A Trump administration appointee at the Department of Health and Human Services is trying to prevent Anthony Fauci, the government’s top infectious disease expert, from speaking about the risks that coronavirus poses to children.
Emails obtained by POLITICO show Paul Alexander — a senior adviser to Michael Caputo, HHS’s assistant secretary for public affairs — instructing press officers and others at the National Institutes of Health about what Fauci should say during media interviews. The Trump adviser weighed in on Fauci’s planned responses to outlets including Bloomberg News, BuzzFeed, Huffington Post and the science journal Cell.
Alexander’s lengthy messages, some sent as recently as this week, are couched as scientific arguments. But they often contradict mainstream science while promoting political positions taken by the Trump administration on hot-button issues ranging from the use of convalescent plasma to school reopening.
The emails add to evidence that the White House, and Trump appointees within HHS, are pushing health agencies to promote a political message instead of a scientific one.
“I continue to have an issue with kids getting tested and repeatedly and even university students in a widespread manner…and I disagree with Dr. Fauci on this. Vehemently,” Alexander wrote in one Aug. 27 email, responding to a press-office summary of what Fauci intended to tell a Bloomberg reporter.
And on Tuesday, Alexander told Fauci’s press team that the scientist should not promote mask-wearing by children during an MSNBC interview.
“Can you ensure Dr. Fauci indicates masks are for the teachers in schools. Not for children,” Alexander wrote. “There is no data, none, zero, across the entire world, that shows children especially young children, spread this virus to other children, or to adults or to their teachers. None. And if it did occur, the risk is essentially zero,” he continued — adding without evidence that children take influenza home, but not the coronavirus.
In a statement attributed to Caputo, HHS said that Fauci is an important voice during the pandemic and that Alexander specializes in analyzing the work of other scientists.
“Dr. Alexander advises me on pandemic policy and he has been encouraged to share his opinions with other scientists,” Caputo said. “Like all scientists, his advice is heard and taken or rejected by his peers. I hired Dr. Alexander for his expertise and not to simply resonate others’ opinions.”
Neither Alexander nor NIH spokespeople responded to requests for comment.
Fauci, an infectious disease expert whohas led NIH’s National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases for nearly four decades, told POLITICO that he had not seen the emails and his staff had not instructed him to minimize the risk coronavirus poses to children or the need for kids to wear masks.
“No one tells me what I can say and cannot say,” Fauci said. “I speak on scientific evidence.”
Alexander, a part-time professor of health research methods at McMaster University in Canada, joined HHS in March. He was appointed by Caputo, a longtime Trump ally now overseeing HHS’s media strategy.
Only the best.
I thought this was interesting in light of Trump’s insistence that he’s just trying to calm the waters with his happy talk about miracle cures and disappearing virus:
In July, the Washington Post reported that Alexander had cracked down on the CDC after it warned pregnant women about the virus. The agency’s warning “reads in a way to frighten women . . . as if the President and his administration can’t fix this and it is getting worse,” Alexander wrote in an e-mail, according to the Post.
There you have it. KIll people so they don’t get the idea that the president doesn’t know what he’s doing.
That’s the logic.
The Trump administration appointee has also argued against the scientific consensus on the need for widespread testing to contain the virus, and randomized, controlled clinical trials to determine whether a drug or vaccine works.
In an Aug. 27 message to NIH staff, Alexander said there is no reason to test people without coronavirus symptoms — mirroring controversial CDC guidance issued days earlier. Public health experts say that testing people without symptoms is crucial because they can spread the virus to others before they feel ill.
“Testing of asymptomatic people to seek asymptomatic cases is not the point of testing,” Alexander wrote, adding he agrees with the CDC guidance “to not test asymptomatic people carte blanche as it makes no logical sense.” He added that people who are going into high-risk areas, such as nursing homes, should still be tested.
President Donald Trump has repeatedly asserted that testing is driving the U.S.’s soaring case count, which hit more than 6.3 million cases this month.[…]
In a different email chain, Alexander pushed back on NIAID’s draft response to a reporter who had asked the agency about a viral social-media post that alleged Fauci “has known for 15 years” that the malaria drug hydroxychloroquine could treat and prevent coronavirus infections.
In its draft reply, sent to HHS for clearance, NIAID noted that a 2005 study cited by the viral post concerned experiments with a coronavirus related to the one behind the current pandemic.
“Dr. Fauci has previously stated that there is a lack of good evidence from randomized placebo-controlled trials to indicate that hydroxychloroquine is an effective therapeutic for COVID-19. The 2005 paper you are referring to was a cell-culture experiment with a different virus than SARS-CoV-2, and the study was conducted by CDC investigators,” the statement read.
Alexander responded by suggesting that the viruses were not different — despite clear evidence that they behave differently in the body and are genetically distinct.
“The 2005 paper refers to SARS-Cov-1 which is quite similar to SARS-CoV-2 or COVID-19. So it is not entirely accurate to say they are different,” Alexander replied. He added that the 2005 paper showed hydroxychloroquine worked well against the older virus.
The guy is a joke but that’s to be expected since he was hired by notorious Trump hack Michael Caputo, a man who should never be anywhere near the government.
This is probably happening all over the government.