Category Archives: Mistrust

Cartoon – We’re way beyond Rational Thinking

Posted on by • Posted in 2020 Election Issues, Blame, Coronavirus, Crisis, Crisis Management, Defamation, Denial, Economic Crisis, Economic Recovery, Economy Reopening, Evidence-based Leadership, Evidence-Based Plan, Evidence-Based Policy, Failure, False Hope, False Narrative, Health Policy, Hidden Agenda, Infection Control, Infection Control Plan, Infectious Virus, Mislead, Misleading, Mistrust, Mixed Message, Mortality, National Strategy, Pandemic, Public Health, Public Safety, Quarantine, Rational Thinking, Scapegoat, Social Distancing, Transparency, Trust, Truth, Wishful Thinking • Leave a comment

Management Cartoon # 7684: We're way beyond rational thinking. You ...

Cartoon – Coronavirus Leadership

Posted on by • Posted in 2020 Election Issues, Coronavirus, Credibility, Data Interpretation, Economic Crisis, Economy Reopening, Evidence-based Leadership, Evidence-Based Plan, Evidence-Based Policy, False Hope, False Narrative, Infection Control, Infection Control Plan, Infectious Virus, Intuition, Leadership, Leadership Intent, Mislead, Misleading, Mistrust, National Strategy, Options, Pandemic, Public Health, Public Safety, Slippery Slope, Social Distancing, Transparency, Trust, Truth • Leave a comment

Prof. Diego Kuonen on Twitter: "Ignore what the data say ...

White House tells hospitals to bypass CDC on COVID-19 data reporting

Posted on by • Posted in 2020 Election Issues, Centers for Disease Control & Prevention (CDC), Coronavirus, Credibility, Crisis, Crisis Management, Data Governance, Data Integrity, Data Interpretation, Dept of Health and Human Services (HHS), False Narrative, Health Policy, Health System, Hospital, Hospital Industry, Mislead, Misleading, Mistrust, Mixed Message, Silencing, Transparency, Trust, Truth • Leave a comment

https://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/507321-white-house-tells-hospitals-to-bypass-cdc-on-covid-data-reporting?fbclid=IwAR2Q0n6LNYQa1p6rPQeRGUPi-54i8uTAyRxcmTcZXC6Q9mbVRZx3e1GH518

White House tells hospitals to bypass CDC on COVID-19 data ...

Hospitals will begin sending coronavirus-related information directly to the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), not the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), under new instructions from the Trump administration.

The move will take effect on Wednesday, according to a new guidance and FAQ document for hospitals and clinical labs quietly posted on the HHS website.

Previously, hospitals reported to the CDC’s National Healthcare Safety Network, which the agency describes as the nation’s most widely used health care-associated infection tracking system.

The CDC tracked information including how many beds are available, the number of ventilators available and how many COVID-19 patients the hospitals have.

Beginning Wednesday, hospitals will report the same data but will bypass the CDC and send it to HHS directly. 

According to HHS, the goal is to streamline data collection, which will be used to inform decisions at the federal level such as allocation of supplies, treatments and other resources.

But the move comes amid concerns that the White House has been sidelining the CDC and after Trump administration officials attacked Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top infectious disease expert and a member of the White House coronavirus task force.

 

 

Fauci has been an example of conscience and courage.

Posted on by • Posted in 2020 Election Issues, Accountability, Asymptomatic Transmission, Blame, Conviction, Core Values, Coronavirus, Courage, Credibility, Crisis, Crisis Management, Economic Crisis, Economic Recovery, Economy Reopening, Emergency Preparedness, Ethics, Evidence-Based Care, Evidence-based Leadership, Evidence-Based Plan, Evidence-Based Policy, Failure, False Hope, False Narrative, Honesty, Infection Control, Infection Control Plan, Infectious Virus, Integrity, Mislead, Misleading, Mistrust, Mixed Message, Pandemic, Pass the Buck, Personal Protective Equipment (PPE), Public Health, Public Safety, Quarantine, Scapegoat, Scientists, Social Distancing, Supply Chain, Trust, Truth, Wishful Thinking • Leave a comment

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/fauci-has-been-an-example-of-conscience-and-courage-trump-has-been-nothing-but-weak/2020/07/13/7c9a7578-c52b-11ea-8ffe-372be8d82298_story.html?fbclid=IwAR0n0o67FMhhUjxqU11cfrd4daMkW0ZWZtIg–I1P3ioLPA7ka7Ew0XT_EA&utm_campaign=wp_main&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook

Opinion | Fauci has been an example of conscience and courage ...

When historians try to identify the most shameful documents from the Trump administration, a few are likely to stand out. For unconstitutional bigotry, it is hard to beat the initial executive order banning travel to the United States from Muslim countries. For cruelty and smallness, there is the “zero tolerance” directive to federal prosecutors that led to family separations at the border. For naked corruption, there is the transcript of the quid-pro-quo conversation between President Trump and the president of Ukraine.

But for rash, foolish irresponsibility, I’d nominate the opposition research paper recently circulated by the White House in an attempt to discredit the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases’ Anthony S. Fauci. As reported by The Post, the document recounted a number of instances — on community transmission, asymptomatic transmission and mask wearing in particular — where Fauci’s views have shifted over time. As far as I know, this official record is unique: A White House attack on the government’s leading infectious-disease specialist during a raging pandemic. It indicates an administration so far gone in rage, bitterness and paranoia that it can no longer be trusted to preserve American lives.

From a purely political standpoint, it is understandable that the administration would want to divert attention from its covid-19 record. Trump’s policy of reopening at any cost is exacting a mounting cost. Five months into the greatest health crisis of modern U.S. history, there are still serious problems with supply chains for protective equipment. There are still long wait times for testing results in many places. The contact tracing process in many communities remains (as one health expert described it to me) “a joke.” More than 132,000 Americans have died.

Rather than addressing these failures, Trump has chosen to sabotage a public official who admits their existence. Rather than confronting these problems, Trump wants to ensure his whole administration lies about them in unison. The president has surveyed America’s massive spike in new infections and thinks the most urgent matter is . . . message discipline.

It is true that a number of Fauci’s views on the novel coronavirus have evolved (though some of the administration’s charges against him are distorted). But attacking a scientist for making such shifts is to willfully misunderstand the role of science in the fight against disease. We do not trust public health officials during an emerging pandemic because they have fully formed scientific views from the beginning. We trust them because 1) they are making judgments based on the best available information and 2) they have no other motive than the health of the public. If, say, health officials were initially mistaken about the possibility of asymptomatic transmission, it is not failure when they change their views according to better data. It is the nature of the scientific method and the definition of their duty.

In the inch-deep world of politics, amending your view based on new information is a flip-flop. In epidemiology, it is known as, well, epidemiology.

Meanwhile, the president is failing according to both requirements of public trust. Trump is not making judgments based on the best available information. And he clearly has political goals that compete with (and often override) his commitment to public health. The president is hoping against hope that the public will forget about the virus until November, or at least about the federal role in fighting it. To apply a veneer of normalcy, he is holding public events that endanger his staff and his audience and is planning a Republican convention that will double as a petri dish.

It now seems likely that the most decisive moment of the American pandemic took place in mid-April when new cases began to stabilize around 25,000 a day. Even four or six more weeks of firm presidential leadership — urging the tough, sacrificial application of stay-at-home orders — might have reduced the burden of disease to more sustainable levels, as happened in Western Europe. And this would have relieved stress on systems of testing, tracing and treatment.

But Trump’s nerve failed him. Instead of holding firm, he began siding with populist demands for immediate opening, pressuring governors to take precipitous steps and encouraging skepticism about basic public health information and measures. This may well have been the defining moment of the Trump presidency. And he was weak, weak, weak.

It is typical for Trump to shift blame. But in this case, the president has selected his fall guy poorly. Fauci has been an example of conscience and courage in an administration that values neither. When Trump encourages a contrast to his own selfishness and cravenness, he only damages himself.

 

 

 

 

Trump: U.S. will terminate relationship with the World Health Organization in wake of Covid-19 pandemic

Posted on by • Posted in 2020 Election Issues, Accountability, Blame, Clinical Testing, Contact Tracing, Coronavirus, Credibility, Crisis, Crisis Management, Data, Expert, Health Policy, Infection Control, Infectious Virus, Instability, Judgement, Mislead, Misleading, Mistake, Mistrust, Mortality, Pandemic, Public Health, Public Safety, Quarantine, Questioning Leadership, Scientists, Social Distancing, Transparency, Unbiased Data, Uncertainty, World Health Organization (WHO) • Leave a comment

Trump: U.S. will terminate relationship with the World Health Organization in wake of Covid-19 pandemic

Coronavirus Fears Grind International Diplomacy to a Halt

President Trump said Friday the U.S. would halt its funding of the World Health Organization and pull out of the agency, accusing it of protecting China as the coronavirus pandemic took off. The move has alarmed health experts, who say the decision will undermine efforts to improve the health of people around the world.

In an address in the Rose Garden, Trump said the WHO had not made reforms that he said would have helped the global health agency stop the coronavirus from spreading around the world.

“We will be today terminating our relationship with the World Health Organization and redirecting those funds to other worldwide and deserving urgent global public health needs,” Trump said. “The world needs answers from China on the virus.”

It’s not immediately clear whether the president can fully withdraw U.S. funding for the WHO without an act of Congress, which typically controls all federal government spending. Democratic lawmakers have argued that doing so would be illegal, and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi threatened last month that such a move would be “swiftly challenged.”

The United States has provided roughly 15% of the WHO’s total funding over its current two-year budget period.

The WHO has repeatedly said it was committed to a review of its response, but after the pandemic had ebbed. Last month, Robert Redfield, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, also said the “postmortem” on the pandemic should wait until the emergency was over.

As the Trump administration’s response to pandemic has come under greater scrutiny, with testing problems and a lack of coordination in deploying necessary supplies, Trump has sought to cast further blame on China and the WHO for failing to snuff out the spread when the virus was centered in China.

During his remarks, Trump alleged, without evidence, that China pressured WHO to mislead the world about the virus. Experts say that if the U.S. leaves the WHO, the influence of China will only grow.

“The world is now suffering as a result of the malfeasance of the Chinese government,” Trump said. “China’s coverup of the Wuhan virus allowed the disease to spread all over the world, instigating a global pandemic that has cost more than 100,000 American lives, and over a million lives worldwide.” (That last claim is not true; globally, there have been about 360,000 confirmed deaths from Covid-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus.)

When Trump earlier this month threatened to yank U.S. funding in a letter, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the WHO director-general, would only say during a media briefing that the agency was reviewing it. But he and other officials stressed that the agency had a small budget — about $2.3 billion every year — relative to the impact the agency had and what it was expected to do.

Mike Ryan, head of the WHO’s emergencies program, said the U.S. funding provided the largest proportion of that program’s budget.

“So my concerns today are both for our program and … working on how we improve our funding base for WHO’s core budget,” Ryan said. “Replacing those life-saving funds for front-line health services to some of the most difficult places in the world — we’ll obviously have to work with other partners to ensure those funds can still flow. So this is going to have major implications for delivering essential health services to some of the most vulnerable people in the world and we trust that other donors will if necessary step in to fill that gap.”

 

Cartoon – Blinded by Science

Posted on by • Posted in 2020 Election Issues, Blind, Cartoon, Centers for Disease Control & Prevention (CDC), Coronavirus, Credibility, Crisis, Crisis Management, False Hope, False Narrative, Hydroxychloroquine, Misinformation, Mislead, Misleading, Mistake, Mistrust, Pandemic, Public Health, Public Safety, Scientists, Wishful Thinking • Leave a comment

A Politician Delivers A Campaign Speech Acrylic Print by Paul Noth

Whistleblower alleges Trump administration ignored coronavirus warnings

Posted on by • Posted in 2020 Election Issues, Clinical Research, Clinical Research Funding, Clinical Testing, Clinical Trials, Conflicts of Interest, Coronavirus, Credibility, Crisis, Crisis Management, Dept of Health and Human Services (HHS), Food and Drug Administration (FDA), Health Policy, Hydroxychloroquine, Misinformation, Mislead, Misleading, Mistake, Mistrust, Scientists, Transparency, Trust, Truth, U.S. Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA) • Leave a comment

https://www.axios.com/coronavirus-rick-bright-whistleblower-f48cc9c6-8e6e-4662-a127-03e51f323288.html?stream=health-care&utm_source=alert&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=alerts_healthcare

Whistleblower alleges Trump administration ignored coronavirus ...

Rick Bright, the former director of the U.S. Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA), filed a whistleblower complaint Tuesday alleging that the Department of Health and Human Services failed to take early action to mitigate the threat of the novel coronavirus.

Flashback: Bright said last month he believes he was ousted after clashing with HHS leadership over his attempts to limit the use of hydroxychloroquine to treat the coronavirus.

What’s new: In his complaint, Bright claims he was excluded from an HHS meeting on the coronavirus in late January after he “pressed for urgent access to funding, personnel, and clinical specimens, including viruses” to develop treatments for the coronavirus should it spread outside of Asia.

  • Bright alleges it “became increasingly clear” in late January that “HHS leadership was doing nothing to prepare for the imminent mask shortage.”
  • Bright claims he “resisted efforts to fall into line with the Administration’s directive to promote the broad use of chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine and to award lucrative contracts for these and other drugs even though they lacked scientific merit and had not received prior scientific vetting.”
  • He adds that “even as HHS leadership began to acknowledge the imminent shortages in critical medical supplies, they failed to recognize the magnitude of the problem, and they failed to take the necessary urgent action.”

The White House declined to comment. HHS did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/6882494-NEW-R-Bright-OSC-Complaint-Redacted.html

 

 

 

 

Trump Moves to Replace Watchdog Who Identified Critical Medical Shortages

Posted on by • Posted in 2020 Election Issues, Accountability, Coronavirus, Credibility, Dept of Health and Human Services (HHS), Health Policy, Leadership Culture, Leadership Intent, Leadership Trust, Leadership Unplanned Departure, Mislead, Misleading, Mistrust, Mortality, Oversight, Pandemic, Personal Protective Equipment (PPE), Supply Chain • Leave a comment

Trump Moves to Replace Watchdog Who Identified Critical Medical ...

The president announced the nomination of an inspector general for the Department of Health and Human Services, who, if confirmed, would replace an acting official whose report embarrassed Mr. Trump.

President Trump moved on Friday night to replace a top official at the Department of Health and Human Services who angered him with a report last month highlighting supply shortages and testing delays at hospitals during the coronavirus pandemic.

The White House waited until after business hours to announce the nomination of a new inspector general for the department who, if confirmed, would take over for Christi A. Grimm, the principal deputy inspector general who was publicly assailed by the president at a news briefing three weeks ago.

The nomination was the latest effort by Mr. Trump against watchdog offices around his administration that have defied him. In recent weeks, he fired an inspector general involved in the inquiry that led to the president’s impeachment, nominated a White House aide to another key inspector general post overseeing virus relief spending and moved to block still another inspector general from taking over as chairman of a pandemic spending oversight panel.

Mr. Trump has sought to assert more authority over his administration and clear out officials deemed insufficiently loyal in the three months since his Senate impeachment trial on charges of abuse of power and obstruction of Congress ended in acquittal largely along party lines. While inspectors general are appointed by the president, they are meant to be semiautonomous watchdogs ferreting out waste, fraud and corruption in executive agencies.

The purge has continued unabated even during the coronavirus pandemic that has claimed about 65,000 lives in the United States. Ms. Grimm’s case in effect merged the conflict over Mr. Trump’s response to the outbreak with his determination to sweep out those he perceives to be speaking out against him.

Her report, released last month and based on extensive interviews with hospitals around the country, identified critical shortages of supplies, revealing that hundreds of medical centers were struggling to obtain test kits, protective gear for staff members and ventilators. Mr. Trump was embarrassed by the report at a time he was already under fire for playing down the threat of the virus and not acting quickly enough to ramp up testing and provide equipment to doctors and nurses.

“It’s just wrong,” the president said when asked about the report on April 6. “Did I hear the word ‘inspector general’? Really? It’s wrong. And they’ll talk to you about it. It’s wrong.” He then sought to find out who wrote the report. “Where did he come from, the inspector general? What’s his name? No, what’s his name? What’s his name?”

When the reporter did not know, Mr. Trump insisted. “Well, find me his name,” the president said. “Let me know.” He expressed no interest in the report’s findings except to categorically reject them sight unseen.

After learning that Ms. Grimm had worked during President Barack Obama’s administration, Mr. Trump asserted that the report was politically biased. In fact, Ms. Grimm is not a political appointee but a career official who began working in the inspector general office late in President Bill Clinton’s administration and served under President George W. Bush as well as Mr. Obama. She took over the office in an acting capacity when the previous inspector general stepped down.

Mr. Trump was undaunted and attacked her on Twitter. “Why didn’t the I.G., who spent 8 years with the Obama Administration (Did she Report on the failed H1N1 Swine Flu debacle where 17,000 people died?), want to talk to the Admirals, Generals, V.P. & others in charge, before doing her report,” he wrote, mischaracterizing the government’s generally praised response the 2009 epidemic that actually killed about 12,000 in the United States. “Another Fake Dossier!”

To take over as inspector general, Mr. Trump on Friday night named Jason C. Weida, an assistant United States attorney in Boston. The White House said in its announcement that he had “overseen numerous complex investigations in health care and other sectors.” He must be confirmed by the Senate before assuming the position.

Among several other nominations announced on Friday was the president’s choice for a new ambassador to Ukraine, filling a position last occupied by Marie L. Yovanovitch.

Ms. Yovanovitch was ousted a year ago because she was seen as an obstacle by the president’s advisers as they tried to pressure the government in Kyiv to incriminate Mr. Trump’s Democratic rivals. That effort to solicit political benefit from Ukraine, while withholding security aid, led to Mr. Trump’s impeachment largely along party lines in December.

Mr. Trump selected Lt. Gen. Keith W. Dayton, a retired 40-year Army officer now serving as the director of the George C. Marshall European Center for Security Studies in Germany. Mr. Dayton speaks Russian and served as defense attaché in Moscow. More recently, he served as a senior United States defense adviser in Ukraine appointed by Jim Mattis, Mr. Trump’s first defense secretary.