in a research lab at the time, and a friend from the epidemiology division was talking about this strange new phenomenon known as Kaposi's sarcoma which was being seen with increasing frequency in the male homosexual population. It was not too long after that, after I had gone to work for a company specializing in ELISA technologies, that the discussion came to center around around a retrovirus then known as HTLV-3. If there was any "muzzling" going on, it was the walking on eggshells that accompanied the realization that you couldn't speak frankly about how this disease was being transmitted without being viewed as "homophobic" by the gay lobby and its progressive allies, which at the time were creating quite a ruckus over anything that might remotely suggest that homosexual sex might have consequences. (Anyone remember ACT-UP and its hijacking of official meetings by jumping on top of conference tables and screaming at the top of their lungs?)"
Fast forward to today (skipping over the last two years of CoVid-related deceptions which I trust, at this point, require no elaboration), we get the following among today's news stories: https://www.newsmax.com/platinum/monkey ... d/1080693/
The first paragraph pretty much tells all:
As public health officials work to contain the spread of monkeypox – which has been declared a global health emergency with more than 18,000 cases worldwide – communications experts are slamming the U.S. government's messaging about the outbreak, arguing that it's being driven by identity politics and progressive word policing instead of focusing on science and saving lives.
Not surprisingly, the CDC's policies regarding Monkeypox, the new pandemic du jour, do NOT involve six feet of social distancing or shutting down group events (even "intimate" ones). They do NOT involve shutting down businesses or confining people to their homes. They do NOT involve any apparent curtailment of individual liberties--not even the freedom to engage in some of the most high-risk public health behaviors known to humankind.
I wish I could take pleasure in the fact that for once in my investing career I was right. But all I can feel is disgust.
In March 2019--a full year prior to the emergence of CoVid--I opined that the CDC was a fundamentally political agency that could not be trusted to provide a candid or rational response to public health issues. I stated:
"As with virtually every government agency that is no longer accountable to the people (and that is controlled by the same cast of characters that control everything else that matters), we can no longer trust that the CDC's policies have our best interests in mind or that the "facts" with which they deal are not just politically useful fictions. Specifically, we live in an era where radical egalitarianism prevails. To acknowledge that illegal immigrants from third world countries are largely responsible for the resurgence in childhood diseases and that there are other more logical ways of preventing their transmission (i.e., closing the southern border) is all but forbidden if you value your agency job. The more politically expedient path is to begin with the premise that everybody is equally likely to harbor disease and to end with the conclusion that everyone is equally responsible for preventing that by getting shot up--whether or not that actually makes sense. We've seen this song and dance before in a million different forms. For example, anybody who's ever worked around kids knows that socioeconomic factors (more directly, hygiene) is a pretty good predictor of who's going to have lice. But try finding anything but repudiation of that reality in any official public health publication. Same for the Gardasil and Hepatitis C debates. Everyone's equally at risk, or so they say. Unless and until the CDC is willing to call a spade a spade without sticking their finger in the air to see which way the social and political winds are blowing, I remain skeptical of everything they say."
And this:
"If the CDC wants to be regarded as credible, it can't involve itself in the politicization of disease. . . Think back to the AIDS crisis of the '80s when public health officials went out of their way to downplay the obvious causal connection between the disease and certain high-risk sexual practices--and promoting the idea of "safe" high-risk sex instead of coming right out and saying if you do this stuff you've got a good chance of dying. That's just one example. The CDC has been at the center of a number of hotly politicized public health issues, and by all appearances its policies have been swayed by the same influences as other public officials."
And this:
"In the early eighties, when the AIDS epidemic was first getting started, it WAS a disease specific to gays, IV drug users and prostitutes. I was working in a research lab at the time, and a friend from the epidemiology division was talking about this strange new phenomenon known as Kaposi's sarcoma which was being seen with increasing frequency in the male homosexual population. It was not too long after that, after I had gone to work for a company specializing in ELISA technologies, that the discussion came to center around around a retrovirus then known as HTLV-3. If there was any "muzzling" going on, it was the walking on eggshells that accompanied the realization that you couldn't speak frankly about how this disease was being transmitted without being viewed as "homophobic" by the gay lobby and its progressive allies, which at the time were creating quite a ruckus over anything that might remotely suggest that homosexual sex might have consequences. (Anyone remember ACT-UP and its hijacking of official meetings by jumping on top of conference tables and screaming at the top of their lungs?)"
Fast forward to today (skipping over the last two years of CoVid-related deceptions which I trust, at this point, require no elaboration), we get the following among today's news stories: https://www.newsmax.com/platinum/monkey ... d/1080693/
The first paragraph pretty much tells all:
As public health officials work to contain the spread of monkeypox – which has been declared a global health emergency with more than 18,000 cases worldwide – communications experts are slamming the U.S. government's messaging about the outbreak, arguing that it's being driven by identity politics and progressive word policing instead of focusing on science and saving lives.
Not surprisingly, the CDC's policies regarding Monkeypox, the new pandemic du jour, do NOT involve six feet of social distancing or shutting down group events (even "intimate" ones). They do NOT involve shutting down businesses or confining people to their homes. They do NOT involve any apparent curtailment of individual liberties--not even the freedom to engage in some of the most high-risk public health behaviors known to humankind.
I wish I could take pleasure in the fact that for once in my investing career I was right. But all I can feel is disgust.